- Publisher: Nintendo
- Release Date: Oct 16, 2020
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- Critic score
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- Unscored
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Nov 3, 2020An inspired toy allied to a pretty bare bones Mario Kart game, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit exudes magic at every AR-enhanced turn, though it's an expensive and short-lived sort of magic.
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Nov 2, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is undeniably impressive in its execution at combining Augmented Reality and Nintendo’s popular franchise. There’s a sense of magic to creating your track in the real world and watching as it comes to life on the Switch. However, at nearly one hundred pounds the price of entry is a tough pill to swallow especially since multiplayer requires you drop another hundred on top. While this isn’t the true sequel Mario Kart fans were hoping for, it’s still an exciting experiment and one that’s worth checking out so long as you have the necessary space and the money.
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Oct 30, 2020After waving the checkered flag, there will definitely be racing fans who find hours and hours of entertainment in Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. There may be just as many, though, that open up the box and begin setting up the game only to find that their home just isn’t a great fit or they don’t have others around to enjoy it with. Without question, its novelty is charming and it makes a stellar first impression, but the experience can start to seem shallow the more and more laps you make around the track. If you have a good amount of space and flexibility where you can play, Mario Kart Live is a neat and well-functioning toy, but diehard Kart fans are likely to be left in the dust not long after the race begins.
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Oct 22, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a unique experience that is really impressive at first glance. I enjoyed putting the courses together and exploring the variety of Grand Prix’s, but after a while, the experience does lose its charm much faster than normal Mario Kart experiences.
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Oct 21, 2020Mario Kart Live Home Circuit is a good idea and can be very attractive especially for children, but its few modes, its high cost and its lack of multiplayer options will make this product somewhat repetitive for players who buy it on Nintendo Switch.
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Oct 20, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a gleefully successful experiment for Nintendo and Velan Studios...though some minor elements hold it back from exceeding expectations.
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Oct 20, 2020A wonderfully inventive attempt to bring Mario Kart into the real world, whose mere premise is enough to amuse and delight, despite some unavoidable practical limitations.
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Oct 19, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a magical, transformative experience under ideal conditions that works way better than you’d think. When you stray from those conditions even a little, though, it deteriorates rapidly. It’s destined to provide dozens of hours of entertainment for some home-bound players and not last an evening with others. It’s a big step forward for this weird blend of augmented reality tech, while also showing the limitations it has yet to overcome.
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Oct 19, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is heavily dependent on the amount of free floor space you have available. If you have a large home, space to drive under the sofas, no extra rugs or thick carpets, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit will be an amazing experience to share with the children. If you live somewhere fairly cramped or have a lot of clutter that's going to get in the way, then you will find this very difficult to enjoy indeed. Great for the kids at Christmas, as long as you have the space.
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Oct 19, 2020If you have kids around the ages 10-15, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a great Christmas gift, but only if your kids are okay with sharing or you’re willing to shell out $200 for two sets. It’s expensive, so maybe make sure they’re actually willing to build a course every time they want to play if you’re not okay with it being left around the house for long periods of time.
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Oct 14, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit’s mixed reality novelty excels when you have the space and motivation to make your courses flourish, but occasional tech hiccups and clogged wheels are hazards just as dangerous as any Blue Shell. That said, when I took the time to really lean into the creative challenge building a track presented me with, I was often rewarded by having a blast racing on it. Some familiar mechanics get lost in the translation to AR, but this is still an enjoyable Mario Kart game no matter what roadway I made.
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Oct 14, 2020There's fun to be had in Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, but you have to invest in it. The more work you put into making your go-kart track craftwork unique, the more enjoyment you'll get out of racing, with or without some frustration and repetition. Mario Kart Live isn't going to have the long-term appeal of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but with some imagination and ingenuity, you can make it something special.
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Oct 26, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is, in other words, an entertaining toy that can spark the imaginations of Mario fans young and old, but it’s not necessarily a great game. Proceed accordingly.
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Nov 30, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a good attempt to revive the toys to life genre. The AR functions are really impressive, with varied environments such as snow landscapes and lava worlds that give your living room a completely new look. Unfortunately the basic game itself is somewhat limited in terms of characters and unlockables. In addition, the 200cc mode is the only one that corresponds to the fast-paced feel from the original. And the total prize will definitely discourage a lot of curious players.
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Oct 30, 2020If Mario Kart Live Home Circuit plays well and feels fresh it also has some awkward limitations. First, the connection between the kart and your Switch is too short. Then, if you live in a small flat, it's complicated. Finally, if you plan to play with other people, you have to buy another complete set, as there are no individual karts for sale.
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Oct 18, 2020Ultimately, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit was always going to be a risk. Sacrificing the colorful designs of the series' most famous tracks and the lack of Grand Prix variation on the level of Mario Kart's best entries was a gamble, and it didn't pay off the way Nintendo may have hoped. Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is an interesting, innovative game that feels like the best Nintendo could do with the concept - but it's a step back from just how great Mario Kart has been historically, and feels more like an extremely well-crafted novelty rather than a game that will keep people coming back months after release.
