If you want to play Mario Kart in Virtual Reality then you don’t have to go all the way to an arcade in Japan to do that.
Now with a Meta Quest 3 or 2 and the Citra VR emulator, you can now enjoy a fully 3D and immersive Mario Kart VR experience at home on your Quest headset. The experience of playing this classic racing game in VR is amazing, especially considering that there really aren’t a whole lot of racing games available in VR, and those don’t play half as well as Mario Kart does.
While Mario Kart wasn’t made for VR it is definitely enjoyable when playing it in Virtual Reality. You can even zoom in your view to the first person so that all of the action is as immersive and in your face as possible. Once you try Mario Kart in VR you won’t ever want to go back to playing it on the flat screen. This isn’t just a great VR Mario Kart experience, but also just a great VR racing game in general if you’re hungry for a new one.
In this article, we’ll be going through how to set up Mario Kart VR, some settings to get it looking good, and how it plays. Spoiler alert. It’s pretty awesome.
How To Play Mario Kart In VR
Playing Mario Kart in VR does involve a bit of setup, I’ll warn you right now.
You’re going to need a few things since while you can play the 3DS version of Mario Kart 7 entirely with just your headset once you get it set up, you will need a PC and a cable to connect your Oculus Quest to your PC in order to start.
Other than the computer and the cable, also keep in mind that you have to get your hands on a .cci, .3ds, or .rom file of the Mario Kart 7 game. So to get started here are the things that you will need.
A PC.
A cable capable of connecting your computer to your Meta Quest: If you don’t have a cable already there’s always the official Oculus LInk Cables. However, there are also cheaper third party cables available from amazon.
A game file of Mario Kart 7 on your PC. This will only work if the file is one of these filetypes: .rom, .cci, .3ds (.cia files do not work)
Enough storage space on your Quest. (Even 1 GB is enough)
With all of these things, you can start by setting up SideQuest on your Meta Quest 2 or 3. SideQuest is vital because you’ll use it to install the actual application, CitraVR, that you have to use to get Mario Kart for VR running. If you don’t know how it’s not difficult to, but it will take a little time and effort.
Once you have SideQuest installed on your Quest device, go ahead and use SideQuest to install CitraVR. You’ll have to use your computer and cable during this setup as well. Not only do you need to install the Citra VR application, but you’ll also want to use your link cable to move over your Mario Kart 7 3DS game file while you’re at it. Setting up CitraVR is also very straightforward if you know how to do it.
Once you’re done setting up Citra VR make sure that your Mario Kart 7 game file is in your Citra games folder. If it is it should appear in the CitraVR games menu.
Keep in mind that the first time you run VR Mario Kart it will stutter and lag. This is due to caching shaders and other data in the background and should fade completely in thirty minutes or less.
Still, you may be able to get it looking better than the old low resolution 3DS graphics can. They were intended to be seen on a much smaller screen after all. So if you want a bigger version of Mario Kart for the 3DS in VR, then here you have it. If you want a truly more immersive Mario Kart VR experience, then keep reading.
The first thing we’ll do is replace those floating 3DS screens with a more in your face and first person view of the game. This is done by clicking the gear icon in the top left of the CitraVR menu and then clicking on the “VR” menu.
Then scroll to the bottom and enable the slider for Immersive Mode. This will wrap the 3DS screen directly around your face when you’re playing a 3DS game in VR, and will add a lot of additional immersion to Mario Kart by putting you into the seat of your kart.
While you’re here you can also improve how well 3DS games will run by setting your CPU level as high as it will go. This is recommended at least the first few times you try Mario Kart for VR.
We can also improve how the game will look while we’re in the settings. Do this by going to the “Graphics” section in the settings menu.
There are an absolute ton of settings here, but those that make the most difference have to be “Internal Resolution” and “Depth.” Set the depth slider as high as it will go, and set Internal Resolution as high as you dare.
Keep in mind that a higher resolution means more demand on your headset. If you’re using a Meta Quest 3 or Meta Quest Pro you should be fine increasing it quite a bit, but a Quest 2 might struggle a little more. If the game doesn’t run well then come back and lower this setting.
Once you’re in the game here are the controls:
A - Drive
B -Reverse
Right grip - Hop
X - Item
Y - Drive
Thumbsticks - Toggle first or third person by pushing forward or backwards when your opposite thumb is resting on the thumb rest next to the buttons
Triggers - Select things in menus
How Does Mario Kart 7 Play In VR?
Once you’re back in the Mario Kart VR and have a race started, rest one of your thumbs on the thumb rest of its controller.
The “thumb rest” is the empty space right next to the two buttons on the controller, away from the joystick. Once one thumb is rested there press forward with the joystick on your other controller using your opposite thumb.
This will bring your view forward and put you right inside of your kart like you are the Mario Kart character you’re playing as. Completely first person, completely immersive. Now that’s Virtual Reality.
Playing in the third person as you would normally on a flat screen is great and all, but Mario Kart in VR is a completely different experience when you experience it in first person.
You can really feel every turn as you take it, and running over a banana is a lot more startling when you see it right up in your face just before you hit it.
The game still plays like Mario Kart, there’s no denying that, and Mario Kart 7 is already a fantastic game on its own, but there is a quality added by playing it in Virtual Reality that brings it to the next level. You get the benefit of a giant virtual screen already, but using CitraVR’s immersive mode and wrapping that screen around your face makes you feel like you’re in the seat of your Kart.
