20 Things You DIDN'T Know About Mario Kart 64

Nerfed for Multiplayer

We all have fond memories of racing and battling friends across the different courses. But, man, the one thing we dont miss about it is that god awful framerate. Why does Mario Kart 64 run great solo but chugs when more than two players are on screen? Well, this is because of the technical limitations of the Nintendo 64. Simply adding another player demands double the processing power needed to allow just one player to play. And so, to accommodate 4-player functionality, sacrifices had to be made. Thats why the frame rate is a slog, music doesnt play, and also why CPU drivers are absent when three or four players are present.

Mario Car 64

At one point in development, Mario Kart 64 was almost literally Mario CAR 64. According to programmer Kenji Yamamoto, the team managed to implement realistic physics into the cars. While impressive considering the weak prowess of the Nintendo 64, the team ultimately found the physics detracted from the games fun factor. And so, it was decided to keep the basic fundamentals introduced in Super Mario Kart and keep karts grounded. However, Mario Kart: Double Dash would integrate physics into its karts, which was a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. The series hasnt looked back since.

Halving the Rainbow Road

Mario Kart 64 hides a few shortcuts only possible with the use of a Mushroom or Super Star. But Rainbow Road has one that you may or may not have thought to try, and its right at the very start of the course. The starting line is super high above much of the course, high enough that, at the right speed, gives you room to jump off and land halfway across the track. Funny enough, the game registers your placement even if you miss the jump and will reset you on the course as if you really did just drive halfway through the course. Suddenly, Rainbow Road isnt this egregiously long course anymore.

A Real Sorcerer Supreme

It's rare that we ever hear about characters getting cut from a Mario Kart game, but in the case of Mario Kart 64, one Koopa got the ax. Early screenshots and gameplay clips in various gaming outlets show MK64 with Kamek as a playable character. Indeed, the sorcerer was to be a part of the games roster until Nintendo found an alternative. After much thought, the team deemed Donkey Kong to be a better fit. Kamek wouldnt make his playable debut in the series until 2019s Mario Kart Tour on mobile. His eventual inclusion during Mario Kart 8 Deluxes waves of DLC was a bigger deal, though.

A Feather For Your Troubles

Another interesting snippet of early builds of MK64 is the Cape Feather. Yes, this item from Super Mario Kart was present in screenshots before release, and few folks ever noticed its sudden and unceremonious exodus. As to why it was ultimately removed from MK64, nobody really knows. It was even seen in a screenshot of the game that was present on the box of Nintendo 64 consoles! Regardless of the reason, this would mark the start of a lengthy dormancy for the Cape Feather. The power-up wouldnt be brought back until Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in 2017, and it has since popped up as a regular item as if it never left.

No Parking for You

During its development, MK64 was to include a couple of courses that were ultimately cut from the final build. One of these courses was a structure that resembled a parking garage. In an interview with gaming outlet Shmuplations, visual director Tadashi Sugiyama revealed that the course would have players race around and around until they reached the very top. Unfortunately, those that played the course found themselves feeling a bit disoriented by the end of the course. And so, it was removed. No geometrical assets can be found in the files, but there are textures that are specifically labeled for the course such as the numbered floors to put on walls and floors.

Cheating the Garlic Muncher

Alongside Rainbow Road, Wario Stadium is a rather lengthy course as well. Although, just like the grand finale, this course features an exploit that can allow you to finish in roughly three minutes. It is possible to use the first set of hills to jump across the wall, thus skipping almost half of the course. Keep in mind you will have to reach a decent speed and hit the wall a particular way to make the jump. Otherwise, you might wind up compromising yourself.

A Rare Podium Ending?

By now, were all familiar with the standard requirements to win or lose in Mario Kart. Finish in first, second, or third, and you get the cup. Come in 5th or below on any of the races, and youll have to retry the course. Butwhat happens if you come in 4th? Well, shockingly, MK64 considers 4th place to be good enough to progress. But if you finish the entire Grand Prix in 4th place? Well, youll be given an ending that very few players have seen to this day. Your character will be shown watching the award ceremony from a distance before driving away and getting blown up by a Mini Bomb Kart. What a pity, indeed.

A Rare Collaboration?

If you actually sit through the end credits of the games you love to play, you may find some interesting people who may have worked on other games youve played. In case you dont pay attention to this stuff, you may be interested in hearing that the legendary studio Rare actually did a bit of work on Mario Kart 64. As cited in the end credits, Rare provided Donkey Kongs model for the game, and this is the same exact model that was used during development of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy. One of the toughest parts in Mario Kart 64s development was in getting the character models just right, so Rare was likely brought in as both a time-saver and to maintain consistency in DKs appearance rather than try to create him from scratch.

Character Conundrums

While were on the subject of developing the character models, yes, creating the sprites for the characters was deemed difficult by one staff member. Tomoaki Koroume served as MK64s character designer, and in the same aforementioned interview with Shmuplations, he talks about the troubles he faced. Koroume recalls how every character required their own different tweaks to get them to look right when sitting in the karts. But of them all, Mario was supposedly the most difficult to develop. Turns out Marios sprites were reusing his model from Super Mario 64, but Koroume was finding all kinds of inconsistencies across the different animations Mario needed. And so, the plumber turned racer needed a lot more tweaking than the rest of the roster required. On top of that, every character was modeled and animated from just about every perspective the player could have, which, according to Koroume, meant the number of animations needed reached into thousands, or maybe even tens of thousands.

