This game is a mixed bag. Overall I want to like it, but there is glaring issues that really turn me off.

This game doesn't play like mario kart. Drifting outside of speed racing with the best carts is almost exclusively used offensively in battle mode. Unless you have a heroic cart and perfect kart control just full throttle turning will be faster for 95% of turns. Especially in challenge mode where if you get hit by a item in a drift you can be reset facing backwards because of your drift slide. That being said if your having troubles adapting to kartrider just drift less(at least in battle mode) and do the solo challenges for drifting to polish up your 90* and 180 drift turns which are the only two times you really need to drift and even then only if you have to take the inner race line.

Theirs a cool mechanic where you can upgrade your carts based off the wins you get with said karts. Which is great until you find out that all the pay currency karts come at max level (heroic) and straight up have more base points than all other karts and have more upgrade points. All of this basically means putting 100 games into a kart you like will still result in 5-10% slower kart than the stock evo spyder or whatever pay kart you choose. And most of these OP karts look like generic chibi versions of sports cars and look like complete crap meanwhile all the unique looking karts that the devs should be praised for get no screen time because they're objectively bad.

Battlemode is kinda broken, once you get in first your given almost exclusively shields and magnet/ufo repellents and you never get a offensive item in 1st place so aside from the rare banana if your in first place your basically guaranteed to keep it outside of 2 karts tag teaming you with items at the same time. Honestly if there player base was 10x the size and you could guarantee games with skill matched players this would be less of a problem, but as it is you have 1 or 2 experienced players in each lobby who get so far ahead of everyone else they will be the only players to place on the podium with everyone else dnf'ing.

Speed mode is unplayable due to the kart imbalance. Which imho is fine, because this game does not have a good enough driving experience (particularly the drifting) to really make a speed mode shine.

Player base is a major issue. Finding a game during the day is pretty easy thanks to cross platform and all the f2p kiddo's logging on after school. But finding a good lobby with experienced players or any lobby at all after 10pm is a headache. Add to that more often than not your dealing with 1-3 disconnected players PER round trying to play solo queue can be very frustrating. If your unable to find a FULL lobby within 2 minutes 30 seconds of starting a queue you will be shunted to all AI match regardless of if there was multiple people waiting to play but not enough for a full lobby. Everyone goes to there own solo game against AI and essentially makes it impossible the queue with real players when the player base is low. The best thing you can do is cancel out of matchmaking every 2 minutes 20 seconds and rejoin and hope that eventually you'll get thrown into a lobby of real people. But even if you do at the end of a round if more than 4 people quit the entire lobby is disbanded. Even if the remaining 3 people want to reenter matching and look for 5 new players. Both of these issues of AI matching and lobby disbanding are effectively making the matchmaking 10x worse and killing the game. But they've made the pay item gap(and fairly the skill gap) so large that most new players RELY on those AI games to get any wins under there belt so they can earn some gold/experience to buy/upgrade karts. They have really created a lose lose win situation here and the only ones that are winning are nexon.

Another major issue is players don't disappear from the game when DC'd there kart is abandoned on the track with no clip but can be still targeted by power ups which can and will screw you over when trying to use a power up right at the end of a race (most people are dc'd on the finish line). This is just a glaring issue that should have been fixed ages ago and the fact it hasn't should tell you everything you need to know about how much developer support this game actually gets.

Learning the game i HATED the characters, and I still visually hate about 90% of them (why they all gotta look like 5yo's? fr some of these avatars are down right creepy with their skimpy outfits and looking like children), but as I learned to game I ended up really liking that each character had its own unique moves and it added a level of strategy into the game. I couldn't help but think draft picking characters for a race woulda been a great mechanic and would have helped balance some of the more powerful characters via a pick/ban selection like moba's have.

Don't misunderstand all these issues as me saying the game is unplayable or solely pay 2 win. Because it isn't. You can have a lot of fun with this game even as a f2p player but be prepared to sweat for that fun. This game has a super high skill ceiling and your mario kart experience wont smoothly transfer over so get ready to "git gud" if you want to play this game competitively.

Oh ya, don't forget to disable voice chat before you join your first game. Not only is it enabled by default for both receiving and sending you will get your ear drums blown out by squeekers yelling profanities into the mic. Hilariously as unfiltered as the always open mic channel is, trying to type anythingg even remotely negative into the text chat will get it automatically blocked. You cant even give another driver legitimate racing tips without it being considered offensive language.

Overall I can't really recommend the game because oof, theirs so many issues and its so unapproachable to new players. But I do hope nexon fixes some of these issues and maybe I can recommend it then. In the meantime there's not really much else for options for PC/multiplatform kart racers so if that's the genre your looking for Kartrider is probably still your best best, even despite all its flaws.

