Overall score: 3/5, mostly due to lacking Character Selection.

Character Selection: 2/5. It earned 1 because the staple Yoshi which is pretty much guaranteed everywhere, and 1 because the retention of Koopa Troopa. However, the rest of the group of characters, unlockable and normal is pretty meh. I personally prefer characters such as Birdo or Petey, but instead Nintendo decided to introduce Honey Queen, Rosalina, Metal Mario, Wiggler, and Lakitu. No idea why we need a second Mario, or why we need one-off characters like Rosalina or Honey Queen. Honey Queen and Lakitu is meh, but Wiggler's voice is painfully mismatched; the voice MK7 decided to use for him/her is so mismatchedly light I can't seriously play him/her.

Karts: 4/5. The game brings back MKSS's (GBA) coins, which not only boost your kart, but also plays a role in unlocking new parts for your kart. You unlock random parts as you achieve certain intervals of total coins, which can make it a bit of a hassle to have to get coins, but whatever, it's a neat mechanic. Also, as I mentioned before, karts are now assembled by the player, namely the body of the kart, the wheels of the kart, and the glider of the kart. I enjoyed the level of customization you could put into the karts, fine-tuning it to our needs. (My favorite setup thus far is Zucchini/Standard/Swooper.)

New Courses: 4.5/5. The courses are assembled very well and look very nice, and I particularly enjoy the courses divided into 3 sections, the course being over after one full long lap. This generation's Rainbow Road is just as confounding as the others, and is a fun course nonetheless. Only courses I did not particularly care for were really Wario Shipyard for constantly racing in and out of water, and Rosalina's Ice World because it's a pain.

Retro Courses: 4.75/5. This generation's Retro circuit contains 2 SNES courses, 3 N64 courses, 1 GBA course, 2 GCN courses, 4 DS courses, and 4 Wii courses. I particularly enjoyed the way they remade the N64 courses, and although I was initially disappointed - the old shortcut on Koopa Beach was replaced, although it wa replaced with a bit less game-breaking shortcut so I suppose that's alright. I thoroughly enjoyed all the Retro courses, although I'm mildly disappointed as to the decision to have the Rainbow Road as the SNES course. In my opinion, a better Retro Rainbow Road would have been N64 or DS.

Time Trials: 5/5. Yes, I know it's just a normal old feature, replaying the tracks. However, what makes this generation's time trials stand out is the selection screen, which now shows a distribution of player's times on certain tracks, as well as multiple staff records to try to beat, with their times as well on the distribution graph. (The distribution chart is actually what got me to write this review.) It's really interesting to see where most players fall under, in terms of time.

Balloon Battle and Coin Runners: 4/5. They are fun mini-games, Coin Runners helping you with your coin count, and Balloon Battle just fun to go around stealing balloons by speeding into them. I am slightly disappointed there's no remake of Shine Runners for DS though, where the person with the least shines constantly gets knocked out.