Mario Kart is a long-standing franchise in my life, I have been playing it since I was a child, starting with the SNES Super Mario Kart and for some reason, every time a new one comes out, I pick it up, it’s almost like an instinct, trying to bring back those memories of a bygone era where you would sit on the sofa or around the room with a friend or member of the family and play through a grand prix. All the while, everyone treating the game far more seriously than it really should, it really awakens people’s competitive streaks.
Conceptually Mario Kart is a bit weird at first, a character kart racing game utilising characters from Nintendo’s primary mascot, but Mario is Jump Man, why would he be driving a kart, let alone racing against Bowser and Donkey Kong Junior? The relationship between Mario and his enemies is complicated to say the least, and if we suspend disbelief for a while, we get several really endearing spin-off series… Series… Serieses, Serii? Plurals are weird. It’s somewhat funny now, I think most people would agree that a generation of Nintendo consoles would be woefully incomplete without a Mario Kart game in the library. But it’s not just kart racing, Mario engages in other sports with people you wouldn’t necessarily expect him to. But today, let’s focus on the karting, as this tends to be the most chaotic and friendship breaking. I see you in the corner there, hoisting your copies of Mario Party in the air, but trust me, Mario Kart is much more actively malicious than Mario Party.
So, quite recently, I made the generational jump of playing Mario Kart 64 to Double Dash (MK64 and DD respectively going forward). DD makes MK64 feel like a quaint countryside drive with friends in golf caddies or tractors. MK64 is slow, but comfy, sure it has some quirks with the CPU drivers cheating, but at the same time, only utilising bananas and the odd star to inconvenience you. If the MK64 CPU is cheating, then what on earth are the DD CPU doing? You could call it levelling the playing field, which is very true to a certain extent, the CPU has access to the full assemble of Mario Kart weaponry, and they will use these items to bully you. I say this, this is exclusive to 150cc and Mirror mode, playing 50cc and 100cc invokes a cosiness that really lures you into a false sense of security. But back to what I mean by bullying, it is not out of the realm of feasibility that you will get hit by a Blue Shell, which can seemingly come into play at any point in the race, and then combo’d by a red shell or two, or as you are trying to recover you will get shunted by a heavier character and flung off course. It should be noted that getting hit by a Blue Shell will cause you to drop whatever items you have in your hands, dropping in on the track to be a hazard or bonus for other drivers. I recall a few races I did where over the course of the track the blue shell was pulled 5 times. Most tracks can be beaten in about 2 minutes, I don’t want to crunch the numbers on the odds of the Blue Shell being pulled 5 times in 2 minutes. It should also be noted that unlike later Mario Kart games, there is no in-game timer or condition other than, 4th place or worse, for the Blue Shell to be in your potential item pull. I have seen the Blue Shell come out after the first set of item boxes.
Something as a quick aside, I feel that the CPU really does have it in for you. I have been in 3rd place on the occasion and can see that 2nd has a red shell, but instead of them hitting first, they have back thrown the red shell in my general direction. That’s a pretty big waste of a red shell in my book, as you should only back throw reds if you need to disrupt an enemy’s red shell. But it is also an interesting choice on the CPU part, it seems rather evident that they are all on the same team, with the goal of making your life miserable.
It should be noted that another quirk of DD is the fact that each character pair has a unique special weapon, some of these are significantly better than others. Mario and Luigi get fireballs, that are a shotgun spread of bouncing projectiles which bounce off walls, being quite dangerous for yourself. Peach and Daisy get a heart shield, which you can’t get in the top positions, that will protect you from bananas, fake item boxes and shells, and if you have space for the item, you will claim that item. Yoshi and Birdo have eggs, that function like red shells, but when they break, they drop a random assortment of items, such as bananas, mushrooms, stars and bombs. Baby Mario and Luigi get a chain chomp, which works in a similar way to a Bullet Bill, but you are at the mercy of being attached to a chain and being pulled along, even if it might cause you to slip off the track, be careful with narrow bridges. Koopa Trooper and Paratrooper get triple shells of the red and green variety. We’ll touch on red shells in a moment… Donkey and Diddy get a jumbo banana, but that takes up a decent amount of track real estate, hitting the big banana makes it break into three normal bananas. It can be pulled in 1st place and is a great defensive weapon. Wario and Waluigi get Bob-Ombs, which can be thrown and dropped, these will explode after a few seconds or upon collision. Bowser and Bowser Jr get giant spikey shells. Like the giant banana, large track real estate and if you get hit by it, it knocks your partner driver off his perch, meaning they drop their item, and you are slowed down as you drag their body across the tarmac. Toad and Toadette get the golden mushroom, same rules apply to this as we have seen in all post Mario kart games post MK64. Then we get to secret characters, Petey Piranha and King Boo, well Toad and Toadette are also secret unlockable characters, but they aren’t horrendously broken. Petey and King Boo can get ANY of the special items, locational rules still apply, so no hearts or chain chomps in 1st place. But Big Bananas or triple red shells in 2nd place. Oh yeah, that’s “fair game” apparently. For some reason, when playing 150cc after you unlock this duo, they seem to consistently be one of your rival drivers (2nd and 3rd consistently) putting you under a constant threat of related specials, like triple red shells, eggs and bowser shells.