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Oct 14, 2020At its core, there’s a solid Mario Kart game here, and I hope the environmental and gate effects are brought over to the main series for the proper ninth installment, as I think those additions could add something to the franchise. Still, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit has too many little annoyances that can only be alleviated by having a perfectly sized, perfectly lit space — like the one in Nintendo’s promotional materials. This might still be a hit with children, or anyone else less interested is Home Circuit as a game than a toy, but anyone hoping for depth or replaying the game will be disappointed.
| This publication does not provide a score for their reviews. | |
| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
| These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation. | |
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Oct 14, 2020Mario Kart Live is a fun experience at home that feels like a little magic theme park ticket. And the game itself, while not as good as Mario Kart 8, is deeper and better than I expected. There are unlockable extras and time trials and cups to try to win. [Hands-On Impressions]
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Oct 16, 2020Carefully consider your options before you dive in, but for those of you who are up to the challenge, it actually does work far better than you'd expect it to.
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Oct 21, 2020There's real magic at the heart of this brilliantly faithful AR take on Mario Kart, but a fair few caveats abound.
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Oct 14, 2020Despite a content offering that risks running out in a short time, the great strength of the title lies in an unconventional approach to game design which, thanks to augmented reality, is able to make the world of video games interact with that of the games in a simple and intuitive way.
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Oct 20, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is obviously not a full-fledged Mario Kart game. What it does offer is a special experience that feels very familiar to Mario Kart fans while being incredibly ingenious at the same time.
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Oct 14, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit delivers remote-control racing like you've probably never seen before. Its augmented-reality features are brilliant and genuinely surprise with just how well they work, 'in hand'. Home Circuit is full of classic Nintendo charm from its out-the-box elements to its cheery software; it's extremely intuitive to use and offers troubleshooting advice if needed; and it does work in a small space, even if you'll absolutely get more from it, the bigger your home is. It's all the vroom your living room has ever needed - just be sure to keep the kart where you can see it.
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Oct 14, 2020Live Home Circuit is a great combination of a toy (a radio controlled kart) and an augmented reality game for Nintendo Switch, with some creative additions in the way we design each circuit.
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Oct 14, 2020This game is really for my 12-year-old nephew. He loves Lego and Minecraft and is a natural tinkerer, and would rise to the challenge of creating different courses in a limited, largely immutable space. That’s not to say an adult couldn’t also experiment, and I expect social media at Christmastime will be flooded with images of truly wacky course design. If you have a suitable space for it, and can tap into the latent power of your imagination, then Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit will enjoy a decently long life in your household. Or, if you’re like me, someone whose creativity has been worn thin by the realities of being a bill-paying adult, the kart alone will deliver plenty of fun just from chasing around your pets.
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Oct 14, 2020The need to have a console and a kart for each of the players makes the multiplayer experience expensive and exclusive, and we really wonder how many will have the opportunity to share it with a friend or another family member. From this point of view, the ability to pass the console and take turns in Timed mode is just a meager sop.
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Oct 14, 2020From racing against the computer to taking on friends with their own karts to designing the perfect track to just exploring your place through the eyes of a tiny, kart-racing Mario, this is a toy in the best way: a portal to inventive, constantly changing play that’s fun no matter how you decide to interact with the platform. Your home is now Mario’s own set of challenges and opportunities, and that’s a jump I did not expect from the Mario Kart franchise. [Polygon Recommends]
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Oct 14, 2020Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit provides a fresh and unique gaming experience, which feels hard to come by these days. The kart is cleverly designed and well put together, responding to every precise movement. Whilst the core gameplay might get a little repetitive, the technology has a bright future, and it's guaranteed to provide fun for the whole family.
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Oct 20, 2020A creative and novel way to spend time in whatever level of lockdown you’re currently engaged in.
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Oct 14, 2020Home Circuit is a game about trade-offs. No, you’re not getting a full-fledged Mario Kart experience with all kinds of inventive new power-ups and tracks. You’re also not getting a game you can easily play with friends. But in their stead, you get a racing game that’s really unlike anything else out there. At its best, Home Circuit seamlessly blends the idea of racing an RC car with a video game and does it while making the act of creation playful. I may not be able to play Home Circuit with my friends — but at least my cat can join in when she feels like making trouble.
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Oct 14, 2020This is an interesting toy, but as a game it’s definitely limited. We’re sure younger players will love it, although we would have liked to see a more ambitious take on the concept.
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Oct 14, 2020Mario Kart Live is as fun as any other Mario Kart game, while you'll have to spend the time and creative energy to lay down your course you'll soon forget about it and just start playing Mario Kart. The difference is there's a little RC Mario or Luigi roaming around the floor bringing the game to life even for those not playing it. Mario Kart Live is a super polished experience, and possibly the first time I've ever enjoyed anything AR. Instead of just having AR for AR sake, it's taken something already fun and merged it with real life.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 52 out of 78
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Mixed: 10 out of 78
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Negative: 16 out of 78
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Nov 14, 2020
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Oct 19, 2020
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Oct 19, 2020