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00:00Just peel the coin off the lid, score 64, and you could win an N64 system, cash, or millions of
00:07other great prizes.
00:08Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're firing off 20 facts about Mario Kart 64 that you may not have
00:15known about.
00:22Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long,
00:25so be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays, and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
00:32Nerfed for multiplayer.
00:41We all have fond memories of racing and battling friends across the different courses,
00:46but man, the one thing we don't miss about it is that god-awful performance.
00:51Really, why does Mario Kart 64 run great solo, but chugs when more than two players are on screen?
00:58Well, this is because of the technical limitations of the Nintendo 64.
01:02Simply adding another player demands double the processing power needed to allow just one player to play.
01:08And so, to accommodate four-player functionality, sacrifices had to be made.
01:13That's why the framerate is a slog, music doesn't play, and also why CPU drivers are absent when three or
01:20four players are present.
01:27Mario Kart 64.
01:36At one point in development, Mario Kart 64 was almost literally Mario Kart 64.
01:43According to programmer Kenji Yamamoto, the team managed to implement realistic physics into the cars.
01:49While impressive considering the weak prowess of the Nintendo 64,
01:53the team ultimately found that the physics detracted from the game's fun factor.
01:57And so, it was decided to keep the basic fundamentals introduced in Super Mario Kart and keep karts grounded.
02:05However, Mario Kart Double Dash would integrate physics into its karts,
02:09which was a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask.
02:12The series hasn't looked back on that since.
02:20Having the Rainbow Road.
02:29Mario Kart 64 hides a few shortcuts only possible with the use of a mushroom or superstar.
02:36But Rainbow Road has one that you may or may not have thought to try.
02:40And it's right at the very start of the course.
02:43The starting line is super high above much of the course.
02:46High enough that, at the right speed, gives you enough room to jump off and land halfway across the track.
02:52Funny enough, the game registers your placement even if you miss the jump and will reset you on the course
02:59as if you really did just drive halfway through the course.
03:01Suddenly, Rainbow Road isn't this egregiously long 5 minute course anymore.
03:16A real sorcerer supreme.
03:26It's rare that we ever hear about characters getting cut from a Mario Kart game, but in the case of
03:31Mario Kart 64, one Koopa got the axe.
03:34Early screenshots and gameplay clips in various gaming outlets show that MK64 had Kamek as a playable character.
03:42Indeed, the sorcerer was to be a part of the game's roster until Nintendo found an alternative.
03:48After much thought, the team deemed Donkey Kong to be a better fit.
03:52Kamek wouldn't make his playable debut in the series until 2019's Mario Kart Tour on mobile.
03:57His eventual inclusion in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's waves of DLC was a bigger deal though.
04:11A feather for your troubles.
04:21Another interesting snippet of early builds of MK64 is the Cape Feather.
04:26Yes, this item from Super Mario Kart was present in screenshots before release, and few folks ever noticed its sudden
04:33and unceremonious exodus.
04:35As to why it was ultimately removed from MK64, nobody really knows.
04:40It was even seen in a screenshot of the game that was present on the box of Nintendo 64 consoles.
04:46Regardless of the reason, this would mark the start of a lengthy dormancy for the Cape Feather.
04:51The power-up wouldn't be brought back until Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in 2017, and it has since popped up
04:57as a regular item, as if it never left.
05:08No parking for you.
05:16During its development, MK64 was to include a couple of courses that were ultimately cut from the final build.
05:23One of these courses was a structure that resembled a parking garage.
05:27In an interview with gaming outlet Shmuplations, visual director Tadashi Sugiyama revealed that the course would have players race around
05:35and around until they reached the very top.
05:37Unfortunately, those that played the course found themselves feeling a bit disoriented by the end of the course, and so,
05:44it was removed.
05:45No geometrical assets can be found in the files, but there are textures that are specifically labeled for the course,
05:51such as the numbered floors to put on walls and floors.
05:56Here I go!
05:58I'm a Wario!
05:59I'm a-gonna-wink!
06:04Cheating the Garlic Muncher
06:11Alongside Rainbow Road, Wario Stadium is a rather lengthy course as well.
06:15Although, just like the grand finale, this course features an exploit that can allow you to finish in roughly three
06:22minutes.
06:22It is possible to use the first set of hills to jump across the wall, thus skipping almost half of
06:29the course.
06:30Keep in mind that you will have to reach a decent speed in order to hit the wall, and hit
06:34it at a particular angle to make the jump.
06:37Otherwise, you might wind up compromising yourself.
06:44A rare podium ending?
06:56By now, we're all familiar with the standard requirements to win or lose in Mario Kart.
07:01Finish in first, second, or third, and you get the cup.
07:04Come in fifth or below on any of the races, and you'll have to retry the course.
