Madagascar Kartz

Madagascar Kartz was genuinely such a surprise! Behind the guise of being shovelware, this game is actually a really fun and frantic racing game???? Somehow??? While, yes, it is part of the usual Mario Kart clone crowd, its physics, items, tracks and boost system set it apart a fair bit and make the game a uniquely frenzied kart racer.

Madagascar Kartz is a fun, exciting and chaotic racing game with very well-designed tracks. Its items are mostly pretty inventive, although I do consider a lot of them to be very frustrating and the impact of hitting someone to feel not all too satisfying. This is completely genuine, playing this game has given me some odd sort of love towards it which is... awkward. I was seriously expecting this review to be "This game sucks ewwww badbadbad awful funny madagascar" but it's really enjoyable? The game does get a bit too chaotic at points and messing up in the most minor ways in 150cc or 200cc (going too fast when you hit a wall, for example) can spin you around and cause you to lose about 5 seconds and send you unfairly far back, which can be a bit of an issue, but honestly I think the chaos of it does add a lot of fun. Also, once you start to get the hang of the high speed and random events, the chaos can really start to just be a fun challenge. The game actually has difficulty to it in 150 and 200cc, making it actually worth playing and practicing. Additionally, it has a Time Trial and a "Move It" mode, with the latter being a well-executed take on a king of the hill mode where the player in the front gets the disco ball and must pass through posts to get points. The posts add more of an active difference in this mode to a lot of other racing game king of the hill modes, as they actually change the way to gain points and add something more to do other than to just be in the front, which I love.

The Turbo system of this game is a very welcome addition. Instead of boosting immediately after a drift or trick like Mario Kart, you build up a Turbo meter, which you can later use to boost. This boost isn't just a speed increase though, it sends you forward at a high speed but with a twist of more limited movement. This adds a bit of challenge to the boosting and drifting and opens up more shortcuts without having to hold a specific boost item. This is something I really enjoy, as it means a lack of a minor boost item like the mushrooms in Mario Kart, with only one uncommon boost item that is effectively just a fairly long Turbo boost and the occasional Bullet Bill-esque special, which makes items much more enjoyable and hectic as most items are for offense. I also really enjoy this game's scoring system, as it uses the collectable fruit. Different places in a race will win you a different amount of fruit, but unique tricks will also give you fruit and there is also some fruit to be collected on the track, allowing you to bump up your score even if you don't place 1st.

For more critique of the game, I believe some of the character balancing is off. Characters have different stats and special items, but some seem better than others. Speed, Grip and Turbo are treated as interchangeable, but a high Turbo feels less beneficial than a high Speed, as Turbo is much more conditional. Special items also have varying effectiveness, with something like Alex's special that simply spins some people in front having much lesser results than Julian's seemingly constant barrages of his special that makes your kart move left and right. Another issue is that many items affect movement, which I assume was done to differentiate it and, while that does work and can be fun sometimes, really becomes annoying and frustrating at points, causing full kart turns that lose a lot of time or falls that leave you far behind.

Visually, Madagascar Kartz is pretty mixed. It doesn't look all that bad, except for the horrifying character models. Each character has their own unique kart with a cool specific design, all of which have concept art that can be unlocked in the gallery, which I think is a really nice touch. Tracks have some nice visual design too, with all of them looking completely different (except for parts of Watering Hole looking similar to Plane Wreck) and looking somewhere on the scale of average to fairly good (at least, for a Wii game). The UI is very clearly from a Madagascar game, similar to Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa's game, but I'd say it isn't AS good as that game's UI, but is still pretty nice and reflects the game well.

While there's not many tracks, with only 9 to choose from, I think this is mostly made up for by the unique track designs and visuals, alongside the many routes and paths in each track that allow for variation as you play the track. These paths make routes varied and add more strategy to the tracks and are a very welcomed addition, although a few are pretty basic paths on two sides of something that lead to the exact same place with not much difference. Maybe one more cup would have been nice, as 9 is still a bit too small for my liking, but I don't take too much issue with it due to how well-made and varied each track is.

Musically, this game has a surprisingly very good and synth-heavy soundtrack. It's not like musical perfection but it's much better than expected and honestly just very enjoyable to listen to; exciting synth music really makes the races seem more tense and I love that. Also, it uses the original version of I Like To Move It Move It rather than the Madagascar version, an odd choice but not all too notable, I think I prefer the original version anyway.

The box art is a bit of a Mario Kart Wii clone with the two characters racing in mid air with a wheel accessory. It's kind of basic with not much to say, but not particularly that bad.

I did not expect to become a defender of this game and I still feel like that's kinda making a fool of myself, but it seriously deserves a bit of love. For some licensed Wii shovelware, this is an unironically good game.