‘Mario Kart: Double Dash’ and the Peaks of the Early GameCube Days
‘Mario Kart 64’ was Nintendo’s first 3D racing game, but in 2003 ‘Mario Kart: Double Dash’ perfected the formula
This was a piece I put together last year that feels like a relevant one to reshare with all of the zeitgeist around Nintendo’s new console and Mario Kart World. There’s a significant memoir component to it, so it may still be a fun read even if you’re not much of a gamer. I should also mention (and I think I may give people a more formalized tutorial on how to do this if there’s still any confusion) that you can receive emails about only specific topics moving forward. My profile is arranged into “sections,” so whether politics, memoirs, satire, entertainment, or anything else, you can toggle the topics on or off. Thanks as always for reading!
In the early days of video games, the advancements between each new generation were too enormous to miss. Just as smartphones saw seismic leaps between each new iteration in the beginning days of the iPhone and Android only to gradually level off as the years have gone by, the differences between console generations today are indiscernible to the untrained eye.
For the more casual gamer, it’s not easy to tell the sorts of changes that have been made between the PlayStation 4 Pro (2016) and the PlayStation 5 (2020). As a child, I wouldn’t have appreciated the distinctions at all. It would have taken a monocle, a Sherlock Holmes pipe, and more patience than I had within my entire being to perceive the difference between 60 and 120 frames per second. Even as an adult, I’m not totally convinced I can.
But to graduate from a Nintendo Entertainment System to a Super Nintendo, or from a Super Nintendo to a Nintendo 64 was like stepping into a brave new digital realm. To tear the wrapping off of a new Nintendo console on Christmas morning was to experience an unparalleled elation — perhaps best encased in this time capsule of a reaction video from the early days of YouTube.
Receiving a giant present beneath the Christmas tree one momentous holiday in the mid-2000s, I ravenously stripped the wrapping from the box. As Nintendo characters began poking their head through the patterned paper, I tossed the torn shreds haphazardly behind me and let them confetti to the floor.
Once the box’s contents could no longer be contested, a primal ecstasy overtook me. I let out an irrepressible, window-shattering shriek of excitement before leaping acrobatically into the air with the most authentic Mario noise I could muster. “Wahoo!” reverberated between the walls of my living room and perplexed our recently acquired puppy.
It was the Mario Kart: Double Dash GameCube bundle.
But adding bliss to beatitude was the used copy of Super Smash Brothers Melee that fell fortuitously to the floor as I continued unwrapping the cardboard box that glimmered with heavenly grace.
At 8 years old, there was no disputing the technical hurdles between the Nintendo 64 days and the lunchbox-shaped bliss of the Nintendo GameCube. It was an item worthy of a pedestal — a fact that Nintendo had apparently come to appreciate by the release of the Wii a few years later.
While the former game system represented Nintendo’s first foray into the wonky world of 3D graphics, this follow-up console marked when they’d finally begun perfecting the formula. In-game camera systems still had a fair ways to go, but gone were the days when a poorly deliberated button press resulted in you staring irretrievably off into a polygonal oblivion.
Super Smash Brothers Melee was a colossal step forward from the cartoonish fighting game predecessor that was released only a few years prior. With more stages, modes, and characters to choose between, it was enough to leave me feeling like a kid in the candy store for the first few months playing.
But perhaps no game was a greater display of the tech giant’s innovation than Mario Kart: Double Dash. While the jump between Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo and Mario Kart 64 was enough to bring the concept of a 3D racer to life, many might be surprised to learn it wasn’t all that well-received upon its initial release. It wouldn’t be until years later that it would achieve a cult-status level of appreciation and assume a spot in the catalogue of any dorm-bound college kid looking to win the respect of their peers.
For all that the first 3D kart racer offered, though, it was hard to deny that it had its limitations. It was the first to give a glimpse into what the franchise would ultimately become, but Mario Kart: Double Dash was the first to induce vertigo with its frenzied, high-octane thrills.
True to its name, Mario Kart: Double Dash allows each player to load their kart with two separate characters. The staple red, green, and blue shells from prior game iterations are still there — and this time the blue shell is equipped with a terrifying set of wings and the apparent ability to travel at warp speed. But what distinguishes the game most meaningfully is each character’s special ability.
Donkey Kong tosses tent-sized bananas on the track that violently slip up every driver who makes contact with the precarious peels.
Bowser’s special ability sees him launching fully-realized-flying-saucer-shaped-shells-with-spikes at unsuspecting passersby. Mario and Luigi shoot fire from their gloves, while their Baby Mario and Luigi counterparts boast the ability to be violently pulled through the track by a raging, unstoppable chain chomp that tramples everything in its path.
We can also create discordant dream teams, pairing Nintendo’s most famous damsel in distress with the giant-shell-shooting, fire-breathing dragon perpetually pursuing her. We can place super-powered babies with binkies into the same vehicles as towering, carnivorous Petey Piranha Plants.
The culminating chaos is something to behold.
The game hurls you instantly and unapologetically into cart-confined pandemonium. The sheer extent of graphic revelry and disorder it creates distinguishes the racing game from each iteration that has been released in the series since. And while it’s true that each of the games up to this point was defined by significant improvements (sparing Mario Kart: Super Circuit, of course), Mario Kart: Double Dash represented a pinnacle point of virtual racing games that Nintendo arguably never surpassed.
Many tracks have since become franchise favorites — including “Peach Beach,” “Baby Park,” “Dry Dry Desert,” “Mushroom Bridge,” “Daisy Cruiser,” “Waluigi Stadium,” “Wario Colosseum,” “Yoshi Circuit,” “DK Mountain,” and “Dino Dino Jungle.” The generation’s take on “Bowser’s Castle” and the “Rainbow Road” courses have also gone on to hold enduring spots in the hearts of fans.
With all of the lovably inescapable chaos that a kart packed with two characters allowed, the game achieved a frenetic pace and marked a seismic acceleration from its predecessors. In 2014, Mario Kart 8 introduced a few exciting shifts to the formula, but there’s likely no game from the growing series that’s aged better than Mario Kart: Double Dash.
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Mario Kart may be my favorite Nintendo game. I bet you're good, but I'd be willing to challenge you. But don't you dare pick Yoshi; he's mine!