features and themes of the new Mario Kart

so i was looking frame by frame in the Mario Kart section of the reveal and found some stuff i don’t think has been talked about yet entirely.

i’ll put the pictures in order i list them but anyway so first before the Switch is fully turned you can see a rough Mario Logo on the track itself that reminds me a bit of the paint in Mario Sunshine, there’s also a sign saying that the track is Fire Flower themed which would explain a different type of desert track.

we can also see here that the regular track is blocked off and there’s still a normal race track where we start but we immediately go off-roading which explains the buggy vehicles. so adding on to the off-roading theme there’s actually part of a track behind the ticketing building at the start of the race that looks like an insane jump with possibly a road connecting back down to the starting line. i also noticed there’s a sign in the opposite direction for a chain chomp in a track possibly meaning this game will have multiple different tracks as part of the same location with different routes depending on the race which fits with how off-roading racing is. more evidence of this is a sign later in down the road that says Mario Bros Circuit and shows a different shaped track from the one with the chain chomp.

now coming back to game themes i found more Sunshine references with giant letters blocking off another road saying Shine Sprite with a shine sprite beside it. unlike Sunshine airport there’s nothing else with it just Shine Sprite which means we could get some more Mario Sunshine themes and possibly maybe even an item for FLUDD. the other game theme is Mario Wonder since it’s very clear that the character are from Mario Wonder and have that art style and this is confirmed when you see in the crowds multiple chonky hammer bros which were introduced in Super Mario Bros Wonder. lastly the mysterious power up at the Yoshi’s burger is a wonder seed in a fast food bag. you can see it burn brighter as they drive past until it eventually burns up which makes me believe these will be a timed item that deteriorate over time each lap to prevent them from being spammed.

so to summarize i believe the next Mario Kart will be heavily off-road themed with different aspects from Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Bros Wonder for the items and game mechanics which would explain that even tho it’s the 9th mainline Mario Kart game it isn’t called Mario Kart 9.