Mario Kart DS
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Mario Kart DS is a racing video game released in 2005 by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. It is the fifth main installment in the Mario Kart series.
Why It's A Delightful Speedway
- The first game in the Mario Kart series to include the Retro Grand Prix, which contains stages from the older Mario Kart games so this game can be fun for both new players of Mario Kart and old players.
- New unique modes, such as a mission mode, in which the player must complete some tasks to earn a certain rank, depending on their performance during the mission. It involves seven levels (which the seventh level is an unlockable level, in which the player must learn at least one-star ranking in all of the missions on each level) each containing eight "missions" and a boss battle.
- Dry Bones and R.O.B. mark their first appearance in the series as unlockable drivers, which the player will unlock respectively by obtaining a gold trophy for every 50cc Nitro Grand Prix, and obtaining a gold trophy for either every Nitro Grand Prix cup or Retro Grand Prix cup respectively.
- Shy Guy also appears in this game via Download Play.
- Over 36 different karts, to use. Each character has three karts, and each one has its advantages and disadvantages in terms of speed, drift, acceleration, etc. If the player wins all of the gold trophies in all eight 150cc cups and all cups in Mirror Mode, each character can be paired in any of the 36 karts, making 432 combinations to use.
- One of the courses in Battle mode is a Nintendo DS displaying the title screen of Mario Kart DS on the top screen.
- Most of the boss battles in Mission Mode are enemies taken from Super Mario 64 DS, like the King Bob-omb, Goomboss and King Boo.
- The player is also able to make their emblem which will show up on the kart they drive.
- Two new power-ups were introduced, which are the Bullet Bill and Blooper.
- The bottom screen shows a map of the track and can show incoming obstacles and players you normally wouldn't notice. The map can also be adjusted with the stylus to either a brief bird's view of the map or the entire track, taking advantage of the DS' double screen.
- It's the first game in the series, and, the first Nintendo game in general, to officially support online multiplayer mode, although it was limited due to being a brand-new feature from the company.
- Drifting is much easier than it was in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! It allows for snaking, which became a popular technique in Time Trials to beat new records.
- New awesome items were added to this game in contrast to its' portable prequel:
- While the Blooper is a somewhat useless item, it makes computer players swerve and is a good way to utilize the bottom screen.
- The Bullet Bill is a better version of the previous Chain Chomp because it provides invincibility from every single item, something the Chain Chomp doesn't do.
- While the Fake Item Box is pretty much useless in terms of defense, just like in Mario Kart 64, it looks similar to a real Item Box in this game, although it lacks a question mark entirely, doesn't spin, and looks red on the map.
- It has a lot of cool courses to race on, like Waluigi Pinball, DK Pass, Tick-Tock Clock, Airship Fortress, Peach Gardens, and Rainbow Road.
- Amazing soundtrack, the most famous piece being Waluigi Pinball.
- Like many Mario Kart titles, it spawned an awesome fan community that makes ROM hacks such as Mario Kart DS: Gamecube Grand Prix, Ermii Kart DS, and CTGP Nitro.
Bad Qualities
- The drifting can be done even on straight tracks, as it only needs you to press twice in the direction in which you are drifting instead of holding it for some time like in all games starting from Mario Kart Wii.
- Lackluster retro tracks. Some of the iconic tracks from the older games didn't return, but instead, the easiest tracks returned especially the Double Dash!! tracks. Thankfully, its successor brought back lots of great retro tracks.
- Another worst offender is N64 Moo Moo Farm in Shell Cup since it is the second track of Mushroom Cup in Mario Kart 64 and Luigi Raceway would have been the more worthy option since it would reflect the first tracks of Mushroom Cups in the previous 4 Mario Kart games.
- To be fair, adding Luigi Raceway would confuse with another Luigi track, GCN Luigi Circuit, even though both of them have different layouts and appearances.
- The controls are decent enough considering the system only has a D-Pad, but playing this and Mario Kart 7 back-to-back illustrates just how important an analog controller is to this type of game.
- As mentioned before, Nintendo was still clearly finding its feet with online play, which is pretty limited and reliant on the clunky "friend code" system. Matches can only be up to 4 players, 12 courses are omitted, some items are removed, and players can't drag items.
- The GCN tracks were nerfed:
- This game's rendition of Baby Park completely erases what made it so hectic in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, due to the track being made bigger and there only being 5 laps instead of 7.
- GCN Mushroom Bridge had all but one of the shortcuts removed, including the ones that go over the sides of the bridge.
- Many combinations, such as Dry Bones with the Dry Bomber kart, Waluigi in the B-Dasher, or Yoshi in the Egg 1 are extremely overpowered in this game, while karts such as Bowser's Tyrant are extremely underpowered.
- The Fake Item Box, like in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, while a bit challenging due to its appearance, is useless in terms of defense, as it cannot block items, not helping that they appear red on the bottom screen, making them easy to distinguish from normal item boxes.
- As mentioned above, the Blooper item is somewhat useless, as your opponents can see where they're going even when they are inked. Also, players can easily look at the bottom screen to see where they're going.
- Following the discontinuation of Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection on May 20, 2014, it cannot be played online without hacking or using private servers such as Wiimmfi.
- Small roster that only consists of 12 characters (13 if you count Shy Guy, who is only available in the download play version), which is 8 less than the previous title.
- Repetitive voice clips. Characters will constantly shout the same lines when they hit you, pass you or you hit them. Daisy's "WOOHOO!!" is perhaps the most infamous.
- Speaking of which, they reused a few of Mario's voice lines from Super Mario 64.
- The character models are even uglier than the ones seen in Super Mario 64 DS (Donkey Kong especially, due to how unsettling he looks in the game), if the poly were going to be reduced to makeup for the kart, well then they should have used pre-rendered sprites. of which, the DS was a 32-bit system, N64 was a 64-bit system, and yet Mario Kart 64 used pre-rendered sprites for characters because character poly would be reduced to fit with the kart, take a look here. However, to have the ability to switch karts, they should have had the characters be pre-rendered sprites while the karts were modeled.
- The music rendition of GBA Bowser Castle 2 is absolutely atrocious, as it takes all the energy out of the original Super Circuit soundtrack. Fortunately, Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 7 made better renditions.
Trivia
- When you boot up this game on the original Nintendo DS model, Mario says "Ya-hoo!", but when you boot it up on any other device (DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL, any 3DS/2DS model, or the Wii U's Virtual Console), he says "Here we go!"
Reception
Mario Kart DS was well-received by game critics upon release. It holds a Metacritic score of 91 and is also the third best-selling game for the Nintendo DS, selling 23.56 million copies worldwide.
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