A Text Review of Mario Kart Double Dash

Everyone remembers how Nintendo showed off that “realistic” Zelda back at Spaceworld 2000, only to come back a year later with The Wind Waker and piss everyone off for a good while. They had a bad habit for a while there. No one remembers that the Wave Race shown at the same event looked like a silky smooth update to the original but came back as the not-quite-that Blue Storm. And later at E3 2001, they’d pull the same shit with Mario Kart for Nintendo GameCube too.

The tiny 8 second clip just shows Mario and Luigi in banger looking Karts driving across a road hovering in the void. Just a tech demo/announcement to be sure - and it was enough for me, just to know it was coming. But the wait was a long one, and when it reappeared in 2003, it was just as much of a head scratcher as Zelda. 2 racers on a kart sounded cool I guess? But what the hell are these prams they’re driving?!

Still, I don’t remember that change deflating my hype all that much. No, it wasn’t until a first playtest snuck out. If I remember correctly, a couple days before the E3 that year, some publication broke the embargo and the story was worrying. They revealed that game felt slow and the tracks had gotten wider again too. They weren’t sure if the dual driver mechanic was just a gimmick either.

Hype deflating. At least around this time, F-Zero GX was already blowing minds, so I figured my itch for speed would be scratched there. Mario Kart’s about playing with friends and items anyway I thought! Unfortunately… by this time, all my Mario Kart playing friends had dispersed. Only my main buddy remained but even he was teetering on the brink of family life at that point.

Still, it’s not like I wasn’t going to buy it. By 2003 I had a job and money, and so it was purchased. I don’t remember buying it at all though. I don’t even remember much about playing it single player. All I can really recall is the less than 10 times I managed to pull my buddy away from his soon to be wife long enough to get a few games in.

Neither of us were that impressed though. It just didn’t feel right. They got rid of the jumps when skidding, which sounds like a minor change, but just makes it feel completely different. The items were everywhere now. Massive character-specific ones that exploded into smaller ones that were still huge, littered the track. Some courses were too wide and yet some corners were too sharp where it seemed like the skids were ill-equipped to get around them. We didn’t like Co-Op since both of us wanted to race!

We just weren’t having fun, and so it all fizzled out. It absolutely did not help that F-Zero GX had come out just a month earlier and completely blown me away. This was one case of Sega upstaging Nintendo that I’ll never forget!

I always put the blame on our lives, rather the game, for the reason we didn’t get into it. It wasn’t until Mario Kart DS came out and hooked me all over again that I looked back at Double Dash and thought - you know, it was just kinda crap. To the bottom of the list ye go!

And so it would remain for a long time. You should know by now that it doesn’t sit well with me, to not give a game a fair shake though. I can’t have the middle-agers who grew up with this version scolding me for not giving it the time of day, you know. Now, with the clarity that only comes from being a near-geezer can i deliver a proper verdict - at least from a lonesome single player perspective.

Replaying it 20+ years later does have its advantages. It’s easy to watch some world records and learn about the advanced techniques those players use. Some of the stuff I’d have figured out myself had I spent enough time back in the day, perhaps. But some of it is also beyond me as a player even now, and I don’t think a game should be judged too much on the intricacies of quirks in its programming - which is often hard to tell if even intended by the developers.

One thing I must admit to not realising, is that the mini-turbo mechanics did in fact change from Mario Kart 64. You see, the manual describes it exactly as it was in MK64 - tilt the stick in the opposite direction of the turn, then into the turn, then opposite again. In actuality, you only need to tap the opposite direction, return the stick to neutral, and then tap the opposite direction again. This means a simple double tap is all that’s required to build the charge, and as a result you can more quickly and reliably chain the mini-turbos than before.

You can also hold a line around a corner with greater precision once you understand how exiting the mini-turbo works. In Mario Kart 64, your mini-turbo would often send you towards the inside of the corner and so you’d have to straighten out to give yourself space before starting a second skid. In this game, holding towards the inside of the curve will send your kart boosting to the opposite direction. It sounds counter intuitive, and takes a bit of getting used to, but the end result is smooth consecutive mini-turbos while hugging a corner, which feels great.

I mentioned an issue with MK64’s controls in my review for that, which is not really a problem here. I think it’s resolved partly due to the skids not starting with a jump. Now, you can quickly alternate skid directions. I feel like that must have been the motivation for removing the jump, if only because I can’t think of any other reason why they did it. It still feels kind of unnatural not to jump, considering all the other games do! This change also makes “Snaking”, ie performing consecutive mini-turbos on a straight more feasible than it was in MK64 - if your hands are up for, which mine are not!

One thing about the controls still bothers me as much as it did originally though - regular steering is too twitchy. What do I mean by twitchy? Well, pushing the analog stick even slightly makes your kart stick out its backend. It’s more reminiscent of a skid than the directional adjustment you’d expect. The result is that it becomes difficult to drive with much accuracy, so you find yourself hitting things you should have easily avoided, missing things you should have easily hit. Tight gaps become a big risk to go for and it’s more advisable to head straight for something and then skid into or around it at the last minute, than try and aim beforehand.

