(Originally published to Glitchwave on 8/12/2025)
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Mario Kart DS
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre(s): Kart Racer
Platforms: DS
Release Date: November 14, 2005
…And here is where I pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and reveal the actual direction of this review that reneges on what I had been alluding to up to this point. Yes, Mario Kart DS is obviously a mobile entry in the franchise, but I don’t believe I claimed that it shared the quasi-2D graphical plane as Super Circuit. While its touchpad is the feature most associated with the DS, the two-screened system was also the first mobile Nintendo console to sufficiently render 3D polygons, if the remake of Super Mario 64 as a launch title wasn’t any indication of this marvelous feat in technology. The visuals here are slightly more polished than those on Nintendo’s first 3D system, but they certainly still evoke the rough-hewn blockiness that aged about as well as cheese baked by a desert sun. Truly, all that matters is that the rough-hewn form of 3D presented here will still facilitate a functional Mario Kart experience. Because the more nuanced dimensional plane should allow Mario Kart DS to inherently thrive, there were very few technological limitations that this title had to adhere to, like its other mobile predecessors. As a result, Mario Kart DS is the title that finally reaches the satisfactory point of balance and well-roundedness that the series desperately needed to reach.
As per the balancing process, much to my dismay, Mario Kart DS has to subtract the number of racers per kart to fit the single seater once again. The manic fun is over, boys, and now it’s back to tradition. However, just because Mario Kart has reverted to its old ways doesn’t mean it’s now strictly business. The by-the-numbers carts the characters were restricted to in the older Mario Kart titles have been officially scrapped, wisely taking the hint from Double Dash that variety and personalization were far niftier than a change of color palette. Mario and Peach’s default karts are long-necked ones that have a more orthodox design, but other characters’ karts are downright kooky in their own distinct ways. Rambi was always somewhat of a vehicle for Donkey Kong, so crafting a kart in the image of the rampaging rhinoceros is certainly fitting for the tie-wearing ape. Luigi never rode the Poltergust in Luigi’s Mansion for obvious reasons, but I suppose it could have acceleration properties that translate to a motorized vehicle if you invert the suck function to blow. Yoshi drives around the interior of one of his eggs, Bowser is situated in a kart resembling one of his claws, dubbed “Tyrant,” and Wario proudly flaunts a sleazy, low-rider convertible. The developers kind of fumbled in the creativity department, giving Toad a wheeled mushroom head to race with, but it is admittedly a signifier of Toad’s identity and has more personality than the painted go-karts from Mario Kart 64. In addition to exhibiting more personality than Mario Kart 64’s rainbow coalition of bog-standard karts, the personalized karts don’t obscure their stat ranges. Speed, acceleration, weight, handling, and drift are vital factors to consider when choosing a kart, but the “items” stat escapes me. Does it indicate the likelihood of receiving a rare item from a box, or will there be more item boxes scattered around the track to drive into? Either way, I hadn’t noticed any difference between the item selection per kart, so it's ultimately irrelevant.
A series of new karts will also be rewarded to the player after completing a whole set of cups per difficulty. Unlockables like these were a glaring omission before Double Dash promptly implemented them, and now they persist as an indelible requisite for the series. Personally, new karts are certainly nothing to sneeze at, but the prospect of expanding the game’s roster with unlockables is why I continue onward towards the completionist route. Daisy and Waluigi return as series veterans, and Wario’s usual partner in crime comically rides around on an excavator swapped from a construction site. Even if there isn't a solid connection between the purple one and this field of blue-collar jobs, seeing him tear through the tracks in this heavy-duty piece of equipment is quite comical. Dry Bones is technically a new face to the franchise if we discount the fact that he could be the reanimated skeleton of the Koopa foot soldier from the first Mario Kart game. Still, the tank and the customized bone kart he pilots make him all the more distinctive from his flesh-and-blood counterparts. Rounding out the roster is quite an unusual pick, to say the least. I have no idea if Mario and R.O.B. the Robot, Nintendo’s goofiest-looking NES peripheral, have ever crossed paths before this, so he sticks out like the sorest of thumbs amongst the collective of the Mushroom Kingdom’s finest. Did he rig some kind of nomination process like Harry putting his name in the Goblet of Fire? Anyway, despite the questionable relation to Mario’s extended universe, reviving a Nintendo relic as Smash Bros. did for Mr. Game and Watch makes for an intriguing inclusion. Hell, his exclusivity propels him as being my choice character in the game, even if I have the play hours of it to gain access to him.
