The Nintendo 64 fan scene has been pretty darn busy lately, with the Zelda: Ocarina of Time PC port finally launching — and getting a shed-load of fun and unusual mods — and even more games rumoured to be made available through reverse engineering. Next on the list, however, is a very smooth and shiny update to a party game favourite.
Fan group Mario Kart 64 HD has been working hard to create an HD texture pack for Mario Kart 64, and over the weekend, the group revealed that they've finished recreating all of the characters. Now, you can race around as your favourite driver in beautiful HD visuals:
Looks flippin' good, doesn't it? The full pack is almost done — and as the video on Twitter shows, every single asset of the game will be updated. This means even items like shells and banana peels will be remodelled in HD. No stone will be left unturned.
The group uses the game's title screen and promotional art to guide them on what they want the models, courses, and items to look like. The team has been working on this for a number of years, with various updates, but this latest one is looking like the sharpest yet. Heck, even the menus are getting a make-over!
It's amazing to see just how much smoother Mario Kart 64 HD has made things look, and it makes a real difference. But the real eye-opener is seeing the portraits and characters from the HD pack and the original game side-by-side. The difference is staggering:
We're huge fans of everything we've seen here, basically. It looks just how we'd imagined it as kids on our CRT screens!
While the character models are available to download, the rest of the pack is still being finalised. And, again, this is another release that's possible because of the fruits of all that reverse engineering. You can check out what packs are available on GitHub, or join Mario Kart 64 HD's Discord to get more info.
Let us know your thoughts on this lovely texture pack in the comments!
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 26
I've been keeping an eye on this project for a while now. Can't wait until it's fully released.
Ok. I'm usually that kind of person that can't tell the difference but this looks pretty good!
most fan made and non fan made HD texture packs look bad but this one looks great. very respectful to the original game.
This is what the game looked like to me back in 97.
Glad there's a github. Everything being on a discord really bums me out.
@OldManHermit Agreed. The rose tinted glasses help, even with the blood shot eyes.
Reminds me of Kevin Temmer.
Looks fantastic though. MK64 is a divisive game for me (I either love it or hate it depending on my mood) but a touch up to the graphics is always great, especially when it looks this good.
sniff sniff
I smell a cease and desist in the air
Oooo ... 👀 I hadn't heard of this, but now I'll keep an eye out, too.
@OldManHermit I often replay old PC games with mods so that they look/play like I remember them... and not how they actually were!
Awaiting the Nintendo Take down, especially as you have put it on here.
Wow, these look so amazingly clean. This is what you truly call a remaster
Don't see the point tbh. Personally think the gameplay has ages the worst of the Mario Kart games
Super clean. Looks absolutely fantastic. Heres 3 1ups
I still prefer remake version from Retro Cups on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
It seems almost anachronistic calling this “HD” when the game could run at higher resolutions (hardware and monitor permitting). Anyway, I wish we got a physical Mario Kart “All Stars” collection any day of the week over DLC for MK8D. They should have saved the tour tracks and remade tracks for Mario Kart 9 rather than dishing out a potentially underwhelming content-starved experience supplemented by an indefinite array of DLC packs.
@Clyde_Radcliffe : 100%. It will take a whole lot more than textures and a resolution boost to make me want to revisit Mario Kart 64. I’ve enjoyed the remade tracks in subsequent games, but yes indeedy, 64 has aged the worst, dare I say even more so than its predecessor.
@Clyde_Radcliffe
Yeah, I get the game has it’s fans for nostalgia, but at least with the original and Super Circuit, the drifting was just different. Here, it’s straight up bad. I will say it probably still has the best battle mode in the franchise, but that’s just Nintendo’s refusal to make battle mode elimination again.
Bah, I'm pretty sure it always looked that good on my 12 inch CRT...
I'd rather play a modern and better one...
It does look really smooth and clean but I always liked the look of Mario kart 64 the characters sometimes had that claymation look about them this is the kinda thing Nintendo themselves should be offering to NSO subscribers as an option
Beautiful HD visuals in those pixelated twitter videos.
Impressive work. Very faithful.
it looks just like Mario Kart Tour / MK8D booster pass
It’s fanmade so Nintendo fans won’t like it….
@koekiemonster Correction, Nintendo fanboys wouldnt like it.
Actually if you really know how to play the game, can power slide properly, chain drifts etc, the core gameplay is still absolutely fantastic. I find it odd that people have started to deride this game, but eventually realised it’s usually newer players trying to go back from MK8. It plays so differently, but when you get it, its still very very good.
It doesn’t have that super-stable handling of MK8, but for this game that was intentional. If you mess the cart around in a way that represents bad driving, you go unstable & unless you counter, the game will spin you out. This creates another layer to the handling model that’s immensely satisfying and rewards decisive,, clean gameplay.
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