Best Mario Kart DS Cups

I agree with you, darthvadern. A lot of the special cups are not that good for a finale of the game, and this one is no exception.

Wario Stadium is probably my favorite stadium in the series (besides its remake) because of the way the placement of the obstacles makes it stand out. Peach Gardens has a very good concept, and dodging the Chain Chomps is a blast.

Bowser Castle is cool, with a few good obstacles here and there, especially the rolling cylinder. It's probably the best Bowser Castle that doesn't have a giant Bowser statue.

The Rainbow Road, on the other hand, is probably the weakest in the series besides the one on N64. It does have a sick loop, but that's pretty much it.

The Star Cup has a tendency to be one of the highlights of a Mario Kart game. Most of the courses tend to be relatively hard and/or intermediate, and the course designs often get original. This is the case with this game's Star Cup, even if time has seen more powerful ones.

DK Pass and Tick Tock Clock are alright courses, although they feel very quiet and mono. Mario Circuit is one of the best Mario Circuits (and circuit tracks in general) in my opinion, with a fair amount of originality.

The main star (no pun intended) is Airship Fortress, one of my all-time favorite Mario Kart courses with its amazing music, setting, and course design high up in the sky. Overall, it gets 4th place.

The best cup in this game is without a doubt the Flower Cup. Every course in this cup was at least good in my opinion, even Desert Hills, one of the most hated Mario Kart courses ever. I thought it was decent because I liked the music.

The other three courses are spectacular. Delfino Plaza is among the best courses of all time with its bridge and Super Mario Sunshine theme. Waluigi Pinball is among the most original courses ever, and Shroom Ridge is a beautiful mountainside highway, evoking lots of nostalgia from my trips to Norway.

Easily my favorite cup of the bunch.

Leaf Cup is the second-best retro cup in my opinion, which doesn't say a lot. Koopa Beach 2 is the best remake of the SNES tracks in DS, which also doesn't say a lot, but it is still a cool thing.

Choco Mountain is a little bit overrated because it's just a mountain with chocolate, and it doesn't even look very good. However, it does have an avalanche of chocolate chunks to shake things up.

Luigi Circuit is pretty much like most of the boring circuit tracks, but at least it has rain, water puddles, and a Luigi air balloon.

Mushroom Bridge is probably the most butchered of the Double Dash remakes since the limitation of the DS forced the developers to take out all the interesting things in the track. The shortcut at the side of the track? Gone. The boost panels on the walls of the bridge? Gone. The bomb and mushroom cars? Gone. It is excusable since, as I said, it's because of the limitation of the DS, but it doesn't change the fact that the track is now just a track with cars on it, just like Shroom Ridge.

Probably my favorite retro cup in the game. Sure, it has the remake of Yoshi Circuit, which I already found overrated. Despite the Yoshi shape, it has a serious lack of obstacles related to the theme of the course.

Imagine how I find the remake, which has the limitation of the DS that prevents it from having the same Piranha Plants and doesn't include one of the shortcuts. However, the other tracks are very decent.

Choco Island 2 is one of those tracks that I find to be very overhated. People dislike it for being annoying, yet they praise Toad's Turnpike for its challenge. That doesn't make any sense. I think the chocolate ponds and ramps actually make it stand out from the other SNES tracks, as many of them are empty.

Banshee Boardwalk has a sick ambiance, though I think the track is slightly worse now that we can see the water.

The cherry on top of the cake is definitely Sky Garden, which is my favorite retro track in the game. The music is still amazing, the track is still beautiful, and it has a good layout and cool shortcuts.

Pretty much the worst nitro cup of the game in my opinion (let's be honest, the retro cups in Mario Kart DS are far from amazing, but it's cool that they exist).

Figure 8 Circuit gets my vote for the worst Mario Kart track of all time. The fact it's the first track is not a good excuse for being that empty.

Yoshi Falls is honestly very overhated since it looks very good and has great risk versus reward situations with the waterfalls that are a faster path but can make you fall off the track. I still think it could have more, though.

Cheep Cheep Beach is just a beach and a jungle, which is pretty boring. At least Luigi's Mansion has an amazing atmosphere, and I especially love the moving trees.

Banana Cup is slightly better than the Shell Cup, but not by much. Frappe Snowland is cool (no pun intended) with all its snowmen. Bowser Castle 2 has music that was clearly butchered from the original, but other than that it's intact and okay overall.

Sadly, Donut Plains 1 is very empty, and Baby Park is ridiculously short because of the shorter lap count from the original. While in the original, the craziness of the items made it fun, MK DS's less crazy item selection makes it incredibly boring.

The Shell Cup for this game was probably one of the worst Mario Kart cups I've ever played through, right up there with the SNES Flower Cup and GBA Mushroom Cup. It's such an underwhelming collection of tracks that are very poorly placed and make this whole cup repetitive.

Three of the courses are circuit tracks, while the other is N64 Moo Moo Farm, which is one of my least favorite tracks ever. The circuit tracks are SNES Mario Circuit 1, GBA Peach Circuit, and GCN Luigi Circuit. The first two of these absolutely suck in my opinion, while the latter was a good track on the GCN, but it was butchered so much in this game.

Overall, the worst cup in this game, at least.