Introduction
In our current era, there are only three video game series that I can confidently say have the status of being legit household titles: Super Smash Brothers, Pokémon, and Mario Kart. Since its debut in 1992, the latter series has remained a perennial favorite, appealing to audiences in both competitive and casual play. Despite that, within the Mario Kart community lies a slightly more obscure subset of fans—the hacking community. Right now, Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart Wii boast some of the largest modding communities, with Mario Kart Wii, in particular, featuring thousands of custom tracks, additional game modes, and even third-party online servers, a decade after the official one shut down. However, this article aims to shine a spotlight on a lesser-known hacking community, the Mario Kart DS hacking community. In addition, I wanted to talk about the history and coverage of one of its most influential hacks from 2012. So, rev your engines, buckle up, and join me as I explore one of my favorite ROM hacks growing up—Mario Kart Zero.
Personal History
The ROM hacking scene has been one that I've been invested in and observed from afar for many years. One of my earliest memories of learning about ROM hacks was from watching Proton Jon play through Kaizō Mario hacks based on Super Mario World's engine. I also fondly remember watching a few PokéTubers play various Pokémon ROM Hacks that were most commonly made using Fire Red's engine, and this content introduced me to the cool subculture of fans who wanted to make their own games by rearranging and modifying the assets found in their favorite game series and distributing their creative endeavors to fellow fans.
Pictured above is Special Stage 2, one of the most infamous stages in old Proton Jon lore.
I mostly stuck to playing ROM Hacks for a long time, and I came across Mario Kart Zero around 2013 or 2014. It was hosted on a now-defunct Mario Kart DS Hacking site and forum known as DSHack.org. This was actually the first site where I used the "Mega" username, though, at the time, I used the name "Mega Koopa X", combining "Mega Charizard X" and "Koopa", representing Pokémon and Mario, my two favorite series at the time...
Anyway, this site gave me a more direct look at a lot of the people who worked on these hacks, what kind of software they used, how the development life cycle went, and so on. It was all really fascinating to my younger self. The idea of making a fangame or ROM Hack—essentially a love letter for fans, by fans—combined with the technical process that came with making them: all played a part in my choosing to study Computer Science when I went to college.
Even though I stopped browsing DSHack regularly and the site eventually died, I still continued my ROM Hacking endeavors and worked on my very own projects. While in high school, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, I worked on an addendum patch to Quirino's fan translation of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. I also worked on a Christmas-themed mini-hack for Super Mario World, which, while a bit primitive, I was so proud of at the time, that I eagerly showed it off to some of my classmates in my school's gaming club.
There were also a few projects that never amounted to much. I did a proof of concept custom map for Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. A ROM Hack of Super Mario Kart which died because of a hard-drive crash. A few custom tracks for Super Mario Kart. A scrapped fan translation of the Famicom game, Artelius, that I may or may not come back to. And a ROM Hack of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones that I'll never release.
The coveted Limbo Project, the portrait was made for me by Levin64.
This project died kind of early on, it was primarily because modifying this text in the intro sequences, causes it to loop infinitely, disallowing you to continue with the game. I have no idea how to fix it.
The original files for many of these projects are now lost, so I had to get screenshots from old low-quality videos I uploaded on my account several years ago. The first image displays a simple custom track I made, there's not much to say. The second track is a remake of the infamous Mushroom Peaks track that appears in CTGP. The third is a silly remake of the first level of Super Mario Land, and the last image is just the proof of concept map in FE1 that I previously mentioned.
At this point, I'm currently working on a simple indie game that I aim to complete by the end of this year, though I can't really disclose too much more of it. But the point is, that the discovery of these older hacking communities played a big role in my interest in ROM hacking and game development in general. Nowadays, Mario Kart Zero may not seem very impressive, but back then, it was a really huge project that similarly inspired a lot of other people who were also involved with the Mario Kart hacking community.
