Another Mario Kart 8 Booster Pass release, another older game review! We’ve reached the full 3D polygon era of Mario Kart with Double Dash!! (Yes, complete with two exclamation marks!!) and with it a lot of things now associated with the franchise, especially the multiple drift levels and mini-boosts. It also came with a team mechanic where you choose two drivers for each kart and can even do co-op, something that has been dropped from later entries… let’s take a look!
Background:
This Jurassic Park game’s a bit weird isn’t it? What’s that? Mario Kart? Oh! That makes more sense then! (Well, a bit…)
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was released exclusively on the GameCube on November 7th 2003 in Japan, November 14th 2003 in Europe and November 17th 2003 in the US, very close together but still a while away from the now-standard simultaneous release. Also odd to see Europe get the game before the US!
With having to have two racers per kart it won’t surprise you to find out that the game has a much bigger roster of playable characters, though they are permanently paired. They are Mario and Luigi, Princesses Peach and Daisy, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, Bowser and Bowser Jr., Wario and Waluigi, Yoshi and Birdo, Toad and Toadette, a Koopa Troopa and Koopa Paratroopa, Petey Piranha and King Boo and finally Baby Mario and Luigi. As for tracks you have two generic circuits this time, Luigi Circuit and the usual Mario one, a beach level, a snow level, a desert level, a realistic road level named after Toad, a Donkey Kong level, a Yoshi level (that’s literally shaped like Yoshi) and of course a Bowser’s Castle and a Rainbow Road. It also has some more unique ones though, like Daisy Cruise (a track through a cruise ship…), Dino Land (a… dinosaur land), Waluigi Stadium (more like a big indoor racing track but so long you only do two laps) and everyone’s favourite: Baby Park, which is literally a circle that you have to drive around seven times. It’s proper chaos and I still love it for that exact reason.
Gameplay:
Peach proudly shows off her upside down question mark box while clinging on for dear life.
The basics are still the same: race around a track trying to come first with the ability to pick up weapons and use them on your opponents along the way. The key differences in weapons is that you get two weapons at a time (one for each racer) and you can swap racers with the push of a button which means you can also swap between your two stored weapons freely, and each pair of racers have their own unique weapons: Mario and Luigi have fireballs, the Kongs can drops giant banana peels, the Bowsers can fire huge bowser shells, Wario and Waluigi can toss bob-ombs, the Toads have a golden mushroom that can give them a boost multiple times, the Babies have the Chain Chomp that can pull them forward and attack racers in front of them, that sort of thing. A lot of these character-specific weapons return in later games as just regular ones.
As mentioned the other major addition was that as you drift you start to see sparks on your tires and as you drift more and more it changes colour and will eventually reward you with a “mini-boost” similar to the one you get at the start of the race if you time your acceleration correctly. It took me a little while to get the hang of back in the day (leading to a long streak of getting my arse whooped by my friends who mastered it quicker than I did…) but once I did it was great fun, and still is in current games. The other change is the addition of co-op, as mentioned you can swap between the two racers in your kart at any time but if you’re playing co-op that means one person is in charge of driving while the other is in charge of weapons. It’s a fun distraction but I found competing more fun than teaming up.
You know you love Baby Park really. Be honest.
As for modes, well, once again it’s the usual suspects, like Grand Prix where you race in one of four cups (Mushroom, Flower, Star and Special) at one of three speeds/difficulties (50cc, 100cc and 150cc), with a special Mirror Mode unlocked once you clear all of them. This time though you can also unlock the “All-Cup Tour” which as it sounds means you race on all 16 tracks in a row, with Luigi Circuit always first and Rainbow Road always last with the other 14 randomly in the middle. This was pretty much all me, my friends and family played on, gives you a nice chunk of gameplay with minimum breaks. Then you have the Time Trials and VS. Mode, both of which are self-explanatory, and the Battle Mode is back with the traditional up-to-four player arena battles where each player has a set of three balloons and each time you’re hit by a weapon you lose a balloon, simple survival game.
This time though they also added three new games to Battle Mode: Co-Op Battle is the same as Battle Mode but two people can play in the same kart, with the second player able to perform an attack that actually steals balloons from opponents, Shine Thief sees you trying to keep possession of a Shine Sprite for as long as you can without it being stolen and Bob-omb Blast is a points based game with Bob-ombs to toss. I don’t remember much about these modes to be honest, once again I rarely had more than one other person to play with and we found it far more fun to race against each other rather than Battle 1-on-1. I will also mention that this game had the ability to play both regular races and Battle Mode with up to 16 people via the GameCube’s LAN cable capability, but I didn’t know anyone who even knew the GC had a LAN cable… in fact I don’t know if 19-year-old me even knew was a LAN cable was in 2003…
Graphics and Sound:
Bowser grabs a weapon while his son steers their kart around Yoshi’s arse.
The graphics were really nice for the time, cartoony level design with lots of jumps and fun twists and turns, and fully modelled 3D characters and karts. It’s the kind of style that doesn’t necessarily age, while obviously the graphics can look better (look at Mario Kart 8 versions of Double Dash!! tracks) its still perfectly fine now for a fun game like Mario Kart.
The music and sound effects are great too, lots of songs got stuck in my head over the years. I will admit that a common complaint was that the character voice-overs were obnoxious as they often repeated the same sounds/phrases every time they swapped over, and yeah… can’t deny it! Doesn’t distract too much though, not in my eyes (or ears?)
Thoughts Then:
Looking at this screenshot reminded me that this game also introduced characters dropping items like banana peels and mushrooms on the track if they get hit by certain weapons. Oh well, consider it mentioned!
I played the other Mario Karts a lot, especially 64, but Double Dash!! became a fixture for whenever friends or nephews were around for years and so I feel like I played it near to-death (just not quite as to-death as Mario Kart Wii but I’ll get to that in two-games time!) so in my mind I can’t give it anything other than a straight up 5.
Thoughts Now:
Double Dash’s Rainbow Road doesn’t really stand out design-wise, but was still fun and challenging, unlike MK8’s Rainbow Road, which is neither.
Now? It’s still perfectly playable Mario Kart with a unique two-person mechanic. While I feel the more varied courses of later games mean I’d favour them other this if someone broke out a GameCube and said “let’s play Double Dash!!” I’d happily sit down and no doubt have a great time. I feel its where the currently still-winning Mario Kart formula was finalised.
Hogan Reviews 