Earning first place in Mario Kart World‘s 150cc races depends on a lot of factors, ranging from shortcuts, knowing where to wall ride, and how to deal with the uncertainty of getting bombarded with shells. That hasn’t stopped players from figuring out the game’s unspoken meta, locking down which vehicles and characters perform best against each other in 150cc or online. But one mode where that competitive meta isn’t as prevalent is Time Trials.
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You’ll still need a different strategy when the only things on the track are you and some coins. Time Trials has its own meta that you can follow to easily overcome the developer times, as well as those set by the community.
Best Karts for Time Trial
If you’re aiming to beat developer ghosts or lead the player rankings in the Time Trials mode, karts with a high Speed stat will make a huge difference. That doesn’t mean Acceleration and Handling are useless by any means, but they aren’t quite as important in this mode. Speed is the name of the game when you don’t have to worry about Blue Shells or Mega Mushroom drivers among everything else.
With this in mind, prioritize these karts when trying to break records in Time Trial.
- Reel Racer
- Bowser Bruiser / Chargin’ Truck / Li’l Dumpy / Mecha Trike / Tiny Titan
- Stellar Sled
- Baby Blooper / Loco Moto
Best Characters for Time Trial
With Speed being the stat to prioritize for Time Trial, characters from heavier weight classes typically perform best. Bowser is a very popular choice as he is the heaviest character with the highest speed. He’s also the only one in his weight class, which is why you’ll specifically see him when viewing the player Time Trial rankings for each track. It’s easy to set some crazy records by pairing Bowser with the likes of a Reel Racer for pure Speed or sacrificing just a bit of it for something more rounded out like the Baby Blooper.
Read More: The Best Characters For Every Track In Mario Kart World
If you feel that a track needs just a bit more handling or don’t want to exclusively play Bowser, going down to the next weight class can offer you some variety. Here are the characters belonging to the two heaviest weight classes:
- Bowser
- Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Wiggler, Cow, Chargin’ Chuck, Pianta
Using the above characters is a safe bet for most tracks. Nevertheless, there are a handful of cases where lighter characters excel. Windy tracks like Shy Guy Bazaar or those with a ton of turns like Mario Circuit aren’t ideal for Bowser. Using the baby versions of characters or smaller ones like Toadette and Shy Guy is a better approach, but what’s important is that you’re sticking with the karts mentioned above.
Mario Kart World is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2.