Mario Kart CW
That being said, before I can mention Mario Kart Zero in any sense, I need to first talk about its predecessor, Mario Kart CW. You see, Mario Kart DS was released on November 14, 2005, and even for a Mario Kart game, the game sold phenomenally. As of March 2016, Mario Kart DS had sold 23.6 million units worldwide—the third best-selling game on the system, just after Nintendogs and New Super Mario Bros. The game brought a lot of new things to the table, like a more refined drifting system, online multiplayer, DS download play, a more formal introduction of retro tracks, a single-player battle mode, a mission mode, and so on. But this section isn’t necessarily meant to discuss the things MKDS brought to the table; it’s more about the stuff that was swept under the rug.
In December 2005, a ROM hacker by the name of Parasyte from Kodewerx, the old name of GSCentral, was experimenting with their own debugger. Within Mario Kart DS's ROM, they discovered the track data for GCN Mario Circuit (known internally as old_mario_gc.szs). For those who don’t know, GCN Mario Circuit was a track that did not appear in the final game of MKDS, though it would later be brought back in MKWii as a retro track. The track was untextured and it wasn't completely functional. But it didn’t really have to be functional, as even though the track was completely colorless, this track would still spell a colorful future for the Mario Kart DS hacking scene.
In 2006, a user named Kushan* made a notable discovery within the ROM of MKDS, they uncovered a whole treasure trove of unused tracks. Among them were Nokonoko Course, envisioned as a beach track, possibly intended as another Koopa Beach track, Dokan Course, a track featuring a warp pipe motif, a few early versions of DK Pass, many early versions of Waluigi Pinball, and numerous other interesting pieces of unused data.
Kushan* had planned on releasing a hack simply called Mario Kart DS 2, which would bring back these unused tracks in a playable state. Unfortunately, because the project was too ambitious for the technological limits of the time, MKDS 2 was never released and Kushan* vanished from the internet.
Then enters NeoWynaut, who initially created a single-page blog site in 2004, evolving it into a Freewebs site known as Club-Wynaut. Over time, "Club Wynaut" was shortened to "CW," as it transitioned into a Pokemon ROM hacking site that focused primarily on the GBA Pokemon games.
In 2006, Neo redirected efforts toward Mario Kart DS, prompting a rebranding of the site to "CW Games." NeoWynaut delved deeper into the rabbit hole of unused content in MKDS, acquiring the necessary tools and technical know-how. Collaborating with a user named Mewy, they released Mario Kart CW Beta 1.0 in 2007, marking the first-ever ROM hack for Mario Kart DS.
In the same year, with the release of Mario Kart CW Beta, YamiHoshi, a prolific game developer and ROM hacker from the Netherlands, joined CW-Games and proposed to Neo that she could be his site's administrator, and give CW-games its own domain name, rather than having it be hosted on a free hosted site.
In 2008, CW-Games obtained its first domain name, CW-Games.org. Unfortunately, the server was later terminated, and there was no word about it for half a year. As a result, UltimatePisman and Neowynaut created DSHack.org as an emergency plan-B site, where Mario Kart CW was hosted. When the full version of Mario Kart CW was released in 2009, the site began to grow from there.
As the DSHack.org forum grew, a lot of people experienced issues and problems trying to get MKCW to run properly. Certain tracks would crash the game or would work only on certain DS carts or emulators. It was a whole fiasco, you had to be there.
Because of these issues, MKCW Beta 2.0 was released and NeoWynaut would end up releasing annual revisions of the hack, and receive assistance from YamiHoshi and another user named Anabell.
For some years, MKCW would be in development limbo because of the issues arising from adding textures to the unused tracks and getting everything to work properly. This was until one day—like a Phoenix—a hero would rise from the ashes to save the day. That's right: a Spanish guy. This user would find a way to port beta textures into the final game, and because of this, it would birth the release of Mario Kart CW Final, the first MKDS hack with fully textured and playable Beta Tracks. With that, DSHack would boom in new users. These new users would continue to contribute to the improvements of Mario Kart CW and would result in the Mario Kart CW X patch.