This game is a mixed bag. Overall I want to like it, but there is glaring issues that really turn me off. This game doesn't play like mario kart. Drifting outside of speed racing with the best carts is almost exclusively used offensively in battle mode. Unless you have a heroic cart and perfect kart control just full throttle turning will be faster for 95% of turns. Especially in challenge mode where if you get hit by a item in a drift you can be reset facing backwards because of your drift slide. That being said if your having troubles adapting to kartrider just drift less(at least in battle mode) and do the solo challenges for drifting to polish up your 90* and 180 drift turns which are the only two times you really need to drift and even then only if you have to take the inner race line. Theirs a cool mechanic where you can upgrade your carts based off the wins you get with said karts. Which is great until you find out that all the pay currency karts come at max level (heroic) and straight up have more base points than all other karts and have more upgrade points. All of this basically means putting 100 games into a kart you like will still result in 5-10% slower kart than the stock evo spyder or whatever pay kart you choose. And most of these OP karts look like generic chibi versions of sports cars and look like complete crap meanwhile all the unique looking karts that the devs should be praised for get no screen time because they're objectively bad. Battlemode is kinda broken, once you get in first your given almost exclusively shields and magnet/ufo repellents and you never get a offensive item in 1st place so aside from the rare banana if your in first place your basically guaranteed to keep it outside of 2 karts tag teaming you with items at the same time. Honestly if there player base was 10x the size and you could guarantee games with skill matched players this would be less of a problem, but as it is you have 1 or 2 experienced players in each lobby who get so far ahead of everyone else they will be the only players to place on the podium with everyone else dnf'ing. Speed mode is unplayable due to the kart imbalance. Which imho is fine, because this game does not have a good enough driving experience (particularly the drifting) to really make a speed mode shine. Player base is a major issue. Finding a game during the day is pretty easy thanks to cross platform and all the f2p kiddo's logging on after school. But finding a good lobby with experienced players or any lobby at all after 10pm is a headache. Add to that more often than not your dealing with 1-3 disconnected players PER round trying to play solo queue can be very frustrating. If your unable to find a FULL lobby within 2 minutes 30 seconds of starting a queue you will be shunted to all AI match regardless of if there was multiple people waiting to play but not enough for a full lobby. Everyone goes to there own solo game against AI and essentially makes it impossible the queue with real players when the player base is low. The best thing you can do is cancel out of matchmaking every 2 minutes 20 seconds and rejoin and hope that eventually you'll get thrown into a lobby of real people. But even if you do at the end of a round if more than 4 people quit the entire lobby is disbanded. Even if the remaining 3 people want to reenter matching and look for 5 new players. Both of these issues of AI matching and lobby disbanding are effectively making the matchmaking 10x worse and killing the game. But they've made the pay item gap(and fairly the skill gap) so large that most new players RELY on those AI games to get any wins under there belt so they can earn some gold/experience to buy/upgrade karts. They have really created a lose lose win situation here and the only ones that are winning are nexon. Another major issue is players don't disappear from the game when DC'd there kart is abandoned on the track with no clip but can be still targeted by power ups which can and will screw you over when trying to use a power up right at the end of a race (most people are dc'd on the finish line). This is just a glaring issue that should have been fixed ages ago and the fact it hasn't should tell you everything you need to know about how much developer support this game actually gets. Learning the game i HATED the characters, and I still visually hate about 90% of them (why they all gotta look like 5yo's? fr some of these avatars are down right creepy with their skimpy outfits and looking like children), but as I learned to game I ended up really liking that each character had its own unique moves and it added a level of strategy into the game. I couldn't help but think draft picking characters for a race woulda been a great mechanic and would have helped balance some of the more powerful characters via a pick/ban selection like moba's have. Don't misunderstand all these issues as me saying the game is unplayable or solely pay 2 win. Because it isn't. You can have a lot of fun with this game even as a f2p player but be prepared to sweat for that fun. This game has a super high skill ceiling and your mario kart experience wont smoothly transfer over so get ready to "git gud" if you want to play this game competitively. Oh ya, don't forget to disable voice chat before you join your first game. Not only is it enabled by default for both receiving and sending you will get your ear drums blown out by squeekers yelling profanities into the mic. Hilariously as unfiltered as the always open mic channel is, trying to type anythingg even remotely negative into the text chat will get it automatically blocked. You cant even give another driver legitimate racing tips without it being considered offensive language. Overall I can't really recommend the game because oof, theirs so many issues and its so unapproachable to new players. But I do hope nexon fixes some of these issues and maybe I can recommend it then. In the meantime there's not really much else for options for PC/multiplatform kart racers so if that's the genre your looking for Kartrider is probably still your best best, even despite all its flaws.