Despite dialing the kart space down to its former solo seating, racing itself shares more in common with that of Double Dash than Mario Kart 64. Mostly, it’s the smooth and swift drifting mechanics introduced in Double Dash that carry over to the more compact karts. When drifting to swerve around some tight bends or to potentially execute a manual boost, the racers continue to only tilt themselves slightly in the desired direction instead of debilitating themselves with a horizontal slip and slide. In fact, the drift function in Mario Kart DS is so user-friendly that expert players have honed a skill known as “snaking,” relating to the natural movement pattern of a slithering serpent. In essence, with great precision and skill, the player could potentially run a streak of boosts without having to stop and accelerate normally. How Mario Kart DS facilitates this endless chain of turbo charges is likely due to the hop mechanic returning for the single-seater karts, something that the karts of Double Dash couldn’t do on account of carrying the weight of two characters at once. Arguments may arise that this tactic breaks the accessible sanctity that Mario Kart should ideally foster, but my rebuttal to this is that promoting a high skill ceiling is also a core component to ensure that the player can reach their maximum aptitude. Some people simply seethe at someone sprinting past them with little recourse they can take to combat them.
Then again, they can try to stop all “snakers” in their tracks with the bounty of items at their disposal, and some are guaranteed to at least hit them and halt their momentum momentarily. On top of the lightning that minimizes all but the summoner, the blue shell maintains its reputation as an inescapable spirit breaker. It even twirls merrily before it swan dives into its victims as if it's taunting them now. Some special items, such as Wario/Waluigi’s Bomb-omb buddies, have been translated to common items, and the single kart status has reverted the series back to the practices of shielding racers with three green shells and a trail of bananas. Mario Kart DS introduces a paltry two new items, but they’ll leave a lasting impression on most players, for better or for worse. The Bullet Bill is essentially the successor to the Chain Chomp from Double Dash in that a tar-black Mario enemy propels racers who are dragging ass at least a couple placements ahead at breakneck, aggressive speeds. In this case, the trajectory of the Bullet Bill feels more structured and automated than the wild whiplash of the Chain Chomp, guaranteeing that the landing will be smoother than the average commercial airline flight. Still, considering that I was usually a victim of the Bullet Bill’s blitzkrieg instead of a grateful user, I don’t know if this is a good thing. The other new item weaponizes the Blooper, an aquatic creature that spurts ink onto the player’s screen as per his innate squid-like properties. Instead of targeting the nearest player with this unfried piece of calamari, unleashing it will affect every racer like the strike of a lightning bolt. The fundamental problem with this lies in the fact that CPUs obviously aren’t handicapped by the screen being moderately obscured like the player. As a token of fairness, the CPUs will drive erratically for a brief period like clowns, but it comes off as condescending if anything. Thanks for the consideration, guys.
In order to perfect the art of snaking, the player must also become familiar with the terrain of each track. Fortunately for them, the course selection in Mario Kart DS is as rock-solid as a chunk of fallen meteor. If I noticed one prevalent theme in the selection of Mario Kart DS, the series now has a penchant for transmuting familiar levels from the mainline games into race tracks. The air fortresses that served as obstacle courses before confronting one of Bowser’s illegitimates is equally as thrilling and tense, modeled as a race course, although the barrage of cannonballs and steel wrenches has been substituted with a reasonable flow of Bullet Bills launching towards the starting line. I don’t recall seeing any part of Isle Delfino with Venetian architecture, nor was I aware that the land of Piantas was in a temperate enough climate to produce autumnal foliage. Still, taking sharp turns around these Euro-esque buildings and gazing at the picturesque setting of this vacation destination is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Luigi’s Mansion takes us on another tour of the spooky estate’s gothic interior and the muddy moat surrounding it, Desert Hill’s takes inspiration from the second main world of Super Mario Bros. 3 if the scornful sun in the background is any indication, and the pendulums and gears of Tick Tock Clock are surprisingly more manageable to navigate around while skidding rather than platforming. Peach’s Gardens could be an expanded version of the courtyard section of Super Mario 64’s hub, but this is all up to speculation. The centerpiece feature added to shuffle the continual Bowser’s Castle track is a giant cylinder that spins rapidly, and the climactic course of Rainbow Road is the first course to feature anti-gravity in its rollercoaster loops. Everyone reading up to this point may feel agitated that I haven’t mentioned one track in particular, and that’s Waluigi Pinball. I considered dedicating an entire paragraph to what is considered to be this game’s, no, the SERIES’ crown jewel, but decided that would be obnoxious. That, and I haven’t fallen head over heels for it like everyone else. Sure, an active pinball table is an exhilarating foreground to screech one’s tires onto, the rolling balls inside the machine are sensible obstacles that prove to be quite challenging to navigate around, and the overall atmosphere and aesthetic evoke the scintillating extravagance of a night life casino setting better than Sega could ever dream of. Still, something is holding me back from joining the echoes that praise this track to the high heavens. Don’t let the hype cloud your first impressions, I suppose.