In 2011, it was the fifth anniversary of the initial start of the CW Project, and that would mark the anticipation of other projects such as Mario Kart CW Tri, Mario Kart CW OSE (Open-Source Edition), and Mario Kart CW Beta 3.0. Mario Kart CW OSE was meant to make hacking more accessible to anybody, and it has also been used as a template ROM for other Mario Kart DS hacks. However, on June 26th, 2011, the lack of new stuff resulted in its cancellation. In addition to that, the development of MKCW OSE stopped soon after, making it a legacy project.
The title screen used in Mario Kart CW Tri. Featuring Wario and Yoshi’s unused karts.
With the CW project, many roads were paved and it served as a bridge that would eventually evolve into the behemoth Mario Kart DS hacking would become today. Through this project, a lot was learned and understood about the game’s ROM and how to insert custom tracks and textures. So, with this information, where else can we go from here? Well, I can’t actually hear your response, but from here, is where I'm going to talk a bit about the development team behind Mario Kart Zero, a little-known team known as SYStEM.
The SYStEM Team
Mario Kart Zero was built from MKCW OSE 6.2 and was worked on by a team called SYStEM, which would encompass users: Szymbar15, Yoshidude4, Super, MKDS1992, and Ermelber. After the experience from working on MKCW, Szymbar15 would use the unfinished CW OSE 6.2 patch, fix the bugs, and use it to make their own ROM hack. They started working with mostly textures, and later on, more people would join the team until they created an official name for the team: SYStEM. Which is not only a cool name, but would also function as an acronym for the names of the members involved with the team, minus a leftover t.
As with any system, it’s important to first discuss the head behind it, and that would be Szymbar15. Luckily, a lot of Szymbar’s experiences are documented by themselves in a semi-recent article they wrote, and a link to this article will be available in the References section of this blog post.
That said, back in 2011, Szymbar15 would bring themselves to the hacking scene through the development of CW OSE. They were a part of the wave of users who joined DSHack and became acquainted with users Gericom, Yoshidude4, and Super.
Gericom at the time was known as a programming prodigy—they knew more about programming and ROM hacking than most of us know about breathing. Even though Gericom is not an official member of the SYStEM team, his contributions were integral to the development of Mario Kart Zero. Gericom would release the application known as MKDS Course Modifier, which was based on an early version of a versatile Nintendo DS file format editor called Tinke. This tool would allow track editing to become much easier and more intuitive, it was almost like what Lunar Magic is to Super Mario World or FEBuilder to GBA Fire Emblem. However, it was a bit less easy to navigate because this was still 2011. Anyways, this made creating custom textures and inserting them easy to do, and as you’d imagine, a lot of users went wild. Szymbar being one of them, they would learn this program to begin their work on this passion project.
Yoshidude4, sometimes referred to as Yawshi, is a talented hacker and the co-director of the project. He would join the MKDS hacking scene during the influx of users during the CW boom. He joined the project after Szymbar15 invited him, and would contribute track textures, and character textures. Outside of Mario Kart Zero, he was also known for their retro track ports into Mario Kart Wii.
Super—full name Superstarxalien169—was the translator and also handled some of the texture hacks for the project. Interestingly, outside of MKDS hacking, they used to make videos similar to that of SMG4, and looking them up online would bring up those as results.
Ermelber, also known sometimes as Ermii, was a huge Haruhi Suzumiya and Ace Attorney fan but was also the last member to join the team. Ermelber started out as a Mario Kart Wii hacker and would contribute his custom tracks to CTGP and other Mario Kart Wii hack packs. When moving on to Mario Kart DS, he would join the team in the development of Mario Kart Zero.
He was very gifted when it came to graphic hacking and design and was made the lead graphic designer of the project. Aside from custom tracks and graphic design, he was also fluent in Italian and would be the head translator, translating the game and menus into Italian. Because of his graphical efforts, Mario Kart Zero would also be translated into five other languages. After the release of Mario Kart Zero, Ermelber would later carve a name for himself in the hacking scene when he started a new project, Ermii Kart DS. However, this will be discussed more in-depth later on.
