I’ve been playing double dash recently and it seems like the least dumbed down Mario kart game.
I love that each racer has their own special, I love that you need to swap out the racers to actually get a second power up.
The game has been really fun. I just lost gold on special cup by 2 points. I did terribly on rainbow road with toad 😂
For me it’s between double dash, DS, and 8DX
8DX is probably the one that looks like it would be the best on paper. But it missing the stuff you brought up from double dash and also the mission mode from DS keeps the other two in contention and makes it become a more subjective choice at the end of the day.