Collection essentials #556: Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GC)

Everyone knew that a new Nintendo console meant that a new Mario Kart game was around the corner. What people probably didn’t see coming was that Nintendo would introduce a big new twist on the basic gameplay.

As you might be able to guess from the title and the cover image, Mario Kart: Double Dash is unique because it has two characters riding the same kart instead of one. In the past, different characters had different stats which affected the way they performed on the racetrack, so this new arrangement sounds like it could make things pretty confusing. They mitigated it by making this the first Mario Kart game to have unique vehicles that characters can ride in, instead of generic go karts. Now, upon picking your characters, you can choose which vehicle they ride in, and the selection you have depends on the weight of your characters. Larger characters cannot ride in smaller vehicles, so smaller characters have a wider variety of vehicles to choose from. It’s the vehicles themselves that have the attributes that determine how they perform in a race.

What implications does two racers on one kart have on the gameplay? Well, you can freely swap whichever character is driving with whichever one is riding in the back with the press of a button. Each of the characters can hold an item, and only the rider in back can use items. In the past, characters only held one item at a time (aside from a certain technicality), so this is a way to give players a potential strategy of holding on to an item for later when they may need it most without severely compromising their ability to deal with other racers. In multiplayer, players have the option of having each player control a pair of racers like this, or two human players can team up and each control one of the two characters on a given team and take turns driving and throwing items.

Another cool feature in Double Dash is the presence of super items. These are, obviously, more powerful than standard items, but generally the characters have access to only one of them. The one each character has access to is in some way tied to their character. For example, Donkey Kong can use an enormous banana peel, while Yoshi can throw eggs that home in on opponents and then drop more items that a Yoshi coming up from behind can potentially grab and use. So choosing which two characters you take is an important step because you’ll be choosing what super item you’ll have access to. Most future Mario Kart games did not bring many of these super items back.

One could perhaps criticize Double Dash for not doing a whole lot to bring the series forward aside from these mechanics. The game has the same amount of racetracks as Mario Kart 64, sixteen of them plus a few unique battle arenas. There aren’t any new game modes, as Double Dash simply brings back what we had on the 64, though there is now a LAN connectivity option allowing for up to 16 players to race together using multiple GameCubes and televisions, and there are new game types for battle mode. You could, of course, argue that the modes were just fine and that Double Dash does more than enough in changing the racing mechanics rather than trying to find gimmicky new modes to feature.

Double Dash released to critical and commercial success. It was the second-highest-selling GameCube game, though it sold a little less than Mario Kart 64 had. I can’t remember specifically when or where I got Double Dash, but I certainly got it within the first few months of when it released in the US, and the copy shown in the photo is my original. I played it an awful lot, fully completing everything there is to do in single-player. I actually don’t have many memories of playing the game with friends and family, though I certainly did at times.

Sometimes old Mario Kart games can seem obsolete compared to newer entries. But of all the retro titles in the series, Double Dash is arguably the one that is most worth coming back to. Its unique tag-team mechanics were never brought back, so it provides something fresh and different that you won’t get in any other Mario Kart. Just be aware you’ll have to get used to the controls, as they feel a little different from future Mario Karts and take getting used to. 

It is perhaps surprising that Nintendo has never re-released Mario Kart: Double Dash. One would have to imagine that it’s a prime candidate to be made available on the Nintendo Switch 2’s online service for subscribers. The original release is unfortunately a bit pricey, perhaps for this lack of a rerelease. For that reason I probably wouldn’t recommend Double Dash to be your first Mario Kart game. But if you want more Kart and for some reason haven’t experienced it, it would behoove you to find a way. It’s near the top of the GameCube charts for good reason, and it’s definitely an essential in my collection.