Lastly, we have MKDS1992, sometimes shortened to just MKDS, a German speedrunner, who joined the team to offer time trial ghosts for the hack. Even though they had MKDS hacking experience and had made custom tracks, they would mostly stick to ghost records. To this day, they still upload time trial records of various Mario Kart tracks to their YouTube page.
I already mentioned Gericom, but there are a select few other users who aren’t a part of the SYStEM team, but still ultimately helped in the development of Mario Kart Zero. Two of those members would be the NewSuperHackerBros: Ray, and Freeze (or Fr33ze). These two contributed custom tracks to Mario Kart Zero but got their start with New Super Mario Bros DS. They would start with the hack, aptly named, New Super Hacker Bros. They used graphics and models from New Super Mario Bros Wii and implemented a lot of unique undisclosed ideas. Unfortunately, after a loss of interest, the ROM getting corrupted, and a general lack of direction for the hack, the hack was canceled to the dismay of fans. They’d then work on a mini-project called Mario in Nyan Cats World and a few other projects before getting into MKDS hacking.
Two other contributing players are XoLT who contributed one custom track and alexwire who contributed the green Waluigi texture which was used in the game—the only character texture to be made by someone outside of SYStEM. Not much is known about either of them, but I still wanted to acknowledge them anyway.
The initial release of Mario Kart Zero was in January of 2013, and at the time, it was the most ambitious Mario Kart DS ROM hack. The team would continue to release more updates and bug fixes to the project and later on, Szymbar would move to working on 3DS projects as well. According to Szymbar, working with SYStEM on Mario Kart Zero was an eye-opening experience for them, as it taught them not only things about MKDS but also the English language and a lot of things they use in their personal life to this day.
Let's play the game!
When you booted up the ROM of Mario Kart Zero, it featured a lot of graphical changes compared to the vanilla game. Its menus utilized a red-colored UI and theming rather than the blue one seen in the base game, courtesy of Ermelber.
Upon selecting the game mode you wanted to play, you were brought to the character selection screen, which featured a number of 'new' characters. Starting from the beginning, you had: Ice Mario, a reskin done by Szymbar; Flying Luigi, done by Super; Fawful Guy, a reskin of Shy Guy which replaced Princess Peach, also done by Super; Blue Yoshi, by Szymbar; Toadsworth, by Szymbar; Snowy Kong, by Super; Dr. Robotnik, a reskin of Wario by Yoshidude; and Dark Bowser, by Yoshidude.
As for unlockables, you had Rosalina, a reskin of Princess Daisy by Szymbar; Red Koopa Troopa, a recolor of Dry Bones by Szymbar and Super; Green Waluigi, done by alexvire; and Dark ROB, by Yoshidude. Fully custom characters weren't fully developed until quite a bit later, so at the time, all the playable characters were just textures of previous characters.
Additionally, many of the karts and vehicles were also reskinned or modified in one way or another to match the changes made to the characters, for example, Mario's iconic B-Dasher was changed to the Ice Dasher and recolored blue to match Ice Mario.
Mushroom Cup
Now let's jump into the bread and butter of this ROM Hack: the tracks. Similar to the base game, this hack comprises 32 tracks, featuring a mix of new courses and retro ones. However, unlike the base game where retro courses are found in specific cups like the Shell, Banana, Leaf, and Lightning Cups, in this hack, retro courses are placed more sporadically among the eight available cups. Additionally, not every track is entirely original; a considerable number are reskins of tracks from the vanilla game or reskins of beta or unused versions. That being said though, let's marathon through these tracks so I can share my thoughts on each.
