How to Unlock Rob in Mario Kart Ds

Play on the go, on two screens and online.

The sequel to Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario Kart DS is a racing game for the Nintendo DS, released in 2005. It is the second handheld Mario Kart game following Mario Kart: Super Circuit. It introduced online multiplayer features via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. This game features a mission mode and introduces two new items in the form of Bullet Bill (capable of turning the user into said mook going maximum throttle on autopilot) and Blooper (capable of blocking opponents' views with black ink), as well as the ability to play Versus and Battle modes in single-player. Plus, the "two characters per kart" feature from Double Dash!! has been dropped, returning it to one driver per vehicle system as with every installment before Double Dash!!.

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The game features examples of these tropes:

• Accordion to Most Sailors: Delfino Square, a Port Town track, features an accordion in the instrumentation of its music.
• Advanced Movement Technique: "Snaking", as the game community calls it, involves drifting back and forth on a straightaway, gaining mini-turbos every time the R button is released. A low drift stat will prevent a kart from just slamming into the wall, and a high mini-turbo stat on a vehicle like the Dry Bomber means a skilled player can spend an entire race with boosted speed.
• Always Night
  • Luigi's Mansion, which returned in Mario Kart 7.
  • Wario Stadium, which has been set in the daytime when it reappeared in Mario Kart 8.
  • Frappe Snowland and Banshee Boardwalk from Mario Kart 64.
• Artificial Brilliance: In this game's Rainbow Road, the AI actually seems to know that if it puts a banana peel or fake item box on the loop-the-loop or the corkscrew, there's no chance to survive.
• Artistic License – Physics: If it weren't bound to the Toon Physics of the Mushroom Kingdom, the ROB-LGS kart (the one that looks like a pair of legs for ROB) would be as aerodynamic as a brick, and would most likely fall over at the slightest provocation. Instead, it's one of the fastest karts in the game, and always lands on its wheels.
• Ascended Extra: Shy Guy was promoted from a character used only in this game's Download Play Mode to a fully-playable character in Mario Kart 7 and 8. Wiggler was originally one of this game's bosses and has been an obstacle on Maple Treeway in Mario Kart Wii before he finally shrunk down and become playable in Mario Kart 7.
• Car Fu: The battle modes as usual. Boss battles in this game also qualify.
• Chest Insignia:
  • From this game onwards, the Mario Kart series itself does a vehicle variant of this, with each kart having two or three places on it for the driver's personal emblem. Each playable character has their own icon (for instance, Mario's trademark red "M").
  • Just for this game, players can also design their own custom symbol, although the custom icons were removed in all later games due to the staggering number of crude and/or offensive images people created.
• Clockworks Area: Tick Tock Clock, of course.
• Competitive Balance: Every racer starts with two vehicles then gains a third. All three can be classified as items, skill and standard: items (the ones with big tires) are heavier and can hold more items, skills (the ones with small tires) are better in every other stat but lighter and hold less items, and the standard makes a compromise between both with a standardized weight.
• Console Cameo: One of the battle courses take place on a huge Nintendo DS system floating in space.
• Cool Bike: Waluigi's Zipper is the only motorcycle of this game. However, Wii and 8 has a full dosage on that type of vehicle.
• Demoted to Extra: Baby Park returned from Double Dash!! despite no baby characters being playable.
• Dub Name Change: In the Japanese version of the game, ROB was named HVC-012, since that was his series number.
• Dump Stat: Drift and weight can be affected by this trope. Due to the exploit of snaking, it was actually beneficial to have less drift, since if you had more, you'd be turning too sharply while power sliding on straightaways. The same is said for weight since it's combined with the "offroad" stat. The less weight you had, the faster you could go off road such as in grass or dirt. Plus, bumping into other players had no effect online. The item stat was also pretty useless, especially online where you couldn't get triple items. It was good for some courses during time trials though, as you got more mushrooms to take shortcuts.
• Embedded Precursor: The Retro Grand Prix, which is a recurring tradition from this game onwards. Besides the four Nitro cups (Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special) are the four Retro cups (Shell, Banana, Leaf, and Lightning). In DS, each retro cup features a Super Mario Kart track, a Mario Kart 64 track, a Mario Kart: Super Circuit track, and ending with a Mario Kart: Double Dash!! track in that order.
• Eternal Engine: Tick Tock Clock, which returned in 8.
• Everything's Better with Cows: N64 Moo Moo Farm.
• Final Boss: Chief Chilly. Although he's The Dragon to the Wiggler himself.
• Fragile Speedster:
  • Regarding characters, Peach, Yoshi, Toad and Dry Bones are the Mario Kart definition: they share a strong acceleration and handling at the cost of a light weight and low to average top speed.
  • Regarding vehicles, skill karts combine the series definition with a traditional one compared to the others: they are lighter and hold less items, but reach higher top speeds, gain better boosts and are more controllable.
  • Luigi's skill kart, the Poltergust 4000, could have its place in Mario Kart 64, considering it combines great acceleration, handling and top speed with a low drift stat to abuse snaking and a lightweight to cross offroad like no one's business.
  • Other skill vehicles follow Mario Kart's "quick to start, hard to catch up" definition: Yoshi's skill kart, the Egg 1, has less top speed than the above and is the lightest, but benefits a better acceleration and handling. Dry Bones' skill kart, the Dry Bomber, despite its less light weight and worse top speed, is the most extreme example because of its maximum acceleration and handling stats.
• Guest Fighter: Mario Kart DS is the only game in the series where R.O.B. appears (he later emigrated to the Super Smash Bros. series).