So, I have mentioned the red shells a fair bit, it’s important that we discuss this weapon, as it will be the bane of our existence. Unlike the earlier Mario Kart games, the red shell will follow the centre line of the track as it hunts down its target instead of trying to take the faster route possible. This means it is very unlikely to hit a wall, so even if you have a good lead on your opponents, the red shell will still do its darndest to hit you. You do get alerted when a red shell is nearby, but if you don’t have a shell or banana to defend yourself, well, you’re out of luck and you’ll most likely be hit. Sure, the way red shells could be seen to prevent people getting an insurmountable lead, but chances are, you won’t be hit by one in isolation. It might knock you off the track or interrupt your attempt at a shortcut or general corner taking. Recovery from shells also seems to take a lot longer than you’d expect, it is amazing how quickly you could lose any lead from a well-timed red shell… Or a red shell spam. I imagine the tracking of red shells was done like this because the game’s tracks tend to be quite heavy on the turns, so and traditional red shell tracking would mean it’d veer into a wall and be lost a lot of the time.
Something else that takes some getting used to, is how you drift in the game, all other Mario Kart games have you do a little hop before you go into the drift, this hop is a good indicator for the player, it is a visual guide that if you want to start drifting, you will do so after you land. In DD, you can just go straight into it. Your visual clue is that your character on the back of the kart will get into a different position to help them maintain balance during the drift. The boost you get as well, whilst can be useful, sometimes feels slightly slower than just taking a corner sharply, it is difficult to explain. Deep knowledge and control of DD’s drifting won’t come into play unless you want to take on the staff ghost times. These time trial challenges are, for lack of a better word, brutal. They are all beatable, but some will make you tear your hair out, especially tracks like Daisy Cruiser and Dino Dino Jungle, that require some flawless driving around hazards. Dino Dino Jungle, as well, there were times where I could see the ghost slowly pulling away from me, despite me feeling like I was at top speed in the community claimed optimal kart. Watching some of the ways that the Staff Ghosts chain together their drifts is something to behold. I imagine the hardcore DD scene for time trials is just insane and optimised to hell and back.
One last element of DD I feel I need to talk about is the All-Cup Tour. It is exactly as it sounds; it is a cup where you go through all the races in one sitting and can be a miserable time. Keep in mind that DD is the last Mario Kart game that only had unique tracks, there are no retro tracks here. Imagine a modern-day All-Cup Tour on MK8… Sweet Jesus. I suppose at that point you’d do a Modern All Cup and Retro All-Cup. But even then, that sounds like a potentially awful time. An All-Cup tour on DD takes about 35 – 40 minutes to complete. Doing this four times to get the full completion of DD is just a chore and not one I can wholly recommend, especially when you make the step down from doing All Cup on 150cc and Mirror to 50cc and 100cc. Unless you decided that after unlocking all Cup Tour you back peddled to 50cc and 100cc first, of which I say, what kind of maverick are you? If you are a casual player of DD, you’re probably in for a very fun time, it’s good, but if you are playing for RetroAchievements, like I am. Well, you are going to have an awful time. There are a handful of achievements to get a perfect score on each cup in each speed category. These aren’t a problem until 150cc when all hell breaks loose, and items are flying around all over the place, and this is where the issue of All-Cup Tour comes into light. Doing 16 races back-to-back, getting first in all of them, it gets quite tense if you manage to make it to Rainbow Road, and DD’s Rainbow Road is not particular forgiving. The spiral you do midway through the track that is littered with boost pads and very few railings… Yeah, that might haunt your dreams, I know I lost an All-Cup Tour perfect run because I messed up that section and couldn’t make up the distance.
As I said, DD can be a great time, it is chaotic on the higher speeds and honestly it does have some of the better tracks in the franchise, or at least they are iconic. Peach Beach, Daisy Cruiser, DK Summit, Waluigi Stadium, all very cool and fun tracks to race on. If I was just playing this one casually, I’d be having an absolute blast with it. This being said, I have been playing the game on my own, I can’t even begin to imagine the absolute madness of the game if you were playing against a friend in a 150cc Grand Prix. It is a fun game, but you have been warned, it doesn’t mess around on the highest difficulties.