Thanks for your patience in waiting for a response during this busy time of year. We are aware that it is possible to navigate a certain part of the track in Wuhu Island in a way that allows a large part of the course to be bypassed. There are no plans to update the game to remove this shortcut as doing so would create an unfair advantage for the users of the original release of the game. Rest assured your comments have been added to our records for Mario Kart 7.
Sincerely,
Buddy Roemer
Nintendo of America Inc.
Moving on, the game introduces new mechanics in the underwater racing and gliding abilities. I was extremely pleased with the latter more so then I was with the former. Driving underwater plays as much as one could expect; the karts slide farther in tight turns, bounce higher off jumps, and feel slower in general. That being said the real challenge came from recovering underwater after being hit by an opponent. The recovery time also seems to take longer and acceleration time seemed to be slower as well. Gliding has to be the most impressive addition to the game, allowing a racer to soar over parts of the track and other players who were unlucky enough to miss the jump. To activate gliding, one must drive over special blue ramps that send you flying over the course. Skilled players can find extra airlifts and speed boosts that allow them to skip even further ahead, over challenging obstacles, giving them the easy lead. For the crafty player, if you have a Blue Shell, you can send the first player crashing down into a bottomless pit if timed right. The first Cup, The Mushroom Cup, does an extremely good job at casually introducing the player to both new styles of racing early on preparing them for the chaos to come. I’ll admit that when I heard about gliding I was extremely against it, believing that kart racing should be kept on the ground, but I have been proven wrong, I welcome it and hope to see it in future games.
The control scheme is pretty simple for the most part, A/Y to go, B for brake/reverse, X/L to use items, R for drifting/hoping/stunts off ramps, and analog stick to control the kart. If you should be more daring then I am and race in first person view (up on the d-pad) then you tilt the 3DS like it was a steering wheel to drive the kart. As an avid player of Mario Kart Wii, my hardest transition was to stop flicking the 3DS to perform stunts or a wheelie; which by the way has to be my biggest complaint of the whole game. I miss the motorcycles, the mach bike in particular, I would love to have them back one day, it was a sad day to find out they really were not there anymore. While on the topic on things I would have liked to see in the game, I am a fan of majority of the classic courses chosen for the game but I was saddened that Baby Park did not return. There were 7 laps (see 7 laps…Mario Kart 7…perfect match) of pure chaos, with long straight-aways and two power slides (14 in all!). This is just me being overly picky though.
I am not saying for them to ditch the whole Mario Kart concept at all, but think about this what if in the next game they gave us a Nintendo All Stars Cup where instead of 4 classic tracks they gave us 4 tracks based on other franchises each with a character to unlock. For example how about a race around Hyrule Castle where if you win you can then race as Link, or perhaps you could race around Planet Zebes with Samus. This is way out there but how about a cross over with Sonic the Hedgehog? When I was 11 years old if you had told me that Sonic and Mario would be in a game together I would have called you crazy, now though with the success of the Mario & Sonic Olympic Games series would it be that hard to imagine a cross over between Mario Kart and Sonic All Star Racing?