07:08But, what happens if you come in fourth in the entire cup?
07:13Well, shockingly, MK64 considers fourth place to be good enough to progress, but if you finish the entire Grand Prix
07:21in fourth place,
07:22well, you'll be given an ending that very few players have seen to this day.
07:26Your character will be shown watching the award ceremony from a distance before sadly driving away and getting blown up
07:34by a mini bomb cart.
07:36What a pity indeed.
07:46A rare collaboration?
07:55If you actually sit through the end credits of the games you love to play, you may find some interesting
08:00people who have worked on other games you might have played.
08:03In case you don't pay attention to this stuff, you may be interested in hearing that the legendary studio Rare
08:08actually did a bit of work for Mario Kart 64.
08:13As cited in the end credits, Rare provided Donkey Kong's model for the game, and this is the same exact
08:18model that was used during the development of the Donkey Kong Country Trilogy.
08:23One of the toughest parts in Mario Kart 64's development was in getting the character models just right,
08:28so Rare was likely brought in as both a time saver and to maintain consistency in DK's appearance rather than
08:35try to create him from scratch.
08:42Character Conundrums
08:51While we're on the subject of developing the character models, yes, creating the sprites for the characters was deemed difficult
08:58by one staff member.
08:59Tomoaki Kurome served as MK64's character designer, and in the same aforementioned interview with Shmuplations, he talks about the troubles
09:08he faced.
09:09Kurome recalls how every character required their own different tweaks to get them to look right when sitting in the
09:16karts,
09:16but of them all, Mario was supposedly the most difficult to develop.
09:21Turns out Mario's sprites were reusing his model from Super Mario 64,
09:28but Kurome was finding all kinds of inconsistencies across all of the different animations for Mario,
09:35and so the plumber turned racer needed a lot more tweaking than the rest of the roster required.
09:41On top of that, every character was modeled and animated from just about every possible perspective the player could have,
09:48which, according to Kurome, meant the number of animations needed reached into, quote,
09:54thousands or maybe even tens of thousands, end quote.
10:05Time Trial Triple Threat
10:14What some of us may not realize is that MK64 marks a major milestone in the franchise's development,
10:20as this was the very first game in the series to incorporate time trials.
10:24This part of the Mario Kart series has become such a staple that it now features an entire community separated
10:30from the core gameplay.
10:32But the odd part about MK64's own time trials is that the staff ghosts you can challenge are not as
10:39diverse in character selection as later installments would become.
10:42Every staff ghost you come across will only use Mario, Luigi, or Peach,
10:48and funny enough, these are the only three staff ghosts in the entire game,
10:53and you'll be able to race them on Mario Raceway, Luigi Raceway, and Royal Raceway respectively.
11:02Yahoo!
11:08Billboards for billboards.
11:23Speaking of the different raceways, you'll notice that many courses are decorated with fake product placement.
11:29You may even recognize some of the font choices and logo designs are clearly parodying prominent real-life brands.
11:36The thing is that some of these parodied brands are missing key iconography to really drive the jokes home.
11:42The reason for this is because some of the parodies of brands aren't exactly kid-friendly.
11:48To avoid possible litigation and controversy, Nintendo would alter some of these parodies in the international versions of MK64.
11:56The Japanese versions are a little more explicit in which brands the images are parodying.
12:10In the Valley of the Pagans.
12:12In the Valley of the Pagans.
12:30It has been shoveled up here and there.
12:32But Yoshi Valley has a more bizarre and much trickier exploit.
12:36For some reason, the starting line's detection zone stretches into a small part of the pit that separates the starting
12:43line from the rest of the Labyrinthian track.
12:45If you drive into the pit at the very end of the track while boosting with a mushroom, not only
12:50will you move on to your next lap,
12:52but Lakitu will put you back on course from when you first went off-road.
12:56With this, it is possible to finish Yoshi Valley in just under a minute.
13:11Pro Sweatlord Mode
13:22You know how Super Smash Bros. offers settings for players to disable items from spawning in matches?
13:27Well, Mario Kart 64 almost offered up a mode similar to that setting.
13:33This mode removed all power-ups from the race, meaning all you had to focus on was steering, drifting, and
13:39not crashing into hazards.
13:41The team had figured this would be an excellent means to attract F-Zero fans, until they got results from
13:47those who played demo builds.
13:49Turns out, nobody was interested in playing a Mario Kart game where items were completely absent.
13:55And so, the mode was removed entirely.
14:07Everybody loves Marty.
14:16Marty the Thwomp has long been an enigma in Mario Kart fandom.
14:20What's he doing locked up in Bowser's castle?
14:23Why is he green while all of the other thwomps are blue?
14:26And is his name actually Marty?
