On Sept. 25, a mobile adaptation of the popular Nintendo game Mario Kart hit the iOS and Android app stores, racing to the top of the charts and breaking day-one launch download records.

According to Sensor Tower, the leading provider of market intelligence for the global app economy, Mario Kart Tour’s day-one downloads amounted to approximately 20 million, far surpassing Pokemon Go and its mobile predecessor, Super Mario Run.

Essentially, Mario Kart Tour is a mobile game spin-off of the Mario series. Much like the original Mario Kart, it is a racing game. The many racing tracks include an abundance of jumps, ramps and boosts, along with the standard bonus items, such as mystery boxes and coins. Mario Kart Tour seems to be a refinement of previous Mario games in terms of art, ease of play and features.

Like many students at SCHS who grew up playing Mario Kart, senior Christine Vera Cruz was elated when she heard about Mario Kart Tour’s release. She was an avid player during her childhood and looked forward to reliving her experiences.

“I played Mario Kart a long time ago because I had a Wii,” Vera Cruz said. “It was one of my favorite games because how competitive it was gave me a certain vibe that made playing feel exciting.”

The “vibe” Vera Cruz describes is one of the reasons why many people who played Mario Kart on the Wii flocked to the new release. That sense of nostalgia granted players the satisfaction of living out their old memories through a more updated version of Mario Kart, according to sophomore Curtis Leung. He downloaded the game the day it came out, managing to finish every cup available.

“I think that the game is so popular because Mario Kart is a nostalgic thing for a lot of teens, and we would like it back to play again,” Leung said.

While the component of reminiscing contributes to its enjoyability, Mario Kart Tour is still currently single-player. According to junior Amar Singh, although there is a feature that enables players to compete against friends with their overall racing scores, he would prefer if the game were multiplayer so people could compete live.

“I think that we should be able to play each other one-on-one or two-on-two,” Singh said. “It would add more competition.”

This, however, is a minor complication that will be fixed with the addition of multiplayer, which Nintendo said will be added in a future update. Mario Kart Tour holds promise as an accessible and free alternative to the typically console-based Mario Kart games, all while giving players the wow factor they initially loved with the original series.

“I think nostalgia is a big part and I probably wouldn’t have downloaded it if I hadn’t played it before,” Singh said. “So I think it’s a big part that we were able to play it on the Wii and now we can on the phone.”