Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

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JaySevenZero
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Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can leave your thoughts regarding Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
xbenblasterx

Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by xbenblasterx »

They always say 'your first Mario Kart is also your favorite' and this certainly rings true for me. Double Dash was the sole game included in the bundle when i first got my Game Cube and being the young kid that i was at the time it was many months until i recieved another game and so many hours of Double Dash were played, many enjoyable hours. I must have experimented with every possible duo before finally setteling on my best partnership of Baby Mario and regular Luigi. I raced those tracks time and time again, discovering all the hidden routes and besting the ai on every difficulty.

There have been better iterations of Mario Kart in the series, but Double Dash will forever be my favorite.
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Steve Arran
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Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by Steve Arran »

Double Dash is quite possibly my favourite instalment of Mario Kart. I had played the original on the Super Nintendo as a lad but had missed the N64 iteration due to my teenage jump to the playstation. I would’ve loved to have had two consoles, but they were hella expensive back then for a kid with no disposable income! Consequently, at nineteen years old, studying abroad, and playing on a then girlfriends Gamecube, made Double Dash my first experience with a 3D Mario Kart. And it was everything that I could have wanted it to be, with the added bonus of playing with an awesome lady in the driver or co pilot seat.

At the time the graphics seemed to ping with almost Pixar levels of gorgeousness. These were the characters as I had wanted them to look on the SNES, and they moved as fast as lightning in comparison to the 16bit original. The best part was that there were dozens to choose from, and they could be used in any combination that a lapsed Nintendo fanboy could imagine. I can remember being ridiculously OCD with my choices at first: Mario and Luigi, Toad and Toadette etc. There was no way Wario and Princess Peach were going to team up, it just seemed wrong! But, after a while, when I’d played this game for more hours than I think is healthy, my selections relaxed and I began to make up mini narratives for myself. Maybe Mario and Bowser were working together to ensure that Donkey Kong, back to his old barrel throwing plumber squashing tricks* didn’t win the tournament and carpet the mushroom kingdom with endless banana plantations. It could happen! That race has to have prize money! Maybe Big Boo was driving around having possessed Yoshi’s cart because he wanted revenge against another driver who had killed him in a previous race. Dark stuff, I know, but I had a lot of time on my hands!

My go to choice, however, ended up being the red and green koopers, driving around in either the red or green kooper car, depending on my mood. They were slick and speedy and I liked to imagine them as the plucky underdogs, trying to make a name for themselves and get out from under the yoke of their King Kooper master. I became quite expert at boosting around the many brilliantly designed tracks with those little guys. This wasn’t really down to skill, more because I was at university abroad, and had nothing much to do with my time once my classes had ended other than get good at this game.

And boy did this thing have plenty to get good at. Time trials, mirror mode, battle areas, I relished them all. My then girlfriend actually got really annoyed as I’d gotten better at the game than her - though she did much better in her uni work than I did so it was a fair trade off I’d say. On occasions when we’d face off on the race track(pretty much every night), if I really wanted to rub my newfound skill set in I’d choose a Wario WaLuigi combo. Nothing adds insult to injury more than being beaten in battle mode by those two sleazeballs. However, as much as we would faux argue over a cheeky blue shell deployment or a banana stealthily slipped inside a bonus item box, we would always go back to playing combo mode, and unleashing our skills on the unsuspecting racers of the mushroom kingdom. If only we could have played this online! We would have conquered worlds.

Mario Kart Double Dash reminds me of an amazing time in my life, where the summer days were as vibrant as the GameCube's graphics and life was as simple as a spin around The Baby Park. I have yet to go back to any other iteration of Mario Kart, or back to the place where I studied abroad. The latest games do look as vibrant and as fun Double Dash though. Maybe now I’m an adult I can justify spending money on more than one console? Or maybe I’ll spend it on a flight to the good old US of A and relive some of my college days. I could always take a Nintendo Switch with me :)


*yes, I know, he’s not the same Donkey Kong.
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by ReprobateGamer »

Double Dash was the first Mario Kart I owned - at the time of writing in July 2018, it remains the only Mario Kart I've owned.

The character swop mechanic was a great addition to kart racers, and my choice became the very aggressive Red Koopa/Baby Bowser combo on Waluigi's cart ... anyone playing against me quickly learned to hate Baby Park ... but this was one of a few games around that timespan where I could just randomise my characters and still stand a good chance of winning against most people (Crash Team Racing and Tekken 3 were two others)

The drift mechanism was easily picked up and I remember being surprised as different cup types kept being unlocked - a friend coming over was surprised that the title screen on my copy was not the same as his and he couldn't get the idea that the title screen would change if you had completed the game.

