I really ended up liking this a lot more than I thought I would. There's a little bit of clunky-ness and seemingly basic gameplay at first glance, but there's a surprising depth and thoughtfulness to the game design that I appreciate.

The Grand Prix mode has you pick a robot and then select the course of a robot rival to race against. Upon beating them you get one of their parts to customize your machine with. During the races you shoot a main weapon to defeat common Mega Man enemies and upon defeating enough get an item to use against other racers. You can also disrupt other racers with your weapon as well. It honestly feels like a fun attempt at adapting the classic Mega Man game formula to the kart racing genre. The parts you collect will have a variety of different properties that will be advantageous on the courses of other robots, encouraging you to experiment with different loadouts.

You can beat a course and take a part from a robot master 4 times. On the first 3 wins you have a choice of engine, wing, or tires, and on the 4th you can take the body of the rival's vehicle. The first two races on a course are easy enough to win, but the 3rd and 4th require a lot more mastery and luck. The gameplay loop of getting a new part, trying it out on a different course to see what difference it made in giving me an edge or not, and repeating was compelling and a little addictive.

The items are a bit of a mixed bag, a couple are super helpful at pretty much any time, and the others are very situational to make the most of them. The RNG can be a little annoying on some intense races, but it is also pretty satisfying to make effective use of the trickier items such as the remote control mine that requires you to choose when to denotate it on the map.

There's also a strict timing to start a race with a boost as otherwise you'll start at the back of the pack every time. I think a variety of windows for different levels of boost would have been more fun and than this all or nothing extreme here.

Overall, it's a competent Mega Man kart racing spinoff with a lot of potential should Capcom ever try making a modern day version. The variety of strategic options in kart building, the interactive way you have to earn items by defeating enemies, and the campaign style Grand Prix that compels you to keep trying races with new kart combinations is a great formula that deserves another entry.