• Interface Screw: Blooper, the Mario-universe squid, has been an item since this game, covering your opponents' screens in black ink, obscuring their forward view (this is also visible by painting the entire vehicle/driver black). It even has an effect on the AI, causing them to swerve and slow down a notch when it's in effect. The ink can be removed early by hitting a booster while it's in effect. There's also the cake frosting when you bump into giant whipped toppings at Tart Top.
• Jack-of-All-Stats:
  • Every character has a standard vehicle with a standardized weight and whose stats are a compromise between balance and the character's strength and weaknesses. Because Mario's standard kart is looking for the perfect balance, his stats being the closest to the middle, he provides the main page image.
  • Among all 36 karts available in the game, Mario's karts' stats are the most balanced. The other middleweights make the difference on other criteria: Luigi is balanced at a more advanced level, his strong areas being top speed, handling and acceleration, while its weak stats are weight and drift, which are nearly useless when you want to cross offroad and spam drifts on straight lines. Waluigi is on the heavy side, sharing Luigi's top speed on heavier but less nervous vehicles. Daisy's strong area is drift, which like stated above, actually is a handicap at a more advanced level.
• Japanese Ranguage: The Cheep Cheep trucks prominently displayed the word "FLESH" in the kiosk demo, which was thankfully changed to "FRESH" in the final game, though this misspelling can still be seen in the final game's GCN Mushroom Bridge icon.
• Kid-Appeal Character: The only one here is Toad, like he did in the first three Mario Kart games.
• Level in the Clouds: Sky Garden, returning from Super Circuit. Like before, it's part of the Lightning Cup, and is a racetrack made of a cobble road suspended in the sky, bridges made of vine wires, and clouds that outline it. Large beanstalks can be seen in the background.
• Level-Map Display: Look at the bottom screen.
• Lightning Bruiser: All three ROB karts can count considering they share the best top speed, a heavyweight, a good handling, a decent acceleration and a low drift. The best example remains ROB-BLS who actually has the best top speed to acceleration ratio in the whole game.
• Limited Animation: Only your character is with full animations while everyone else on your screen are stiff (and they're even rendered with less polygons to boot). This was most likely done to prevent the system from being taxed and keep things running smoothly. This strategy was repeated in 7.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • For the traditional definition, the items vehicles are these compared to the others: they are larger, heavier and can hold more items, but are worse in every other category.
  • For the Mario Kart definition, Bowser's vehicles are the heaviest, have the best top speed and good drift stats, but are also the hardest to control otherwise and endure the worst acceleration. While more balanced, Donkey Kong will focus on drift while Wario will focus on top speed and handling.
• Musical Nod:
  • This game's title theme contains part of that from Double Dash!!. Wii did the same thing DS did before.
  • The game's Bowser Castle had an Ominous Pipe Organ like the one Double Dash!! Bowser's Castle had.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Mario Circuit of this game isn't the only Mario Circuit to be part of the Star Cup. Remember Mario Circuit 4?
  • Before it became the third course of this game's Lightning Cup, Sky Garden was originally the second course of the same cup in Super Circuit.
  • The Japanese version of the game names ROB after his series number, HVC-012.
• Nerf: Baby Park's lap count has been reduced from 7 to 5, and the absence of the specialized items from Double Dash!! (with the exception of the Bob-Omb, which turns into a regular item in this game) makes it an easier track overall.
• No Fair Cheating: If you use a cheating device to unlock all the characters and vehicles, you will unlock everything... except R.O.B. Strangely, despite not being available through cheats, you still unlock R.O.B.'s karts for everyone to use.
• Nostalgia Level: This game and all Mario Kart games thereafter traditionally featured retro courses, whether race tracks or battle tracks.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Like it did in Double Dash!!, acceleration is the central stat not only because of how fast the vehicle gains its top speed, but also because it determines the power of turbo boosts.
• Outrun the Fireball: It's possible to do so.
• Pinball Zone: Waluigi Pinball, which returned in 7. This track is also notable for its unique feature of having sound effects replaced with 8-bit pinball-sounding ones.
• Rank Inflation: If an A rank is not enough for you, try to get 1, 2, or 3 stars.
• Retcon: Peach and Yoshi returned to light weight from their middle weight status in Double Dash!! ^note since this game's default roster was based on Mario Kart 64's, where Peach and Yoshi were lightweights before becoming middle weight again in Wii. Waluigi is a Jack-of-All-Stats here like he was in Double Dash!!, before he was made heavy in Wii and 8.
• Shifting Sand Land: Desert Hills.
• Sinister Sentient Sun: There is an Angry Sun in the skies above the Desert Hills racetrack, and while it doesn't ram into the players like it did in it's debut game, it shoots hazardous fireballs at the racers.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: DK Pass as well as N64 Frappe Snowland.
• Spiritual Successor: Not only to the previous Mario Kart games, but the snaking gimmick also makes this game a successor to Crash Team Racing which also required a low drift stat to spam boosts on straight lines.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: All items apart from the Fake Item Box and Shiny Blue Shell are sprites. In addition, a few course hazards are also sprites.
• Super Title 64 Advance: This is the first game since 1997 to play it straight, as Super Circuit (GBA) and Double Dash!! (GCN) had averted it.
• Tank Goodness: Dry Bones' skill vehicle Dry Bomber looks like a tank: while it's one of the lightest cars, its acceleration is the best in the whole game.
• Tick Tock Tune: Tick Tock Clock's music has shades of this for very obvious reasons.

How to Unlock Rob in Mario Kart Ds

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MarioKartDS

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