Eight games in, the Mario Kart games have become deep enough that the discussion of which one is best gets more profound. The first one on SNES was a great establishment game. It has its place in history, but the advancement of tech leaves it behind, in my opinion. Mario Kart 64 ages pretty well. Mario Kart: Super Circuit, my personal favorite Then there is Mario Kart Double Dash, which is considered an underrated gem. I initially had mixed feelings about it upon release, but the passage of time, it's actually quite savvy.

Now, is it the best Mario Kart game ever? I think Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, with what it's become, makes it really hard to top (also probably isn't too fair to factor in a game that has received an updated version with technical enhancements and DLC, but in reality, ruling out variables isn't how averages work). For its time, however, Double Dash really felt like a gold standard.

With refined controls carried over from 64, Double Dash incorporates a driver and a partner. If played with two players, it's possible to swap whomever is manning the wheel, while the other human player can launch weapons. I never really played this with my brothers all that much, but I do question how many took advantage of this feature. The other cool benefit is stocking two items, as well as getting special signature weapons, depending on who's partnered. This might've been the last Mario Kart game to give characters items unique to their personality. I remain baffled this is a trait they've done away with. At least weight classes are still a thing. And drifting is really tight and responsive, and the challenge is pretty respectable. 

The Nintendo GameCube is a powerful little beast, and many of its games looked quite good, even surpassing the PlayStation 2. Double Dash sported clean visuals, and runs at a smooth 60 frames per second. The character models are very crisp, the courses are impressive in their detail. At the time, this was the fastest Mario Kart game, and its speed feels like a coin-op racer. 

The modes are enjoyable. The Battle Mode has three features, my personal favorite being Bob-Omb Blast. Double Dash began some of the depth that would come to later Mario entries to broaden its multiplayer appeal. Naturally taking advantage of the GameCube's native four-player controller ports, it's not too hard getting pals together to hurl shells at each other.  

One of Double Dash's weaknesses, the musical scores aren't really too memorable. They're fine enough, but twenty years later, there aren't too many tracks from Double Dash that get lodged in my head. Maybe Rainbow Road, Mushroom Bridge, and Baby Park (it captures the high speed insanity of such a tiny course), but beyond that, few come to mind that really stick with the imagination. I've also written before that I never was a fan of the odd voices added to Mario games by this point, and Double Dash is no different. The whoops and hollers I find rather grating, and about the 800th time I've heard "Hi, I'M DAISY!!", I wanted to scoop my eyes out with a melon baller.   

There's few weaknesses in Mario Kart: Double Dash, I still find it to be a solid racer. Being a Mario Kart game that wasn't completely dominated by the rubber band meta that got established by the over-indulgence of high-powered weapons, MKDD has a snug reliance on skill and well designed courses. I like it more than MK64, and kinda rivals Super Circuit, but is just edged out by the GBA offering. Still, Double Dash is cool to revisit.