Why did they do this? I think they simply wanted more mistakes to happen - a balancing of the playfield between seasoned karters and new players (at least for a time). It does work, but it also just doesn’t feel great. You can notice the difference immediately if you switch between this and MKWii, which is otherwise very similar controlling, only with typical directional adjustment.

Another major change from past games is you no longer have the ability to drag items behind you. As you can imagine, that makes protecting yourself a fair bit trickier! They’ve adjusted for this by having incoming attacks sort of hover behind you before hitting you - leaving you some brief time to shoot your item backwards into them. In some cases you can even outrun the attacks and see them fly off of your tail.

Overall though, the way items are handled make for far more chaotic races than before. There’s dedicated special weapons for each driver that are all really strong. Bowser for instance fires an enormous shell that is so big, it’s hard even for yourself to avoid. Triple Green and Red shells are relegated to the Koopas - so you’d think there’d be less shells around the course, but since items can get knocked off of players and remain stationery on the course now, that’s not the case. The abundance of track hazards can make getting around unscathed very difficult - which also of contributes to this game feeling slower at times. Mushrooms and Stars can also end up on the course and driven into to get their benefits. You can also have your items stolen if you get hit by a driver in some situations.

The ability to pick up two items (and swap between them) adds a little strategy - most of the time you’ll want to switch in order to grab a second item, or if you want to save something good - but that’s about it. Racing skill still plays a sizable part in determining who wins, but all the item changes have increased the amount of luck involved to a degree that at times, can feel a bit much.

The amount of skill vs luck is something that’s course dependent though. Let’s go through the courses then! Reference at Mario Wiki. 

Luigi Circuit
This course is reminiscent of 64 Luigi’s Raceway in a figure 8 layout, with the main difference being the mid-section is now unfenced, and so you’ll often come head to head with other racers. Which sure increases the likelihood someone will hit you with something! There’s a shortcut mid-lap but you’ll have to avoid the giant chain chomp. The 2 winding corners are somewhat perplexing in their design, having an inside line, a banked section with turbos, and another chunk of road beyond that. Who is going up there?! Those turbos are one of the first instances of a Mario Kart track making it a bit vague what the best line to take is. Why reward the player who went wide?

Peach Beach
A bit like 64 Koopa Troopa beach, with a sand strip shortcut and very annoying Cataquack enemies from Mario Sunshine that always seem to find a way to wiggle into your path.

Baby Park
The most surprising course in the game is this tiny loop that goes for 7 laps rather than the standard 3. It’s nothing but item chaos, but it’s of the good variety where no cares when they lose because of it.

Dry Dry Desert
This course has windy roads that are great for mushroom shortcuts. There’s also lots of hills that’ll make you wish you could jump, and the dreaded giant sand pit straight out of Return of the Jedi. This one will suck you down in short time compared to later versions.

Mushroom Bridge
Nintendo tried their hands at another traffic based course and kind of failed again. It’s not as long as Toad’s Turnpike, which is good, but now the traffic is coming at you as well, which is bad. Coupled with the new handling, it can be a challenge not to get hit, so you’ll want to take the shortcut mid-lap. The finish line is preceded by a long straight over the bridge which leaves little room for avoiding shells fired your way. You can ride up the tiny sides of the bridge for a string of turbos - but you don’t seem to come out much if any ahead by doing so. More often than not you’ll fall off and lose the race instead!

Mario Circuit
After the brilliant 64 Mario Raceway, how does this one fare? Well there’s good opportunities for chaining mini-turbos, and taking shortcuts over the grass. The end of the lap is a minefield of Goombas though, which can ruin a race real quick. It can be a tough course to win on with the tighter roads once items are covering the track.

Daisy Cruiser
Right at the start, you’ll have to remind yourself that you can’t drive through water yet. A spin down some steps leads to a dining room with moving tables. You have to think quick to devise a safe path. Afterwards there’s some sharp corners with an optional/punishment route through the lower decks. Every time i fall down there by mistake I wonder why they didn’t make it the normal route instead. It’d be a lot more fun diving down that hole if you didn’t smack into the wall ahead and drop to a complete stop.

Waluigi Stadium
A shorter and even more Excitebikey interpretation of the ideas in 64 Wario Stadium. This course has jumps that seem purpose-laid to mess with your skidding line. There’s a shortcut through mud followed by a section with alternating piranha plants coming out of pipes, and fire bars for the first time in the series. The final hairpin needs a good line to get around without touching the dirt, and once you’re around, better hope you don’t get hit with an item over the jump, this time right at the finish line!

Sherbet Land
The snow is really thick now, so if you go off course, you’re slowing down heaps. The cave mid-way through has banks along the sides that will fling you in the air if you skid at them wrong. It’s a lot tighter than the caves in 64 Sherbet Land were, but there’s no penguins at least. The final section is incredibly slippery and there’s ice blocks that’ll freeze you if you hit them, sending you sliding.

