It's really pretty easy once you get the hang of it, but it's a bit of a distraction from the core driving/item mechanic that makes the game so instantly accessible. In the video, you might have noticed my own confusion around the fact that each character can have their own item, and only the character in the rear can use the item. But for the larger "blue ocean" audience that had historically shown up at the starting line every time a new Kart game released, it was a statement of intent in a potentially confusing direction. To gamers looking for more control and options in their Kart experience, this was great. On its face, the two item system doesn't really change that fundamentally, but it does represent a choice by Nintendo to innovate on a more complex, strategic gameplay element.
Kill Screen recently posted an article called "An Ode to Mario Kart's Almighty Blue Shell" that wisely points out that the reason the series is so powerful: "it's a noncompetitive competition." It's a level playing field that nearly anyone can enjoy.
I enjoyed experimenting with the two item system, but I think it's a little bit at odds with the broader Mario Kart strategy. Without a lot of nostalgia around this title, specifically the multiplayer, it's hard to feel a whole lot of connection to this game, but it is certainly a fun and unique entry in the series. So why am I drudging up all of this history about consoles and JRPGs? Because it directly contributed to my never having played much of Mario Kart Double Dash!! With that in mind, I decided to take a slightly different approach with this game and record some video of my first cup in MKDD!! I didn't do any warmups or test runs, so it's not a perfect playthrough by any means, but hopefully this is a fun look back at the game.īy the way, here's that infamous 7.9/10 IGN review. Lots of gamers, myself included, felt a little burned by the N64 era (despite a number of truly great games), and decided that maybe a move to the PlayStation 2 (and its ability to play DVD movies) was a better bet than Nintendo's GameCube. That meant that lots of big third party content, including the seminal JRPG, Final Fantasy VII, became a Sony exclusive. This led directly to the development of the PlayStation and helped cement Nintendo's decision to stick with the cartridge format for the Nintendo 64.
It's well-known at this point that Sony and Nintendo worked together for a while to release a CD-based add-on drive for the Super Nintendo in a deal that fell apart before anything hit the public. To name a few: Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, Secret of Mana, EarthBound, and Chrono Trigger. During the Super Nintendo era, Nintendo fans got a steady stream of high quality third party content, including some of the best Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) of all time. Here's the thing: the launch of Sony's PlayStation console made a serious dent in Nintendo's fan base.