As a big fan of all things racing-oriented where games are concerned, a title like Go Kart Island easily got my attention. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t without its merit. With a top-down racing perspective, and a fair amount of charm on its side, this won’t remotely compete with your average racer on the system, but thankfully that obviously wasn’t its goal anyway. Instead, it appears to have charted out its own course, mixing together elements of racing with plenty of exploration, and just a bit of wholesome fun as well.

As a new inhabitant of Go Kart Island, it doesn’t take very long to figure out that everyone there is pretty well ready to race in some form at all times. It turns out that’s a good thing because in order to get into the island’s BIG RACE event you’ll have to raise a thousand coins, so you’re going to have to grind to earn every one you can, participating in a variety of events while exploring the island and finding all sorts of things to collect along the way. Unsurprisingly while there are some variations to be found that change up the rules a little bit, for the most part everything you’ll be participating in has the same general driving base. So even though everything isn’t quite the same, it can all start to feel quite similar regardless after a while.

Where the game shines is simply in its generally sunny and positive characters and dialogue, as well as giving you plenty of hidden items to try to find. Where it can struggle is in some of its execution, with the driving itself taking a little getting used to, and with power-ups that feel unbalanced and in some cases just plain odd. To be fair, most kart racers come up short in this area with either originality or in execution, and in this case I’d say the problems are more on the nuts and bolts side. Some items like the splatula are at least a little different and fun, but in practice I’d say most of the items are either tough to use well, or feel like they come up short of their potential. If you’re looking for a decent racing game to enjoy some time with, this may not be a great match. But if you’re looking for something with a spirit of adventure first and the driving just happens to be the style of play, it at least has charm and novelty on its side.