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Are you a fan of Mario Kart DS' snaking?

Do you like it?

  • Hell yeah. It actually requires skill.

    Votes: 75 29.9%

  • Nope, it goes against Mario Kart's spirit.

    Votes: 176 70.1%
  • Total voters
    251
Lant_War

Lant_War

Classic Anus Game
The Fallen
Jul 14, 2018
23,580
One of MKDS' most controversial design decisions was the addition of snaking. With a bit of skill, you could break your thumb in order to pretty much miniturbo your way through the whole race. Speedruns, online matches and pretty much any kind of competition that required you to be as fast as possible basically forced you to use this technique if you wanted to stay competitive. Being controversial and all, these mechanic has some people that absolutely love it (myself included) and others who hate it.

The main reason why I liked it is because MK is a little braindead at times. Even if the later entries got better at this, in MKDS there's so many situations where all you're doing is holding A and at most making slight turns with the D-Pad if you're not snaking, however once you start doing it the whole race basically becomes a huge game of position management, endurance and planning thanks to the random items. I agree that it might be a little unfair that you're simply always going to beat people that don't know how to snake, but if you're racing against the right rivals it's probably one of MK's most intense experiences.
 
Unknownlight

Unknownlight

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 2, 2017
10,570
I've always mentally compared snaking to wavedashing in Smash, with the same controversy and response surrounding it. Snaking is way more powerful though.
 
Jaded Alyx

Jaded Alyx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
35,378
Nope. Despise it. I can do it just fine, but I don't find it fun in the slightest bit. And of course, if you don't do it, others will, which makes competing against them also not fun.

So for me, it ruins the game. I also likely won't bother with CTR as someone here pointed out that the optimal way to play that looks very similar to snaking.
 
jesterkap2

jesterkap2

Member
Oct 28, 2017
537
It felt like it required skill but not a fun skill and made the game 100% about snaking. If I wanted to just play it normally, I couldn't compete.
 
SephLuis

SephLuis

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,343
Snaking, or rather the mini turbo in turns, wasn't new to MK DS. What was new is that it was broken.

I didn't liked it. There's plenty of ways to put skill in MK and a broken mechanic isn't it.
 
HustleBun

HustleBun

Member
Nov 12, 2017
6,076
You could spam it infinitely.
Very few players could do it.
It ruined online play for most players.
 
Kinsei

Kinsei

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
20,541
Nah, mainly because it made most of the cast obsolete. If you ewren't using Yoshi/Dry Bones in the Egg 1/Dry Bomber then you were at a disadvantage.
 
Fuzzy

Fuzzy

Completely non-threatening
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,133
Toronto
It was a broken mechanic. I was good at it but it sucked all of the fun out of playing the game.
 
Wonderrade

Wonderrade

The Wise Ones
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
1,217
Jaded Alyx said:
Nope. Despise it. I can do it just fine, but I don't find it fun in the slightest bit. And of course, if you don't do it, others will, which makes competing against them also not fun.

So for me, it ruins the game. I also likely won't bother with CTR as someone here pointed out that the optimal way to play that looks very similar to snaking.
Click to expand...
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Well said, this is my take on it as well.

My buddy and I used to play a ton of Mario kart DS back in the day. We learned about snaking a bit later, figured out how to do it, started implementing it and hated it. Turned the game into a chore IMO. Not to mention the DS wasnt built for that kind of continuous input.

Of course, the online mode became swamped with it.

EDIT: Didnt vote in the poll, even though its a no from me. I dont know if spirit of the series is how I would put it, I just dont think its fun. The technical demand isnt worth the payoff
 
kubus

kubus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,500
I play Mario Kart DS with my colleagues every workday during lunch break and it is simply unbelievable how skilled some of my coworkers are at snaking (they have been playing this game for almost 10 years now, every. single. workday!). They can dodge blue shells and snake on every surface no matter how narrow. It makes the game so much more fun to play in multiplayer because there's actually a real learning curve to be found and it makes the game way more competitive than simply about dumb luck.

So yeah I'm a snake believer, even though I still pretty much suck at it. Getting better every day though.

I can see why some people don't like it though. Ideally there would be a option to disable snaking for online matches for those who just want to kart for fun with item mayhem.
 

Deleted member 8001

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
7,440
To me it raised the fun. It added another dynamic to the race that wouldn't be there otherwise. The better you got and more skilled you applied this technique the further you could push your kart faster. You could make a mistake and lose a lot of speed. It really made the game much more engaging and fun in a way that was never replicated again.
 

