I can understand why many people are disappointed or jaded by Mario Kart World’s roster. It’s been over a decade since Mario Kart 8 released, and people were hoping Nintendo would break out of the ‘mainline’ shell by expanding to the expanded universes of Wario, DK, and the RPGs.
At the same time, Moo Moo Cow is funny as hell to see. And I can find fun in Cataquack. Pianta’s been one people have been requesting for a while.
I think it's just a matter of dealing with (the possible coin flip on MKW only not just having various mooks being the new racers, but it coming with an absence of fan favorite of yours being gone alongside it - while being reminded once again that Nintendo ever expanding Mario Kart to other Mario-subseries in means of roster and presentation is simply
never in the cards.
(Or things could go completely opposite direction, maybe in said Direct or through DLC.)
Back on the mooks though:
I think we could have done with much less to help ones picked get to have more effort put on their animations and expressions like the "main gang" of Mario Kart as we've seen so far. Plenty of them so far have had this lazy-feeling jankiness on how they just "float" on the kart seat due not having any appendages, like, Fishbones and Cheep Cheep and ParaBiddy (by a stretch). Meanwhile I can entertain the thought of Cataquack, Goomba
(took them long enough) and Coin Coffer being able to drive a kart via being shown using their feet in vein be of Ripper Roo from Crash Team Racing.
As we go down the list of other mooks, we get to ones that just defy any believability or logic to even drive due how they're built like, mainly Pokey, Conkdor with it's super-stubby feet/talons(?) and Snowman. On those you can clearly glance how the devs just plopped them on kart seat and called it a day there - which is a shame as the amount of insane creativity presented to showcase how they could drive a kart was clearly glossed over because their implementation came from being lifted directly from MKW's track mook/hazard assets, and just done nothing more.
The most weirdest case to me is Sidestepper that glaringly comes off like it should have been animated to be using it's pincers to drive... but isn't. The model's exactly the one you see on the track's it's featured in right down to being quite huge. I mean, I guess they made it able to look at passerby racers?
It kinda has me bit tempered on seeing how Batadon (that flying Moai from Super Mario Land) is gonna look like in action as it most likely will follow the above trends - despite having wings that could have been show being used to steer the kart.
I could imagine it having been animated with floating a bit up when you let go off the gas pedal, leaning a bit to the right when you brake and fall down to show it's putting it's weight on the gas pedal to accelerate - incase it got more dedicated polish like the mainstays of Mario Kart.
It does make feel kinda dampened on how little effort was put on good sum of them so far. I guess they feel... "lazy" in terms of current execution? It's a shame because I'm lowkey happy to explore playing as Penguin and Dolphin, but am afraid they'll feel more "wooden" and not as alive compared to main Mario-cast, reminding me that they were just easy "asset-based padding" in execution. Guess we'll just have to see how they're executed.
Then there's the fact that so far, none of them has been shown to get costumes in same vein as the current more "recurring" mooks from past games, like Koopa/Shy Guy/Lakitu. Very curious how Direct will address this.
I'm sure many don't really care much about how well the mooks will be executed in means of animation or creativity portrayal department, as just being able to drive as them is enough wacky and funny to enjoy regardless. But I hope people can see how some just aren't that thrilled about them with the current execution on a chunk of them, - especially as they comprise the current bulk of the new additions to Mario Kart's lineup of racers.
Now, on the other side of the coin: fortunately there's been more mooks on the roster that clearly look less "logically impossible" to drive: such as Cow, Peepa, Dolphin, Swoop. Then there's been more dedicated animations and expressions given to some Tour-debuting mooks, such as Hammer Bro and Chargin' Chuck. I kinda wonder will this imply they've been given worked on enough gain costumes realistically.