Mk64.original

Every week we get fresh little peeks behind the curtain of games both big and small. Recently, Forest of Illusion posted this original theme tune for Mario Kart 64 on Twitter. It comes from a prototype build of the game and it's not the most inspired track in the plumber's songbook. Take a listen below:

https://twitter.com/forestillusion/status/1122428203056807936

As you can hear, it isn't the most inspired bit of songwriting and, as noted by Forest of Illusion, it was likely a placeholder track created for a demo. Looking at the image accompanying the tweet, this dates from when the game was still called Super Mario Kart R, and the character line up is a little different from the game that eventually released - if you look closely you'll see Kamek in the background. Kamek, of course, is the magikoopa who debuted in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and would continue to cause problems for the fruit-loving dinosaurs right up until the recent Yoshi's Crafted World. In the final build he was replaced by Donkey Kong.

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The theme tune that the game released with isn't exactly the most memorable in the karting canon, either - following Charles Martinet's "Welcome to Mario Kart!" we very quickly skipped it. For those of you who don't remember the final tune, here it is:

Of course, the finest title screen music in a Mario Kart game is obviously the Double Dash theme. That track brings back memories of tripping over GameCube controller cords at university... How could anybody possibly disagree? Let us know your favourite below.

[source twitter.com]