MKDS for Dummies!

[NoJ]

I have just bought the game Mario Kart DS a few days ago, and already I have in love with the game. Everything about it is great. So I have made a thread about the basic things about this game. I’m still a noob at this, and all of you MKDS masters post what you wish. If you think this is good enough, maybe a sticked thead this could be!

1. The Mario Kart Series
From the first Mario Kart game, until now, and soon to be Mario Kart Wii, each game has been better than the next. On Nintendo 64 with that huge controller, to the gameboy and the tiny screen, back to the gamecube for double the fun, the Mario Kart series has been everywhere. This game has been great for everyone, for all ages, for racing fans and for Mario fans.

2. The Startup
For only the first time you play the game, Mario Kart DS asks you for your nickname. Your nickname would be what your character is called with racing. Take the character Peach as example. If you chose your nickname to be Wiipals, your character will be called Wiipals in the standings after every race or pretty much anywhere in the game.
After that, you have a couple of things to do. There are 3 main buttons on the opening screen: Single player, Multi Player and Nintendo WFC. With single player, you will be able to race against the computer in Grand Prix, race and try to beat your own time in Time Trials, race against only 1 computer in a course you could chose in VS, play fun and challenging games in Battle, and test your skills in Missions. Yes, as you could see there is a lot to do so far.

3. Characters. Which one should I choose?
Every time you race you will be able to choose your own character to race with. Now, choosing a character is very important for all of your races.

There two types of characters. The first types are the characters that you start out with from the beginning of the game. Those characters include: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Donkey Kong, Wario and Bowser. The second types of characters found in the game are the type that you have to unlock. To unlock these characters you sometimes have you beat a number of races in Grand Prix at a certain level, or an amount of missions, or anything that you think deserves a reward. For the characters that you have to unlock, I’m going to let you figure out who they are.

Every character starts out with 2 karts. Every kart of every character is different. There are a couple of aspects of the kart that you have to look at. These aspects are: speed, acceleration, weight, handling, drift and items. Other aspects of a kart is: the size of it (how big you think it would be on the track), the weight of it (some heavier karts have disadvantages) and ect. No kart is amazing in all of these things, but a good variation and to know what your good at could win you many games. Here are what each of these aspects mean: speed is how fast the kart goes, acceleration is how fast it takes for the kart to go at its top speed, weight is how heavy the kart is (the lighter the weight the smaller the impact), handling is how easy it is to turn, or maneuver the kart, drift is how much you drift on sharp turns, items is when you are in a higher place in race at the time, how good your item will turn out and some aspects that I like to put into prospection: size is how big the kart is (the smaller the kart, the less of a chance that it will be hit by something) and how heavy the kart is. I know that this is a lot of things, but if you take a couple of minutes to think of it you will chose the correct character and kart for you.

After doing that, you should have a good character to do you well in races. At the beginning with no special characters, I chose toad as my character, along with his standard kart (the blue drag racer). This was a great choice for me, because I didn’t need the speed like Donkey Kong’s karts, but I wanted the handling like Toad has had in all of his games.

4. Tracks and Cups
In this game, there are many cups, and within cups there are 4 tracks each. And, there are 2 types of cups: Nitro Grand Prix and Retro Grand Prix.

Nitro Grand Prix

The Nitro Grand Prix consists of 4 cups, Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Star Cup and Special Cup. Within these 4 cups, there are 4 new tracks. When I say 4 new cups, I mean that they are new, never seen before in previous Mario Kart games. They were so far only made for this game.
Every track in the specific cup in the Nitro Grand Prix is in an order: 1, 2, 3 and 4. The first track in the cup is always the easiest and very simple. The second one starts with something tricky, the third has a couple of difficult things in it, and the last one is always the hardest. The fourth track in the cup consists of many challenging rooms, separated by a narrow path or something like that. But the fourth one is always the most fun.
Now, here are the cups and the courses in order for the Nitro Grand Prix
Musroom Cup: Figure-8 Circuit, Yoshi Falls, Cheep Cheep Beach, Luigi’s Mansion
Flower Cup: Desert Hills, Delfino Square, Waluigi Pinball, Shroom Ridge
Star Cup: DK Pass, Tick-Tock Clock, Mario Circuit, Airship Fortress
Special cup: Wario Stadium, Peach Gardens, Bowser Castle, Rainbow Road
Note: The game starts out with the first two cups unlocked, the third and forth will haave to be unlocked by you.