There was a gap of several years where this was collecting dust and I've recently come back to it as my daughters are now old enough to hold a game cube controller - it's been very disappointing to me that I'm struggling to time my drifts at 100cc, though I think having my youngest as the second character on the same kart may have something to do with that as we used to play solo control almost exclusively. Graphics are showing their age but actually hold up reasonably well and the music is the upbeat bop it always was.

The battle mode was fine but limited - the races having much more appeal than the few maps where you could try to pop balloons.

It's nice to come back to this game and have it actually hold up to the nostalgia filter - the character swop feature hasn't been in the series since and whilst I have tried both the 3DS and Kart Wii (on the wiimote control "shudder") I find the controls on Double Dash to be the most responsive and the game generally to be much more enjoyable to play than either those titles. I find also the original now to be just a little restrictive - I wonder how much of this is because Double Dash is my 'first' ...

Not owning a Switch (yet?) means I don't see this changing from being my favourite at this time but I think it certainly stands as a decent kart racer and worth keeping the Wii (or even a gamecube) for

(Contraversial) Three Word Review - More Big Shells
nath_h

Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by nath_h »

My first and overriding memory of this brilliant game comes from a house party at a friend who was away at university in Bournemouth. He was in to his second year of university and had arranged a massive house party, no idea what the occasion was but he was a student so there probably wasn't one. Anyway, me and four of my mates made our separate trips down to Bournemouth, to re-unite the Magic 6 (the epic name for our friendship group).

Upon meeting, we were in the games room and booting up the Gamecube, I will never forget how much I loved that console. At this time (circa 2009), there were newer consoles available but upon seeing Double Dash on the side, having never played it (somehow), it had to go in the console straight away. What followed was an epic session of catching up and gaming between six great friends, a friendship which lasted through as many blue shells as the night could throw at us.

Anyway, the following night was the house party. The party was in full swing and after meeting many new faces and drinking a lot of beer all I could think of was that I wanted to get back on Mario Kart. Me and one of my likeminded friends headed back to the games room and the room was packed with party guests who were deep into a Mario Kart session. We joined in as soon as we could grab a pad. Soon another of my close friends joined. Then another...then another. Soon all six of us were in the room and we had driven out every person originally in there.

I'll never forget when we realised that we had driven everyone out. We just didn't care. We had four control pads, six eager players, an endless supply of beer and some blue shells. What a weekend.
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matten zwei
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Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by matten zwei »

Double Dash might by the worst Mario Kart for me. Okay, I haven't played 7 nor 8, but I'm sure, I prefer those over this one, since it doesn't have this awkward two-driver-mechanic. It's one of those things Nintendo did, during the GameCube-Era, where they appealed to the Hardcore-gamer and tried to innovate their franchises, like Star Fox, Metroid, Smash Bros, Mario Sunshine, Windwaker and almost forgot the strengths of the series. In some cases it turned out well, in others I didn't enjoy it as much. The following and more casual-focused games on the Wii shows, that I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Somehow, I found having two-drivers with each their Items, way to complicated and distracting. As if the Tracks weren't challenging enough (especially the boat, with its sliding interior) I had to manage which character was driving and which item I wanted to use or hold. It's a perfect example for, why textdriving is so dangerous, because you can't do both properly at the same time.

I liked some of the new tracks, like the one where you drive in a circle for 8 laps. Unispired, sure, but considering all the tasks you're dealing with, while driving, this track is forgiving.

I think the Babymario-characters are extremely unnecessary for the franchise and very unrelatable. I'd rather pick a carnivorous plant in a steamtrain than a babyplumber in a pram.
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Alex79
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Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by Alex79 »

I don't have a lot to say about this, other than that it was the game that got me back in to console gaming after a few years with just a PC. I'd not owned a console since the PS1, but when I saw the Gamecube bundle with Mario Kart I knew I had to have it. I got it for Christmas, and had hours of fun reacquainting myself with the game I'd loved to death on the SNES. I remember thinking it looked so gorgeous - it still does - but I also remember thinking it felt a bit weird not being able to jump with the trigger buttons! Regardless, the game served me well and the Gamecube went on to be one of my favorite consoles.
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duskvstweak
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Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by duskvstweak »

