As of Sept. 24, Nintendo has released a Mario Kart that has everyone hooked and excited.

Mario Kart Tour is a mobile game where you can play as a select roster of famous Nintendo characters such as Mario and Bowser and race people worldwide and or locally, friend or foe, with a selection of classic and new go-karts from the Mario Kart franchise.

“I play it because I’m a huge Nintendo fan,” Dimond Junior Adrian Nery said.

Mario Kart has seemed to make a big impact on Dimond High and it would seem to shock anyone if a student has not heard about it.

Many Dimond students seem to be not just Mario Kart fans but long time Nintendo fans, which makes sense because Nintendo has been known to be popular for kids since 1986, when the Nintendo Entertainment system came out.

“I have played it on just about all platforms that you could play Mario Kart on like the DS, Switch, Wii, Wii U and probably more,” Dimond Senior Dudley Olibrice said.

As for Mario Kart, however, the first of its series would be Super Mario Kart 1992 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, aka the SNES. So it’s been there for most people born since.

“It’s nostalgic, it reminds me of when I was playing Mario Kart Wii as a kid,” Dimond Senior Issac San Juan said.

The oldest students this year at Dimond were born around the time Mario Kart started to become popular, and even if they didn’t play the first of the series, Nintendo released 14 different variations of the game. However the latest release, Mario Kart Tour is not just mobile but also free to play, so it made it easier for most to get their hands on it.

“It’s nice that it’s mobile,” Dimond Junior Adrian Nery said.

Although it seems as though Mario Kart Tour has gotten pretty popular, some say it is just for the relevancy and the marketability. Not only that, but some people seem to be struggling with the new controls.

“It’s not like the real thing, though,” Dimond Senior Issac San Juan said.

Many people at Dimond seem to be used to either analog sticks like on a Gamecube controller or the gyro controls like a Wii Remote. 

The controls on Mario Kart require you to hold your phone vertically and not horizontally making the gyro controls quite uncomfortable and hard to focus on what goes on in-game while playing. 

However, as it stands now Mario Kart Tour is not yet multiplayer, but has a score/point system for each available go kart race. This forces people to have to compare their race scores to compete with friends. 

“It’s pretty fun being able to compare scores with my friends and the new controls are interesting,” Dimond Freshman Alex Ziegler said.

Although, in the game’s menu is a multiplayer icon that appears to be greyed out with text in front that says, “Inbound!”and when tapped on, a message pops up saying, “Available in a future version update.”

“I downloaded the game on my phone because Mario Kart is iconic, but the controls are weird with this one and I can’t even play with my friends,” Dimond Senior Mackenzie Rodgers said.

This is not just implying that multiplayer will be in the future, but is also hyping people up for the update.

This also could mean that Nintendo is maybe just testing to see how people worldwide would react to it, and seeing how it would work out before they possibly make a pay-to-win game that no one wants to play.

Mario Kart Tour is free and available to play on Android and iOS.