13 Points on Mario Kart DS - Nintendo - 2005 [Nintendo DS]

1. Before buying Mario Kart DS, I convinced myself it would somehow be something of a forgotten  gem in the series and I would fall in love w/ it instantly and completely.... Right. It's a Mario Kart game and I like it a lot but I don't know what I was thinking.

2. This was a big deal when it came out because it was the first Mario Kart game you could play online. But now you can't so who cares.

3. Playing Mario Kart single player is a good time but not as much fun as playing w/ other people. If you hang out w/ people who still play Mario Kart DS, I reckon I'd probably get along w/ your group pretty well so give me a call sometime and I will fulfill my lifelong dream of having real life friends.

4. If you don't know the Mario Kart drill, the way it works is you play as a Nintendo character and drive a go kart through various themed tracks. You get power-up items along the way and you can use them for things like speed boots or, more frequently, to attack your rival racers. It adds an element of chaos to your standard racing mechanics and anyone who doesn't think Mario Kart is fun is a complete idiot.

5. The other Mario Kart staple is battle mode. This puts the focus completely on using the power ups to attack other players and is done in arenas especially designed for this. It is a blast when playing against friends locally but it loses its magic even during online play so, needless to say, playing vs. AI opponents is pretty much a drag--and that's what you are going to be stuck w/ when I steal all your DS-playing friends.

6. Going back to 1, the reason I was so excited about Mario Kart DS is its single player mission mode, which is the first and only time Mario Kart had such a thing. It is nice to have a few challenges outside of racing and going up against AI in battle mode but, to put it bluntly, these challenges just aren't all that fun and there's really no story added or anything else to keep you interested.

7.  For the racing, which is really Mario Kart's bread and butter, there are eight cups, which are groups of four races a piece. Half of these are new, half are classic tracks from old Mario Kart games. The old tracks from the GBA and SNES games are completely flat w/ no raises or dips in elevation in the terrain but, even so, all the tracks play well and the classic tracks feel like a real bonus rather than cut-and-paste content.

8. What's really interesting about this is, graphically, a lot of them are downgraded to run on the DS. Ever wondered what Double Dash would look like as an extra-pixelated N64 game? Here's your chance.

9. There are three difficulty modes which are tied to your kart engine size. The higher modes feature not only faster carts but more ruthless AI. The challenge scales well and even as an experienced player I find myself struggling on the harder modes and the easier ones are still fun and satisfying despite being beatable by small children.

10. Only two of four circuits at each difficulty level are unlocked to start and you have to win at the first two to start unlocking the second two. I can never figure why that is. There's no story here, just give me my content. This said, the extra characters and karts that are unlocked by getting first place in every race add a nice extra incentive to keep replaying.

11. This has the same inherent problem and strength as every Mario Kart game. The items are random but balanced towards giving better items to people in the back of the pack. In multi-player, this is awesome. It means your little cousins have a chance of beating you even if you don't let them win. It means when your friends who don't really play games come over, they can win and it's fun for everyone. In single player mode, it gets to be a real drag when you are just grinding for cups and unlocks. Esp. at more difficult levels, it means you not only have to play very, very well, you also need some degree of luck when all is said and done which ends up feeling like cheap way to pad play time.

12. Those wanting a purer racing experience are not entirely out of luck though. There is a time trial mode in which you are only given three speed boosts to start and that's it. Many of the tracks are littered w/ little shortcuts, some of which can only be accessed using the speed boosts so it's satisfying to explore and find the best way through as well as challenge yourself to shave just a few seconds of your times just by executing everything perfectly. It's unfortunate there's no multi-payer version of this but, you know, there is no online anymore anyway so no big deal I guess.

13. Don't get me wrong, Mario Kart DS is a great game. It delivers everything you want in a single-player Mario Kart experience. I just don't see why anyone should want to buy this version specifically unless the DS is the only Nintendo handheld you have or you are otherwise just collecting for the system. I guess you might pick this over the GBA version as the racing is quite a bit more forgiving than in that one but otherwise the home console versions are simpler for local multiplayer and Mario Kart 7 and 8 both still offer online play as of the writing of this in March, 2018. I wouldn't tell you not to buy Mario Kart DS but I don't think it's all that great as an intro to the series.