Feature: "We're Going To Need More Toilet Paper" - This Is Mario Kart-Attack!

Image: George Banks / Nintendo Life

We may only be a few months into a shiny, new Mario Kart game with lush open worlds and challenges aplenty, but as I scrap it out in yet another Knockout Tour or pootle about for P Switches and Peach Coins, I can’t help but yearn for something a little more familiar.

It’s a sentiment shared by many, if social media is to be believed. Why not take a break to go back to a Mario Kart game where every course is a set track? A Mario Kart game I know and love? The most recent home console Mario Kart before Mario Kart World rode into town? No, not that one.

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit turns five today and is technically Nintendo’s most recent home iteration of its behemoth franchise prior to World. I have many fond memories of this curious mixed reality experience. I’ve spent hours careening around my house through Mario’s eyes, zipping through makeshift tunnels under the sofa, dodging my children’s feet as they give chase, giggling with my wife whenever one of them would pick up Mario and plant a kiss on his nose - all blown up on the television in real time.

But as I fire it up again, I’m struck by an option presented to me on the home screen, an option I haven’t experienced in nearly half a decade of ownership of this game. Multiplayer. This seems mad to me. Mario Kart is, after all, the quintessential couch co-op experience. How could I have overlooked this entry in the series?

Quite easily, as it happens. Home Circuit is in last place when it comes to sales for the series, managing less than 2 million worldwide. And come to think of it, I’m not sure I actually know anybody else who owns it.

Can we make this mixed reality dream a mixed reality reality? — Image: George Banks / Nintendo Life

I need to fix this. I need to organise an all-tracks, all-in Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit Grand Prix.

The starting line

The game supports up to four players, so four players is what we’ll shoot for. My first thought is to sound out the folks who were mad enough to play through every single Mario Kart 8 track in one evening with me last year.

There are a few 'No's: Matt is otherwise engaged, Alfie now lives on the south coast, and Tom lives in Australia - clearly, Tom found the experience the most harrowing. Jonny and Mitchell, however, are stupid enough to agree.

They’ll need karts. A quick eBay reveals that the physical toys needed to play the game are very reasonably priced these days. I get a Luigi in box for £50 and a Mario & Luigi together (albeit with no box, chargers or gates) for £45! You only need one set of gates, so this is an absolute steal - and a great Christmas present if you’ve got a Mario Kart enthusiast who’s never tried it.

They turn up at my door a couple of days before the event, and in the interim, I get a few more ‘Yes’s - including a face that may be familiar to long-time Nintendo Life readers. But more on that later.