'Mario Kart: Road to Hana' Coming to Stores in the Fall {NRL}

After a year of driving to the east side of Maui and back, over and over, Nintendo is finally set to release its newest version in its ever-popular racing video game with a famous part of the Valley Isle as a primary feature.

Mario Kart: Road to Hana is set for release this fall, just in time for the busy holiday shopping season, the Japanese company announced.

"We were running out of ideas with so many Mario Kart versions, and luckily one of our designers drove the road to Hana before the pandemic, and thought, 'This is just like a Mario Kart course!' " said Ichiro Warai, director of marketing for Nintendo and a key designer in the Road to Hana release.

"So we started sending test drivers to go back and forth from Paia to Hana, record their thoughts about every hairpin turn, bridge, and scary section, and translate it into our new Hana courses for Mario Kart," Warai said. "Now, road to Hana fans can experience flying off the road in a fun way ~ and get another chance right after!"

Mario Kart: Road to Hana follows Nintendo's popular Mario Kart Tour released previously, which introduced courses from all over the world, including from Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Berlin, and Vancouver.

"What we realized was, most of those courses were really kind of man-made, specifically for car racing," said Shoshei Joku, manager of the new design team. "We had never found a real, natural road, one people use to get to and from work every day, that had everything we needed for all the Mario Kart racers. Until we found the road to Hana."

Added to the typical cast of Mario Kart racers, like Mario, Luigi, Wario, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Koopa Troopa and Donkey Kong Jr. will be 2 new characters with a Maui flair: Meanloco, an especially aggressive driver with a penchant for passing on blind curves; and Blue Hair, a timid, cautious racer who in reality just competes to get in the way of other racers.

The Road to Hana game lets players choose from 4 new and distinct courses: Paia-to-Hana; Backside Hana; Waterfalls Hunt; and Pull-Out Skipper.

Paia-to-Hana is a straight Mario Kart race from those two Maui towns, either east, or backward to come back west to central Maui. Backside Hana is, of course, the back road from Kula to Hana.

Waterfalls Hunt is a different type of race for the series, with the racers not competing to finish first, but to stop and see as many waterfalls as possible to collect points. Players get extra points for parking illegally and stalling the most other racers as possible on the course until they decide to move their kart to the next waterfall.

Pull-Out Skipper is similar, except that the course has many built-in pull-outs on the side of the road, intended for slower racers to pull to the right and let faster racers pass. However in this course, Mario Kart racers get extra points for skipping the pull-outs entirely, and double-extra points for every car that gets stuck behind it, multiplied by how long they can hold the traffic jam.

Also added randomly on each course are at least one stop light placed for no particular reason somewhere in the middle of the course; and one major construction project that delays all racers for at least 10 minutes.

Mario Kart: Road to Hana is expected to be released in the United States after Labor Day, the company announced.

"We hope Mario Kart and road to Hana enthusiasts will be excited with what we were able to produce," Joku said. "Just like in other game versions, racers and their kart can fly off the course at certain spots, which drivers need to know. Only this time, they will be flying off real hairpins or scary spots on the real road to Hana, in cartoon video versions. Some tourists might even recognize the spots. We think locals will enjoy this game just as much as people who have never driven the road to Hana."