Deleted member 33533

Banned
Nov 17, 2017
12,864
It's awful. Absolutely broke the game and made online pointless because if you weren't snaking you weren't winning. It was so overpowered that it just became a game of who can snake better. It's not even fun or rewarding to snake either.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,943
It's an example of an advanced mechanic that was so dominant that there was no other way to play except for using it. It wasn't fun or particularly rewarding, you simply had to do it if you wanted to compete and there were no other viable strategies that could compete with it. If it was balanced better so that it was a strong technique but not dominant it could have been ok
 
Donizetty

Donizetty

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
797
Mexico
I hate it so much because it forced you to do it with yoshi/dry bones and the egg-car/tank-car if you wanted to win.

I like to see multiples characters on the race. I was glad when it got kicked out.
 
BeaconofTruth

BeaconofTruth

Member
Dec 30, 2017
3,427
Love it. Anything that adds depth to a game should stay. I wish Halo kept shit like bxb, bxr, n quad shots.

Stuff like that sucks when it's a redundant part of the experience. Like say L cancelling in melee (because you are always going to want to do it), but something that is skillful, and adds interesting decision making and enhances higher level play is great.

What it needed was more of a counter play against it, or other movement options that were also viable.
 
Rotobit

Rotobit

Editor at Nintendo Wire
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
10,196
I always hated it, sure it's in the game, and it wasn't immensely difficult to pull off, but it was obviously not intentional. Considering the target audience for Mario Kart is kids, it always felt super unfair to me that anyone who jumped in uninitiated had to sit back and watch what frankly looks like the game breaking.

I feel like later games managed to make drifting more enjoyable while making it harder to pull off nonsense, though Mario Kart Wii basically being motorbikes or bust was similarly dumb (though it seemed more like Nintendo didn't really do any balance checking for that one)
 
Camjo-Z

Camjo-Z

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,511
Skill? You literally just mash the D-Pad back and forth to automatically win against anyone else who's not doing it. Terrible mechanic.
 
Kayotix

Kayotix

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,312
requires skill sure but kills the game for a huge audience since you basically NEED to do it in order to even try and compete which is zero fun
 
JamboGT

JamboGT

Vehicle Handling Designer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
1,447
The poll is a loaded question. Yes it requires skill and no I don't like it, it looks stupid, makes no sense and breaks the game to an extent.

I do prefer that mechanic to build boost compared to later Mario Karts but they need a cool down or something to stop it being silly.
 
OP
OP
Lant_War

Lant_War

Classic Anus Game
The Fallen
Jul 14, 2018
23,580
Camjo-Z said:
Skill? You literally just mash the D-Pad back and forth to automatically win against anyone else who's not doing it. Terrible mechanic.
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Ah yes, I forgot you could just do that instead of having to plan your route in advance, carefully positioning yourself to get the best line while still managing to snake.
 
Nothere

Nothere

Member
Oct 26, 2017
423
I was fine with it... too bad it made some of my DSs ugly (polished D-pad doesn't look good)
 
fhqwhgads

fhqwhgads

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,535
Not a fan of it since it made the game actively boring since you were forced to do it and forced to use the Dry Bomber or else you'd never stand a chance in races. I'm really glad Mario Kart 8's balance is significantly better than previous MK games since it means you don't just see the exact same characters and karts online every time.
 
Richietto

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,993
North Carolina
No fuck snaking! Just ruined the online when the only players left were ones who did it. I shouldn't have to develop carpal tunnel to compete on a regular level. It really did just raise the skill floor for online.
 
NotLiquid

NotLiquid

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,769
Snaking sucks because it turns Mario Kart's online into a fucking button mashing contest, and if you don't do it, you lose.

No thank you.
 
flashman92

flashman92

Member
Feb 15, 2018
4,562
Max speed is easy to obtain and maintain, lanes are wide, and corners are rarely very tight. Snaking put a layer of challenge on top of it I enjoyed, but I don't want it back. I'm happy with just making the game faster/harder.

Kinsei said:
Nah, mainly because it made most of the cast obsolete. If you ewren't using Yoshi/Dry Bones in the Egg 1/Dry Bomber then you were at a disadvantage.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I played Bowser (max weight) in the Dry Bomber for maximum cheapness
 
Bard

Bard

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
12,462
Yes it takes skill but no I don't like it. Completely ruined online in MKDS.
 
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