If you’re unsatisfied with this game’s course contribution, and it’s unlikely that you will be, Mario Kart DS marks the debut of doubling the amount of grand-prixs with a slew of retro tracks from previous games. Admittedly, Super Circuit technically turned back the clock first when it featured every single track from the first Mario Kart. Still, those were copied and pasted from their source with a graphical rehaul. Here, the stages are hand-selected and treated to a 3D overhaul complete with the game’s own reinterpretations. It’s a novel concept, certainly, and it’s no wonder this practice has become a Mario Kart tradition as commonly celebrated as Christmas for every subsequent entry. In practice, it unfortunately provides evidence that Mario Kart DS still harbored restrictions despite its third-dimensional glory. The reason I think the retro courses were selected in this manner is that the developers had to seriously consider which ones could be feasibly replicated on a handheld system. Hence, there is an abundance of 2D tracks from Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit, and several circuit courses from the previous 3D games that tend to be rather featureless. From my perspective, the 3D touch makes all of the 2D courses more than palatable now, and I can finally appreciate the tracks from Mario Kart 64 because the other racers are no longer guaranteed to be breathing down my neck at all times like we’re the members of a chain gang. However, it’s the integration of courses from Double Dash where the cracks start to show. Yoshi’s Circuit no longer features shortcuts that the player can take advantage of; the titular bridge of Mushroom Bridge does not have the boosting stripes on its arches, and the laps of Baby Park have been subtracted from eight to five. Without the onslaught of items from Double Dash to begin with, the developers evidently didn’t understand the context behind this racer’s mosh pit of mayhem. The series should’ve waited for the next console entry of the series to get nostalgic, as the neutered and or uninspired selections made through compromise really put a damper on what is already a dynamite track roster.
If the retro courses do not meet one’s satisfaction in extending their time playing Mario Kart DS, one distinct gameplay mode will certainly preserve their interests. I’ve neglected to mention the “battle mode” that debuted in Mario Kart 64 because this more combative, gladiatorial alternative to the standard racing is purely enjoyed by those who have other people in their vicinity to man the other controllers. In addition to blowing into the battle mode balloons with the console’s microphone jack, Mario Kart DS also introduces something tailor-made for my lonely ass: mission mode. In this strictly solo mode, the player will complete various tasks that take place on the courses, which may or may not involve racing. The player might have to drive through a series of tires, collect a string of coins, drive to the finish line entirely in reverse gear, etc. These tasks may seem menial, but I’m certain that the ranking system employed here will impress on everyone’s obsessive-compulsive tendencies. After all, shouldn’t everyone want to witness what fighting the bosses from Super Mario 64 (and King Boo) is like while they’re confined to a kart? You should, because the prospect itself and the fact that it's a functional endeavor are nothing short of marvelous. As of now, this mode is endemic to Mario Kart DS, giving gamers more reason to revisit this title even as the series moves onward. It would be a hard sell to make a secondary Mario Kart game composed with this mode as the primary feature, but considering how I became enthralled with it, I’d make it rain on Nintendo for the opportunity to experience such a release.
Mario Kart DS initially instilled a feeling of going back to the old grind after the wild party that was Double Dash. However, it’s like returning to work and seeing that the office building has gone through a makeover, establishing an ergonomic method of labor that increases morale forevermore. What I’m trying to illustrate is that Mario Kart DS is when the series finally hit its stride, the pinnacle of the franchise achieved after iterations upon iterations of tweaking the formula and seeing what would work. The innate racing is smooth with great capabilities, the (original) track selection cannot be topped, and mission mode even flaunts the fact that the game has discovered a way to break out of the boundaries of what constitutes kart racing gameplay. If you had told me that Mario Kart had hit the desired sweet spot with a mobile entry of all things, I would’ve shaken my head in disbelief. Now, it proves to me that the DS was no system to meddle with. If one had to pick a representative face for the franchise, Mario Kart DS would maintain that position like Abraham Lincoln on a penny.
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