The Wide World of Dirt

This is a surprising choice for me to put Sky-High Sundae in the final slot.

When I watched the trailer for the track, visually I thought it was the best of the bunch, and the footage of the racing made me think there might be more to the track than what was shown.

My hopes were high! They should not have been.

I’m just gonna say it: it’s a glammed-up version of Excitebike Arena. I really hate that I’m saying this, but it’s true. This track races horribly.

I wish I could properly express how uniquely boring this track manages to be. At Excitebike, the tricking takes a lot more patience and skill, especially on 200cc. This track, on the other hand, is plain no matter the engine class or perspective.

With two turns on the whole track, there’s practically no way for you to gain time on the drivers ahead of you. Mushrooms and stars only get you a tad closer to the leader because there’s no physical surface to cover. You’re practically in the air the whole time!

It also has no shortcuts, and while I won’t levy this complaint on a good truck (Waluigi Pinball), this leaves no way for the player to even cut a corner to gain time on the drivers ahead. This is a huge problem. With no discernible way to gain time on the competition, you have to hope like hell for good RNG. 

Not something I’d put my faith in personally.

Another odd mechanic is that the staircase railings are anti-gravity boosts because reasons?? Though I don’t dislike this decision at all, it’s not what I expected when I saw the trailer. I thought I was going to hit it and crash. Glad that’s not the case!

The positives of this track are that it’s amazing visually. It’s the best looking course of the Tour/new tracks so far, and it makes me excited that they’re putting in the effort.

The color and definition of the course are top notch, and the anti-gravity throughout the whole course is a bold choice that I appreciate.

This track is crazy to try to set a good lap on because there is such a small margin for error and coins aren’t easy to come by either. I enjoy having to get down to the smallest details to optimize a lap, so it presents a fun challenge!

With all that said, I hate seeing it pop up a lot less than Excitebike (visually bland and boring design) and Baby Park (visually bland and painfully difficult.) That might change in time and repetitions of course, but I still enjoy it more than Sky Garden and Tokyo Blur from wave 1 right now.

Final verdict: C+