Retro Grand Prix

The Retro Grand Prix again consists of 4 cups but they are: Shell Cup, Banana Cup, Leaf Cup and Lightning Cup. Within these 4 cups, there are 4 old tracks. Before the tracks in the Nitro Grand Prix were new, this prix has old tracks. What I mean by old is that they were from previous Mario Kart games before. From SNES, to the Gamecube, this game has most of the very popular tracks from all of these games.
With the Retro Grand Prix, the same aspect applies with the ranking of the tracks. See the Nitro Grand Prix section for more details.
Now, here are the cups and the course in order for the Retro Grand Prix
(Note that I have included where these tracks were originally from)
Shell Cup: Mario Circuit 1 (SNES), Moo Moo Farm (N64), Peach Circuit (GBA), Luigi Circuit (GCN)
Banana Cup: Donut Plains 2 (SNES), Frappe Snowland (N64), Bowser Castle (GBA), Baby Park (GCN)
Leaf Cup: Koopa Beach 2 (SNES), Choco Mountain (N64), Luigi Circuit (GBA), Mushroom Bridge (GCN)
Lightning Cup: Choco Island 2 (SNES), Bansee Boardwalk (N64), Sky Garden (GBA), Yoshi Circiut (GCN)

5. The Grand Prix
The Grand Prix is most exciting thing to do on MKDS. When you select the Grand Prix, they ask you to choose from 3 selections of levels: 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. As you would probably guess, 50cc is the easiest level, and 150cc is the hardest. The differences from one level of difficultly to the next sometimes would include: more obstacles in the pathway but the other computer players will become faster and smarter. After beating the hardest level of 150cc, you will see a surprise level which makes every course backwards to you, but you will have to find out more information by yourself

6. Getting Started With Your MK Game

Mario Kart is a great series. Each game is amazing, with features and games that you would never have thought of being in a game before. If you have played previous games in the past that would make this game even easier for you, because you know what you would like. If you have many Nintendo gaming stations that have one of the Mario Kart series games in it, I would suggest starting with the Mario Kart Double Dash one. I know that it is different, but it really gives you a feel of a game on much a bigger screen (depending on your tv’s screen size) That game is different because there are two characters in one kart at the same time, but switching over to MKDS and 1 player is no problem, believe me, I have done so.

7 Items

Iteams are very important in MKDS.
Here are the list of items (i hope to cover them all)

Banana - a stable iteam planted on ground, trips other opponent (able to get 3 in one box)

Red shell - an automatic hit to the racer infront of you. Moves across the ground (able to get 3 in one box)

Green Shell - a shell that goes in the direction you are facing at the time you throw it. Doens't automaticly hit (able to get 3 in one box)

Mushroom - boosts up your speed for 3 seconds (able to get 3 in one box)

Golden Mushroom - simalar to a mushroom, but could be use unlimitly for a few seconds

Cannon - Only get it in one of the last places, rockets you faster than anything else in the game towards your destanation, does not need stearing, works for 5 seconds

Boo - Makes you intangeble. Steals an iteam from another player in the race and hands it to you.

Ghost - Splatters black paint over the screens of the players ahead of you (the two that are most ahead of you). (If used on you, your top screen will be spallterd with black paint for a few seconds)

Bomb - explodes after being placed after a few seconds

Specail Box - a fake box. Looks like the iteam boxs, trips player after going on it

[Dark Pyro]

Lol very nice, this is a great review xD, i should race you some time ...

- Dark Pyro

[Chaos-Warrior]

Nice one... when I buy the game I'll be sure to read this first

[Luke]

definately deserves a stickie dude... no lie.

[Goten]

Very nice Nj gives plenty of detail and pulls new players in
Great Job

[Xer]

Nice guide, lets the beginner learn the basics, just a few problems though. There are some grammatical errors throughout like, "What I mean by old is that were from previous Mario Kart games before." and you spell items wrong. This is to be expected with such a huge post though. Just letting you know in case you want to fix this. Other than that it's wonderful. Maybe you could keep adding more as you go along and make it into a full blown guide.

[NoJ]

Originally Posted by Xer Nice guide, lets the beginner learn the basics, just a few problems though. There are some grammatical errors throughout like, "What I mean by old is that were from previous Mario Kart games before." and you spell items wrong. This is to be expected with such a huge post though. Just letting you know in case you want to fix this. Other than that it's wonderful. Maybe you could keep adding more as you go along and make it into a full blown guide.

Thanks for the editing. I was never good at that kind of stuff . i'll add on soon, i've just completed the game, but there are things that i want you to find out. So go buy the game already

And for everyone else, thanks for the sopport

[DustinR]

well you just spelt support wrong. lol. but this is so far a great thread. keep up the good work and maybe you could add on what kind of missions there are.

[Mariofan]

Wow. Very nice! I got this game a few days ago and it's very easy to control but this guides helps me control my character more! Thanks

[ErictheCartoonist]

When you said that it's a ghost that splats ink all over your screen, that's actually a blooper from the previous Mario games. And the "rocket" is a giant Banzai Bill, or a Bullet Bill if you will. Just wanted to clear that up. :P Sorry if that was so nerdish.

[NP-RandomGuy]

people just could have red teh instruction manual... but do wut j00 want.

[Lopez]

i know i could have read the instruction manual but its better seeing it here, also nice job nj i just got the game and this is gonna help alot good job.