Mario Kart: Double Dash won back some of the good favor I had towards the series, after I was disappointed by the transition from Super Mario Kart to Mario Kart 64. The courses in Double Dash felt tighter than the 64 game, the racing a bit more hectic. The double rider mechanic brought back that feeling of chaos I remember from the SNES days. I even find, while playing the new Mario Kart on the Switch, that I miss double rider option and I'm surprised it didn't remain as a series standard.
Double Dash was never a game I played on my own, alone. But, if I was a friend's house or a party, I would gladly pick up a controller and race along with others.
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brazenhead89
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Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by brazenhead89 »

The Gamecube has become my favourite console of all-time, thanks to it introducing me to Nintendo properties I'd otherwise never explored. Some of these, such as Paper Mario, Wind Waker and Metroid Prime, would go on to be some of my all-time favourite games.
Whilst Mario Kart: Double Dash is not a favourite - as it'll be a cold day in hell before a racing game inspires me the way those other titles do - it was yet another introduction to a Nintendo franchise I'd neglected for too long, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get hours upon hours of enjoyment from it. Coordinating character switches in co-op mode, or battering my profanity-spewing friends with red shells on tracks such as Baby Circuit never ceased to delight, and if you load up my game save today, you'll likely still see the alternative title screen, unlocked once you beat absolutely everything the game has to offer. This is a title we most certainly caned and rinsed.
Weirdly, I've neglected any other entries into the series, despite their high praise. A part of me wants to preserve my memories of Super Circuit as peerless, nostalgic brilliance. It wasn't until a recent visit to the Cambridge B-Movie and Retro Gaming Festival that I finally found my excuse to revisit Double Dash; there, opposite the show floor's comfy four-seater sofa, was a Gamecube and a copy of Double Dash, perfectly set up for 4-player multiplayer. Hiding all prior knowledge of the game from my companions, I casually challenged them to a race, cruelly set the speed to 150cc, and proceeded to thoroughly obliterate my hapless chums as I tore around the maps untouched. Not very sporting, but it was blissfully reassuring that over a decade later, I still knew the tracks like the backs of my proverbial hands.
Having got my hands on a Switch last month, I think it's high time I finally dived into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It may not be new and exciting like that first dip into Double Dash, but I think I'm long overdue those raucous multiplayer nights and the joy of memorising those tracks to perfection.
Hevi_Metaru

Re: 344: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Post by Hevi_Metaru »

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - double the trouble!

The Gamecube had two of the most awesome multiplayer games that I ever played: Melee and Double Dash.

Double Dash's unique mechanics of having two characters in one kart, really made this a special entry in the series for me. Being able to swap between both characters in the same cart, allowed the game an additional layer of strategy not seen in previous entries (or later ones for that matter). Two characters offered you the ability to switch weapons on the fly; which meant you could save your special moves (more on that later) when you needed them most. Two characters also gave a great co-op aspect to the game, therefore allowing a second (potentially lesser skilled) player to join in the fun and hurl green shells to their heart's content. The combination of your characters also factors in to the type of kart you receive.

There is a kart for everyone in this game. If you want something heavy, grab the "Koopa King". If you wish for something a little lighter, the "Turbo Yoshi" and "Rattle Buggy" have got you covered. Each kart handles differently, so experiment to see which kart is best for your play style.
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The "Koopa King" - king of speed!

When it comes to courses, these aren't as memorable as they are in other Mario games for me personally. "Baby Park"
with its simple oval makes for a lot of frantic games, lest we forget "Dino Dino Jungle" with the pesky dinosaurs or "DK Mountain" with its spewing lava balls of death. The other tracks aren't bad at all regarding their track design, just not as memorable for me personally.
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"Baby Park" - so many hours were spent on this simple track!

A special shout-out to the battle mode in this game, I had so much fun with my friends, thanks to fighting on top of a giant Gamecube.
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There are a variety of "special items" in this game, each of them being character specific. For example, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong can get the "Giant Banana" whilst Mario and Luigi can each receive "Fireballs" (one red and one green for the plumber brothers respectively.) My favourite has to be Baby Mario and Luigi's "Chain Chomp" special ability, gnashing at the other racers as you plough through their ranks, with the Chain Chomp eventually breaking free and wrecking havoc across the track.
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"Chain Chomp" - clearly one of the best power-ups in the game ;)

Listening to the music makes you feel so upbeat, just that opening title rack alone puts a smile on your face with its chirpy whistles and trumpets!

Thank you Double Dash!! for all of the amazing memories. Now, where is that HD Remaster of Double Dash!! on Switch?
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