When I was younger I would play this game all the time. One of my favorites for road trips or just sitting around the house. I was never that good and would mostly just play 50 or 100cc grand prixs because I knew I would be able to win them. I recently bought a DSiXL and have been revisiting a lot of the DS library and last time I was home I grabbed my old copy of MKDS and got to work on everything I ignored as a kid(which was most of the game).

The first thing I wanted to do was the mission mode. Everyone always talks about the mission mode in such a high regard. But even though I played this game to death, I never got around to the mission mode. But now I can confidently say it is worth the hype. Its such a unique mode and I dont really think we've gotten anything similar in MK outside of some stuff in Tour. There is such a wide variety of challenges on offer here nothing ever feels stale. There are also boss fights present which I was initially pretty skeptical of but they were pulled off shockingly well. I also found that, unlike the Grand Prix, I was really pushed to go for a better score and try to get three stars on all the missions. You always felt like you could do a little better and when you finally got a challenge down and got those three stars it felt extreamley satisfying.

Once I had wrapped up the mission mode I returned to what I spent to most time on as a kid, the Grand Prix mode. I still needed to unlock mirror mode, rob, and more karts for everyone so I jumped right into 150cc. This was the best thing I couldve done as the game felt so so so much better at high speeds. It felt like everything mattered. Every turn, drift, item and mistake felt like they really had concequences. As my goal was to get gold on all cups on all speeds, I was going to be playing some of the same tracks again and again. But honestly that didnt bothr me one bit. The track selection in this game is top notch and no matter if they were brand new tracks or retro tracks from prior mario kart games, they all felt and looked amazing. Despite this all being a bit repetitive, I never grew tired of it and felt like I was constantly improving. I had rough stretches here or there trying to get the hang of certain turns or tight tracks but by the end, the final two cups I played were some of my best racing to date (two stars on the leaf and lightning mirror cups :) ). Being able to get genuinley good at this game felt really great even with some of the bs item balancing.

Before I wrap this up there I dont want to ignore the battle mode. I played this a handful of times with friends as a kid but it was never one of my favorites. For my recent revisit, i didnt really touch it at all. I know a lot of people really love battle mode in mario kart but it never has really been my cup of tea (except for MK8D, that battle mode is godly) so even if I had played it I dont think I would be a very good judge for whats good or not.

Final thoughts. Mario Kart DS is all that. Great modes, great tracks, great controls, all in the palm of your hand. I think it often gets over looked by a lot of people who grew up on MK Wii or Double Dash but I genuinely thing MKDS is one of the best in the series and one of the best games on the DS. Please do yourself a favor and check this game out if you ever have the chance.

This was one of the first games I ever owned as a kid and I never really got that far into it. I would always get stressed out about dying and I found it just way too difficult (i did play the hound out of the minigames though). Now im older and revisiting a bunch of older mario titles and it was time for me to give this game another shot.

This was the game that brought Mario back into the limelight. His first big 2d adventure in a long time and it was aptly coined "New" Super Mario Bros. For the time it was a whole new look for mario and did crazy numbers on the DS, becoming one of the best selling titles on the system. Today a lot of people, myself included, have soured on the "New" smb style after Nintendo milked it to death during the 2010's. As a result I think a lot of people forgot that when it was fresh, it was actually really solid.

Going in without any preconceived notions about the game or style, this game absolutley rocks. It has so many creative ideas start to finish. interesting worlds, fun powerups (though i wish they were more prominent :/) and great music make this the perfect title to get Mario back up and running. The short levels are suited so well to the DS yet it somehow manages to keep everything that made the home console Mario games so appealing. My only real issue with the GB Mario titles was they were supremely easy and could be finished pretty quick. NSMB fixes this and offers a similer level of challenge as youd find in SMB3 or SMW. This is a full 2D Mario adventure on the go and even today I found that incredibly appealing.

This game does everything right so I can kinda see why Nintnedo was trying to replicate it for a decade straight. Its a shame that the game that (re)started it all for Mario is stuck on the DS but I seriously cannot reccomend it enough. Fantastic Mario title and a fantastic game.