I’ve picked up Smurfs Kart again but this time we have put the Nintendo Switch and picked up the Xbox and needless to say I was a little surprised which will be explained more in this review. You can read a more in-depth review >Here<. If you have read that review then you can read below how the game runs on the Xbox.

I was surprised with the controls on the Xbox and the lack of being able to adjust them was a little disappointing. You needed to use “A” to accelerate which was a little weird to begin with and then you needed to use the “RB and LB” and then both the “LT and RT” to do things like jump and use your special abilities you collect whilst racing along.

I would have loved to see some customisation with the controls so you can run the controller layout exactly how you want.

I’m not sure if this is something that is built into the controls or not as I could not see assists to turn off but you could be wanting to turn right on a corner and for some reason would be dragged to the left to hit a jump in the long green grass that slows you down so much. Games in 2023 need to have the customisation so each player can make the game their own.

There was not much difference from the Switch addition with the graphics but they still looked great and had that Smurf’s cartoonish feel to it. Like I mentioned in the Switch review it reminded me of the 2017 film Smurfs: The Lost Village.

I loved the art style in the Switch edition and love it just as much in the Xbox Series X/S edition. The HUD was clean but reminded me so much of Mario Kart that there are not that many HUD options you could use with a kart racing game.

Much like the graphics, the sounds in this title were the exact same as the Nintendo Switch edition. The sounds were confusing 99% of the time with what was going on which made the races a little harder when you had something coming up behind you to hit you but when you could jump and cancel the hit it sounded like it was ages away when it’s right on you. The music was great with that upbeat smurf vibe to the game.

I would still rather play this on the Nintendo Switch as it felt like it was better optimized which was surprising with the Xbox packing more power than the Switch. I would love to see some control customisation added to the game and maybe some more game modes, maybe a possible DLC, or even just a nice update.

Written by: Hayden Nelson