I'll be real with you here, chief: I ain't interested in V2 anymore. Not after I saw the 3rd anniversary update, and certainly not after I saw all the other junk I've seen after that.
The reason SRB2K is popular, if you somehow didn't know, is because of 2 simple reasons. First, the game is basically a free Mario Kart game for the PC, and the simplicity of its mechanics & controls makes it easy for new players to just pick up the game & start playing. Second, the game has a huge library of mods: characters, maps, gamemodes, and all sorts of other crazy things that keeps the game fresh and keeps players coming back for more. It's an incredibly solid system, I'd even say it's addicting.
All of these great things are what kept me (and numerous other people) playing the game for 5 whole years, And when I saw the first V2 gifs/screenshots in 2019 or so I was totally down for it. The changes shown were all things the game sorely needed: rings & slipstreaming to buff the weaker & less viable light characters, actual single player content in the form of a Grand Prix mode, and even some fun bonuses like a few new items, characters, and maps.
Then the 3rd anniversary update dropped. And oh
boy, was I disappointed.
The game had been changed, and sadly, it was for the worse. The tumble mechanics look excessively punishing for no goddamn reason whatsoever, hitlag seems to make
every single item in the game more annoying & punishing, a weird new camera that would make anyone horribly seasick after 5 seconds, and Position, a completely idiotic and unnecessary Mario Party mini-game you have to play for god knows what reason before
every goddamn race.
It only continues to get worse from here. A trick system that appears to be more of a nuisance than a mechanic, perfectly good tracks getting trashed for no reason (Ancient Tomb?
VOLCANIC VALLEY?),
HITLAG STACKING, and apparently some kind of "mod embargo" that will be enforced on release (What?!). Honestly, I'm beyond disappointed, and my friends who just recently started playing (and only play the game with me occasionally in a private server) all feel the same way. Not to mention the numerous other people I've seen in various different corners of the internet who are all voicing the exact same concerns. If new players and
literal randos online are saying the same things an SRB2K veteran like myself are saying, that's really,
really not a good sign for the future of this game.
As far as the new mechanics go, I'd like to discuss them each individually. The tumble mechanic, as I've stated, seems to be excessively punishing for no goddamn reason at all, and it being coupled with like 3 separate items makes it seem like it's going to be the most frustrating & awful game mechanic ever conceived. Getting hit by anything that puts you into tumble seems like it can potentially lock you into it for upwards of 10 seconds, which just seems like overkill. Not to mention that most of the tumble items (Invincibility & Grow specifically) will end up crowding the middle of the pack and make the game utter hell for anyone who isn't in 1st or last place.
Hitlag was a really,
really stupid idea from the moment it was conceived. This is a kart racer, not a fighting game. Putting an incredibly jarring, second-long pause after getting smacked by pretty much any item imaginable is an absolutely idiotic idea, especially for a racing game where, generally,
nobody wants the game to stop dead in its tracks. People want to keep moving without slowing down for anything. And stopping the game for well over a second just because you got hit by the SRB2K equivalent of a green shell (an extremely common item) is incredibly disorienting and utterly ruins the pacing of the game. I'd also like to mention that claiming that hitlag is "inspired by Kirby Air Ride" is very indicative of someone who hasn't actually played Air Ride for any more than 5 minutes. The game barely has such a mechanic, and when it does it's very short & unnoticeable (and
certainly isn't on every single goddamn hit in the game).
I don't even really understand the trick system, honestly. Even after 2 whole videos demonstrating it I still can't make heads or tails of it. These tricks seem like an incredibly distracting QTE that
actively punishes you if you fail it, which doesn't seem fair or even all that fun. Tricks in Mario Kart work because of their simplicity, you press a button on a ramp or a bouncy object, and you get a small animation of your character tricking and a small boost afterwards. Simple, well-communicated, and easy to understand. Even then, the old springs were fine, what the hell is the point of replacing them with this convoluted jank? If it ain't broke,
don't fix it.
Don't even get me started on Position. According to the Kart Krew themselves, the standard starting grid was replaced because it was, and I quote:
Excuse my french, but
fucking what? The
ENTIRE GODDAMN POINT of a starting grid is for it to be static. Every driver starts out in roughly the same spot so nobody gets too far ahead or too far behind when the race starts. Every kart racer in existence does it this way for this very reason. I don't think anyone on the entire planet has a problem with races starting like this outside of the Kart Krew echo chamber. It's a completely idiotic change that completely fails to understand what makes kart racers (and racing in general) so appealing, and will do nothing but make race starts take far longer than they need to and make lightweight characters even more obsolete than they already are. Absolutely
fantastic.
Next, I'll discuss the modding situation. Kart Krew has decided, in their infinite wisdom, to change all sorts of stuff related to modding. While some of these changes are good things, like the switch to UDMF for maps, I feel a lot of other changes with V2 are gonna screw up some things with modding, specifically with porting old mods.
The new character sprites do look good, but the issue is you now have 5 years worth of character mods that need to be ported over by the community, and I really doubt that a good majority of modders are just gonna sit down and say "Yeah, I'll go completely resprite every character I made over the span of 5 years that also need more new sprites made for each of them!". Same thing applies to maps, as well. People aren't going to be flocking to remake a whole mountain of maps to accommodate for the new gameplay changes. I won't even touch on the whole "mod embargo" junk because it's such a mindbogglingly misguided & moronic idea that I fail to understand how any sane developer could unironically tell themselves "Yes, this will be a healthy and good idea for this community!"
Lastly, I'll discuss how the community itself has handled all of this. It is absolutely impossible to have any discussion or concerns about V2's mechanics in the official discord server because every single dissenter is met with the same idiotic, childish drivel:
"iT's A nEw GamE"
"yOu HaVeN't PlAyEd It YeT, hOw Do YoU kNoW?"
"yOu WiLl LiKe It, JuSt WaIt!"
(and numerous other passive-aggressive statements in the vain of
"NOOOOO MY RACE IS RUINED!!!")
If people don't like the changes,
they don't like the changes. Don't force people to like them, don't mock them like petty schoolyard bullies, and
certainly don't threaten them with a banhammer if they still don't like them. But hey, maybe it's my fault for expecting civil discussion to take place on discord in the first place, who knows.
I've really tried to be supportive of Kart Krew and V2 in general before all of this, but the more stupid changes I see, the more I've decided to just stick with V1. You had something really special here, and I'm concerned that all of the punishing & confusing mechanics that come with V2 will drive away players both new and old. The changes seem less concerned with improving the game, rather they're concerned with changing things for the sake of change and drawing in millions of more views for "epic kart compilation dude gets totally owned" videos on YouTube. You can scream about how "IT'S A NEW GAME!!!" until you're blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that
nobody wanted a new game, people wanted an update to the old game that improves on it and adds a handful of fun new things. Again, if it ain't broke,
don't fix it.
Signed, a longtime SRB2K player.