Time Trial Triple Threat

What some of us may not realize is that MK64 marks a major milestone in the franchises development as this was the first game in the series to incorporate Time Trials. This part of the Mario Kart games has become such a staple that it features an entire community separate from the core gameplay. But the odd part about MK64s own Time Trials is that the staff ghosts you can challenge are not as diverse in character selection as later installments would become. Every staff ghost will only use Mario, Luigi, or Peach, and funny enough, these are the only three staff ghosts in the entire game. Youll be able to race them on Mario Raceway, Luigi Raceway, and Royal Raceway respectively.

Billboards for Billboards

Speaking of the different raceways, youll notice that many courses are decorated with fake product placement. You may even recognize some of the font choices and logo designs are clearly parodying prominent brands. The thing is that some of these parodied brands are missing key iconography to really drive the jokes home. The reason for this is because some of the parodies are of brands that arent exactly kid-friendly. To avoid possible litigation and controversy, Nintendo would alter some of these parodies in the international versions of MK64. The Japanese versions are a little more explicit in what brands the images are parodying.

In the Valley of the Pagans

This is the last shortcut-related question, and its a shortcut that not all MK64 fans may be aware of. The Rainbow Road one has been covered to death, and the Wario Stadium exploit has been shoveled up here and there. But Yoshi Valley has a more bizarre and much trickier exploit. For some reason, the starting lines detection zone stretches into a small part of the pit that separates the starting line from the rest of the labyrinthian track. If you drive into the pit at the very end of the track while boosting with a Mushroom, not only will you move onto your next lap, but Lakitu will put you back on course from when you first went offroad. With this, it is possible to finish Yoshi Valley in under a minute.

Pro Sweatlord Mode

You know how Super Smash Bros offers settings for players to disable items from spawning in matches? Well, Mario Kart 64 almost offered up a mode similar to that setting. This mode removed all power-ups from the race, meaning all you had to focus on was steering, drifting, and not crashing into hazards. The team had figured this would be an excellent means to attract F-Zero fansuntil they got results from those who played demo builds. Turns out no one was interested in playing a Mario Kart game where items are completely absent. And so, the mode was removed entirely.

Everybody Loves Marty

Marty the Thwomp has long been an enigma in Mario Kart fandom. Whats he doing locked up in Bowsers Castle? Why is he green while all of the other Thwomps are blue? And is his name actually Marty? Well, only one of those questions has been given a concrete answer. We dont know why this particular Thwomp is locked up, and there is no evidence that this Thwomps name is really Marty (it was kind of settled on by fans, really). But we do know why hes green! Remove the yellow light emanating from above him, and youll find that Marty is just as blue as all of the other Thwomps. Yeah, Marty didnt turn out as remarkable as some of us had hoped.

Remnants of SNES Past

On the surface, MK64 doesnt seem to have much in common with its SNES predecessor. Super Mario Kart simply laid the foundation for the franchise, and that was pretty much it. But MK64 respects its elder in some fashion by incorporating melodies from Super Mario Kart into a few areas. For starters, the awards ceremony music is a simple rearrangement of SMKs ceremony music. Then, you have Banshee Boardwalk, which uses parts of the music that can be heard in Ghost Valley. And have you ever listened closely to the music that plays in MK64s title screen? Well, its basically Super Mario Karts theme played in a much more elongated fashion.

Memorable Memorabilia

What you may not know about MK64 is that the game received quite a bit of merchandising within its first year, more than any other game in the series before Mario Kart 8 Deluxe took off. Yes, you could purchase your very own action figure of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Wario, Donkey Kong, or Bowser, and each came with their own kart and one of the games power-ups. There were also RC toys of Mario, Yoshi and Donkey Kong that you could drive around your house, and there was even a Mario Kart telephone. And would you believe you could even get Mario Kart 64-themed playing cards and sour candy? Nowadays, you just have Hot Wheels and Lego making Mario Kart toys, which is still cool in its own way.

Colliding With Collision Detection

While Koroume was struggling in getting characters to look right from every possible angle, the programming team led by Masato Kimura were having their own issues. Between every aspect of MK64s difficult, Kimura has stated that the most difficult part of the entire process was getting collision detection to work. For starters, this was a drastically different game to make compared to the simple 2D assets of Super Mario Kart. Compared to that, MK64 was much more complicated as every piece of geometry needed to be registered as a solid object. Not only that, but the programming team needed to make sure every Green Shell, Red Shell, and Blue Shell was going to hit the walls that needed to be hit instead of just clip through everything. Clearly, this was an intensely rigorous process.

Tripped At the Finish Line

One last facet about MK64s development that you may not have known about is that the game was originally going to be a launch title for the Nintendo 64 alongside Super Mario 64. So, why the sudden change of plans? Well, simply put it just needed more time to develop. However, during that extra time, disaster struck in what might be a developers worst nightmare, specifically for Koroume and his team. The project suffered from a moment of data corruption. While most of the game was easily recoverable, most of the character animations were not and had to be completely redone from scratch TWICE. Dont worry, this setback did not deter Koroume from working on another game again. In fact, Koroume would go on to work in UI and visual effects for even more Nintendo games after this with games including The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Big Brain Academy, Pikmin, and he even served as supervisor for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But this little hiccup is not the last interesting part about MK64s history.

Please Put Your Kart in Airplane Mode

Believe it or not, Mario Kart 64 was not a console exclusive. Neither were many other N64 and SNES classics from Nintendo! Would you believe that Mario Kart 64 was playable on a device called LodgeNet. This box was made specifically for airplanes and hotel rooms to give guests access to a variety of Nintendo games during business trips or vacations. For the LodgeNet versions of MK64, multiplayer is completely disabled while the hotel-specific boxes were given ROMs programmed to not retain save data. We suppose you could call this version Mario Kart 64: Getaway Edition - its not meant to take up your vacation, but it was a good way to take a breather between obligations.

Whats a fascinating tidbit you know about Mario Kart 64? Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!