Mushroom City
Not content with one traffic course, we’ve got a second one that’s even worse. It’s too dark to see most of the alternate routes or the traffic barreling towards you as you swing around the tight corners, which sucks the fun right out of this course.

Yoshi Circuit
And straight after that we have the best course in the game? Which was in all likelihood stumbled upon by complete chance considering it’s just the outline of a Yoshi! Tight winding corners are everywhere to put your skids to the test. It feels fast as heck with not a moment to spare before the next one comes along. Playing this course makes the game feel great to drive, but those tight roads do get filled up with items quickly just like Mario Circuit.

DK Mountain
The cannon course element makes its first appearance here. I’ve always felt that it’s not much fun to go up - you’re just waiting to land - but it is good fun to go down. In this game though, the bumpy mountain will throw you around quite a bit, and you need to make sure you have a good line into the final few turns, where you can only really make them by riding up the walls in a somewhat awkward fashion.

Wario Collosseum
Wario still got a long course with this one. There’s barriers along most of it so it’s more reminiscent of 64 Rainbow Road than the old Wario Stadium. The few areas with gaps can be killers though, since they’re usually preceded by jumps, and the lack of control in the air can spell your doom.

Dino Dino Jungle
This course has a theme that doesn’t seem like it belongs, but dinosaurs are cool so we’ll forgive that. What we can’t forgive is the… unforgiving nature of the layout. That big dino right at the beginning? He just doesn’t want to move his feet when you’re coming through. And the shockwaves still get you if he does! Make it through unscathed and you’re presented with 3 paths. On the minimap, it’s hard to tell which one is best, but it’s almost assuredly the first right that leads to a tiny, near impossible to take at speed bridge. Take a wider path and still take it slow, cause a dip in the drink will probably cost you the race. Make it over the bridges and you have to contend with water spouts on a banked curve. One wrong mini-turbo here can send you down the chasm. To the right is a shortcut if you’ve got a mushroom. You’re on the final stretch but there’s one more skinny bridge and a dino nose to avoid, followed by another of those corners that seems too tight for the handling, some jumps to throw you off course, and finally more water spouts. Phew! This one definitely belongs in the Special Cup.

Bowser’s Castle
Bowser’s castle didn’t get the wider tracks memo, since now you have a whole 1 kart width to sneak past the Thwomps. The old bridge is now a tricky forked road where the middle will send you into the lava. A long sharp curve reminiscent of 64 is followed by several sharp corners. The walls are safe to bounce off of here, but not in the next section where you have to dodge the enormous fireball being fired at you. There’s a tight hairpin after that and a jump to the finish.

Rainbow Road
Taking a bit of inspiration from both SMK and MK64, we have a long course with a lot of edges to fly off. There’s some barriers, but not where you’d need them, like on the first few hairpins. Make sure to skid perfectly to cut to their inside. Launching down you approach the hardest part of the course - it looks simple, just hit a few boosts one after the other. But they’re on a banked curve with no walls, and the physics of your falling kart will fight you every time you touch a direction. If you make it through unscathed there’s a couple zig zag turns then it’s clean sailing to the finish line.

I recall even at the time, feeling a bit shortchanged with just 16 courses again. 6 years had passed since MK64, and the amount of content hadn’t really expanded at all. It compared very poorly to F-Zero GX which had 26 in GP alone, and more in Story mode (each offering differing types of gameplay too) - not even counting all the extra stuff outside of that. It’s similar to MK64, where there are some real average, a bunch of decent, and a few excellent tracks.

MKDD did add a LAN mode that noone got a chance to play, and the Co-Op ability. With Co-op you can at least bring 3 or 4 people into GP mode now. The one new addition I really like is the All Cup Tour, which lets you run through all 16 courses with just the first and last in set order. It can be more of a challenge than you’d think given another small change from all past entries - the point spread is now different. Previous games had 9, 6, 3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, whereas this has 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. This has the effect of making it harder to get a points lead than before - a bad finish can really cost you. I guess they added points for 5th-7th to make those players feel good? Either way, I remember this being where me and my friend spent the most time.

Unfortunately I don’t recall how I felt about Battle Mode - can only guess we didn’t play it much then. I will say it’s good they had 6 instead of 4 courses, but I couldn’t tell you if any of them are fun to play on.

Double Dash is an odd game to revisit since this would be the last time we’d have mini-turbo charging on consoles, so in a way it has value in that. It almost looks like a modern Mario Kart (just in low resolution) but it plays differently enough (with different item balance too) to still be worth revisiting. However, its tracks are kind of a mixed bag, and several have been remade in newer games (so they at least look better). It leaves it with not much to offer these days.

I do think it’s a better playing game than I felt it was when I got it. But there’s no question it was an average release in the face of F-Zero GX, which was just a far better package, even if it doesn’t scratch the Mario Kart itch. This was the first time I felt like Mario Kart had gotten a bit predictable and felt kind of stale. It’s weird because the next release, Mario Kart DS - is just a whole lot more Mario Kart again, but it definitely left a much better impression on me. Until next time!