As a long time competitive Melee player, I probably dont have any room to wish for anything more. Im part of a community that has their 15 year old game still thriving with over 25% growth at this years EVO compared to last year. Not to mention a kick ass documentary that is getting a continuation sometime later this year.
However, there is one game that I feel just doesnt get enough love.
Thats Mario Kart: Double Dash.
While I love Mario Kart 8, its essentially a super polished version of a series weve come to love.
Double Dash on the other hand is entirely its own thing. Its more strategic and definitely more unique. No other racer plays like it.
Here's a basic summary for people that never played it. However, no one I know really used the mechanic where two players would play on the same kart.
Thanks to Double Dash I became accustomed to a more strategic Mario Kart. Since Double Dash, no other Mario Kart has been able to keep my interest for more than a few months. However, Double Dash was a game that I played almost every weekend for at least 5 years and then I moved to a different city and it became a game I only played every few months, my new friends not really being able to compete.
With my original group of friends, we played it only changing one rule for 4 player vs races. That was that we changed the items to Frantic, this essentially means that Blue shells, Lightening Bolts, Starmen and special items appear MORE often because bananas and green shells are entirely absent. I believe we originally did this because we didnt want to take the game too seriously, and thought this gave everyone a larger opportunity to win.
Unfortunately, thats not how it played out.
Instead, after years and years of play we quickly become adjusted to the games habits. We started to have an intuitive sense on when lightening bolts would appear, when special items were more or less likely and when we should hang back, to collect the Power items, vs actually race to win.
This created a meta game that no other Mario Kart has been able to obtain since Double Dash.
When it came to Double Dash, a number of factors became just as relevant to the game as just the racing, component. This made the experience extremely compelling. Only ruined by the fact that only one player could select a specific character. So you couldnt have two Bowsers or two Peach players, etc. Which is highly relevant when each character has their own unique special item.
In Double Dash there were a lot more factors players had to pay attention to while racing.
1) Racing (Upcoming Shortcuts, Upcoming obstacles, etc. (All Mario Karts))
2) Which item to hold vs to use.
3) Which item each of your opponents are holding.
4) When was the last time you saw a power item: Blue Shell, Lightening Bolt, Starman.
5) What is everyones position relative to you/relative to the race.
6) Potential combos, who can you recruit temporarily to double team someone with your potential 4 items.
I havent played Double Dash for a few months, so I might be missing a few, but all of those can alter a race immensely. Being able to hold items as well as the character specials available can change a races outcome far more than what is seen in all other Mario Karts.
Factor 5 became super important with my group of friends because one of our racers refused to play any character besides the Toads which get Golden Mushrooms as their special. A special item the game can provide in ANY position, including first. This means she could get unlimited boosts temporarily at any time. As a result she could run away with a race early on if we didnt get enough blue shells by the end of it, thankfully Frantic mode helped with this, but I still typically played a koopa troopa so I could get 3 red shells frequently and slide into second when I needed to make sure she wasnt zooming too far off.
I also had a friend that liked to hang back and get power items. For him I choose Bowser Jr, because his big Koopa Shell could take away peoples items. In this way I could position control 1st and monitor 4th while keeping myself in 2nd or 3rd. In 2nd or 3rd I tried to find an opportunity to get into first with the right items to hold 1st or I would decide to hang back to 4th for good items while using red shells to make sure no one ever got too far ahead where I couldnt catch up.
I could go on and on about Mario Kart Double Dash.
Anyway, just curious if anyone else had a similar experience with Double Dash or had another game that they wish could somehow get a resurgence?
If Double Dash ever got an HD Rerelease, all I ask is that players can all play the same character and that the game took advantage of the new hardware to keep items from disappearing off the track. If a remake was released with these changes, I could seriously watch hours and hours of Double Dash, there's so much strategic potential, it's crazy.
However, there is one game that I feel just doesnt get enough love.
Thats Mario Kart: Double Dash.
While I love Mario Kart 8, its essentially a super polished version of a series weve come to love.
Double Dash on the other hand is entirely its own thing. Its more strategic and definitely more unique. No other racer plays like it.
Here's a basic summary for people that never played it. However, no one I know really used the mechanic where two players would play on the same kart.
Game Summary said:
Thanks to Double Dash I became accustomed to a more strategic Mario Kart. Since Double Dash, no other Mario Kart has been able to keep my interest for more than a few months. However, Double Dash was a game that I played almost every weekend for at least 5 years and then I moved to a different city and it became a game I only played every few months, my new friends not really being able to compete.
With my original group of friends, we played it only changing one rule for 4 player vs races. That was that we changed the items to Frantic, this essentially means that Blue shells, Lightening Bolts, Starmen and special items appear MORE often because bananas and green shells are entirely absent. I believe we originally did this because we didnt want to take the game too seriously, and thought this gave everyone a larger opportunity to win.
Unfortunately, thats not how it played out.
Instead, after years and years of play we quickly become adjusted to the games habits. We started to have an intuitive sense on when lightening bolts would appear, when special items were more or less likely and when we should hang back, to collect the Power items, vs actually race to win.
This created a meta game that no other Mario Kart has been able to obtain since Double Dash.
When it came to Double Dash, a number of factors became just as relevant to the game as just the racing, component. This made the experience extremely compelling. Only ruined by the fact that only one player could select a specific character. So you couldnt have two Bowsers or two Peach players, etc. Which is highly relevant when each character has their own unique special item.
In Double Dash there were a lot more factors players had to pay attention to while racing.
1) Racing (Upcoming Shortcuts, Upcoming obstacles, etc. (All Mario Karts))
2) Which item to hold vs to use.
3) Which item each of your opponents are holding.
4) When was the last time you saw a power item: Blue Shell, Lightening Bolt, Starman.
5) What is everyones position relative to you/relative to the race.
6) Potential combos, who can you recruit temporarily to double team someone with your potential 4 items.
I havent played Double Dash for a few months, so I might be missing a few, but all of those can alter a race immensely. Being able to hold items as well as the character specials available can change a races outcome far more than what is seen in all other Mario Karts.
Factor 5 became super important with my group of friends because one of our racers refused to play any character besides the Toads which get Golden Mushrooms as their special. A special item the game can provide in ANY position, including first. This means she could get unlimited boosts temporarily at any time. As a result she could run away with a race early on if we didnt get enough blue shells by the end of it, thankfully Frantic mode helped with this, but I still typically played a koopa troopa so I could get 3 red shells frequently and slide into second when I needed to make sure she wasnt zooming too far off.
I also had a friend that liked to hang back and get power items. For him I choose Bowser Jr, because his big Koopa Shell could take away peoples items. In this way I could position control 1st and monitor 4th while keeping myself in 2nd or 3rd. In 2nd or 3rd I tried to find an opportunity to get into first with the right items to hold 1st or I would decide to hang back to 4th for good items while using red shells to make sure no one ever got too far ahead where I couldnt catch up.
I could go on and on about Mario Kart Double Dash.
Anyway, just curious if anyone else had a similar experience with Double Dash or had another game that they wish could somehow get a resurgence?
If Double Dash ever got an HD Rerelease, all I ask is that players can all play the same character and that the game took advantage of the new hardware to keep items from disappearing off the track. If a remake was released with these changes, I could seriously watch hours and hours of Double Dash, there's so much strategic potential, it's crazy.