14:28Well, only one of those questions has been given a concrete answer.
14:32We don't know why this particular thwomp is locked up, and there is no evidence that suggests the thwomp's name
14:37really is Marty.
14:39It was kind of settled on by fans, really.
14:41But we do know why he's green!
14:42Remove the yellow light emanating from above him, and you will find that Marty is not all that special.
14:48He is just as blue as all of the other thwomps.
14:51Yeah, it's kind of a bummer, but Marty didn't turn out as remarkable as some of us had hoped.
15:03Remnants of SNES Past
15:12On the surface, MK64 doesn't seem to have much in common with its SNES predecessor.
15:18Super Mario Kart simply laid the foundation for the franchise, and that was pretty much it.
15:23But MK64 respects its elder in some fashion by incorporating melodies from Super Mario Kart into a few areas.
15:30For starters, the awards ceremony music is a simple rearrangement of SMK's ceremony music.
15:44Then, if you listen to Banshee Boardwalk, you'll notice some parts of the music are taken from Ghost Valley.
15:57And have you ever listened closely to the music that plays in Mario Kart 64's title screen?
16:02Well, it's basically Super Mario Kart's theme, played in a much more elongated fashion.
16:18Memorable Memorabilia
16:26What you may not know about MK64 is that the game received quite a bit of merchandising within its first
16:33year.
16:33More than any other game in the series before Mario Kart 8 Deluxe took off.
16:37Yes, you could purchase your very own action figure of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Wario, Donkey Kong, or Bowser.
16:44And each came with their own kart and one of the game's power-ups.
16:48There were also RC toys of Mario, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong that you could drive around your house.
16:55And there was even a Mario Kart telephone!
16:57And would you believe that you could get Mario Kart 64 themed playing cards and sour candy?
17:03Nowadays, we just have Hot Wheels and Lego making Mario Kart toys.
17:07Still cool in its own way, but...
17:09Man, I miss my little Bowser.
17:12I miss my Bowser action figure.
17:15Mario Kart 64.
17:16Twin Color controller.
17:18Set.
17:20Colliding with collision detection.
17:27While Kurome was struggling in getting characters to look just right from every possible angle,
17:33the programming team led by Masato Kimura was having issues of their own.
17:38Between every aspect of MK64's development,
17:41Kimura has stated that the most difficult part of the entire process was getting collision detection to work.
17:47For starters, this was a drastically different game to make compared to the simple 2D assets of Super Mario Kart.
17:54Compared to that, MK64 was much more complicated as every piece of geometry needed to be registered as a solid
18:01object.
18:08Not only that, but the programming team needed to make sure every green shell, red shell, and blue shell was
18:15going to hit the walls that needed to be hit, instead of just clipping through everything.
18:21Clearly, this was an intensely rigorous process.
18:30Tripped at the finish line.
18:39One last facet about MK64's development that you may not have known about is that the game was originally going
18:45to be a launch title for the Nintendo 64 alongside Super Mario 64.
18:50So why the sudden change of plans?
18:52Well, simply put, it just needed more time to develop.
18:56However, during that extra time, disaster struck in what might be a developer's worst nightmare, specifically for Kurome and his
19:04team.
19:05The project suffered from a massive moment of data corruption.
19:09While most of the game was easily recoverable, most of the character animations were not and had to be completely
19:15redone from scratch twice.
19:24Don't worry, this setback did not deter Kurome from working on another game ever again.
19:29In fact, Kurome would go on to work in UI and visual effects for even more Nintendo games after this.
19:35With games including The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Big Brain Academy, Pikmin, and he even served as supervisor
19:42for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
19:44But this little hiccup is not the last interesting part about MK64's history.
19:55And lastly, please put your kart in airplane mode.
20:06Believe it or not, Mario Kart 64 was not a console exclusive.
20:11Neither were many other N64 and SNES classics from Nintendo.
20:15Would you believe that Mario Kart 64 was playable on a completely different device called a LodgeNet?
20:25Here we go!
20:28This box was made specifically for airplanes and hotel rooms to give guests access to a variety of Nintendo games
20:36during business trips or vacations.
20:38For the LodgeNet versions of MK64, multiplayer is completely disabled while the hotel specific boxes were given ROMs programmed to
20:47not retain save data.
20:48We suppose you could call this version Mario Kart 64 Getaway Edition.
20:52It's not meant to take up your vacation, but it was a good way to take a breather between your
20:56obligations.
21:05What's a fascinating tidbit that you know about Mario Kart 64?
21:09Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays for more great videos every
21:14day.
21:20Let us know down in the comments.
21:21We'll see you soon.
21:21We'll see you soon.
21:21We'll see you soon.
21:23Have you then.
21:24We'll see you soon.
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