The first track in this hack is actually one of my favorites. It's Luigi's Mansion 2 by Super, a reskin of the unused GCN Mario Circuit track using textures from Luigi's Mansion. Although it's a reskin, it's designed really well, and Luigi's Mansion's textures work with the track layout surprisingly well, resulting in this track being one of the more memorable ones for me. Similarly, I really love the atmosphere, which is further enhanced by its theme, “4 Minutes Before Death - Variation,” from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. A fun fact: this ROM Hack was actually how I learned of the existence of Ghost Trick, and this song got me invested enough to play the game myself. After that, I moved on to Ace Attorney and other visual novel games like that. Tangents aside, I enjoyed this starting track a lot. It is not without issues, though. Firstly, in the version of the game I played, watching the entire intro scene in a Grand Prix causes the game to crash, so you have to skip it. Another concern I have is that keeping the basic Goombas and Piranha Plant sprites feels a bit out of place. The last criticism I have is that the skybox is a bit barren, aside from the moon. I understand it's supposed to be scary and desolate, but it feels more like a basic emptiness rather than an eerie emptiness if that makes sense.
The next track is Koopa Falls by Yoshidude4. It’s a reskin of Yoshi Falls that incorporates textures and music from Koopa Cape, complete with a giant pipe in the middle replacing the giant Yoshi Egg. The lighting is also slightly dimmed, giving it a more nighttime effect. I appreciate how this track features the Paratroopa signs reading "Turn Right" from Koopa Cape, scattered all over the track, just in case you forgot how to drive in a circle. However, this track lacks the novelty of being a reskin of an unused track, and since vanilla Yoshi Falls isn't a track I feel too strongly about, Koopa Falls was always just okay for me.
Next up is Peach Peach Beach—not to be confused with Peach Beach—by Yoshidude4. This track is a recolor of Cheep Cheep Beach. As they both feature beach settings, it's not a significant shift in scenery. Despite that though, this track does look much nicer than the Cheep Cheep version. The rock monuments in this track are now Peach Pink instead of Grim Gray, and the forest area has been transformed into a town area. Furthermore, the sand area now features nice grass textures commonly associated with the Nokonoko Course, and they complement the overall aesthetic. It's one of the most aesthetically pleasing tracks.
Last for the Mushroom Cup is Peach’s Castle by Yoshidude4. It’s a recolor of Luigi's Mansion, with textures from Peach’s Castle from Super Mario 64 DS. The inside of the castle uses the same wall textures from Mario 64, and the Boo paintings are now entrances to Bob-omb Battlefield. The gravestones outside are instead the black bricks that you needed Wario to break in Mario 64 DS, and the mud area... well, that's just regular road, but with the slide-like properties of mud. It uses the castle theme from Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, and while the theme works as a hub world theme, it doesn't really work as a racing theme, it's too tranquil for a racing setting. I would have much preferred the Slider theme from Mario 64. This track also still uses the fog effect from the original track, which kind of makes the castle hard to see in the first place, and kinda makes it more eerie than Luigi's Mansion in the base game.
Flower Cup
Starting the Flower Cup, we have Bowser’s Lava Circle by Ray, the first fully custom track in this hack, and it's decent. The track is exactly what it says on the tin—a big circle with some holes you can fall down which leads you into lava. This track also features jumps and scattered black columns. Something annoying is a big ramp near the start of the track; if you go up the ramp straight, you fall into a pool of lava and die. Another issue is that the AI paths in this track are completely broken; after a certain point, they circle around aimlessly, making it almost guaranteed for you to win the race.
Next is Delfino City, it’s a reskin of Delfino Plaza by Yoshidude4. This track uses Maple Treeway Music and has a nice nighttime aesthetic. The texture they used for the buildings is kind of ugly, but aside from that, it’s hard to go wrong with a night-themed track that uses Maple Treeway's music.
Now we have Pipe Pinball by Super and Yoshidude4. This is an older unused version of Waluigi Pinball with textures from Dokan Course. However, Dokan Course only really has two textures: a red checkerboard pattern and a green checkerboard pattern. It's not the most engaging track in terms of aesthetics, but I love the idea of using a texture from one unused track for another unused track. This track also incorporates Team Plasma’s theme from Pokemon Black and White, which I appreciate a lot. Even though I’m not as big a fan of Waluigi Pinball as most people, I still enjoy this track a ton; it's one of my favorites.
Rounding out the Flower Cup is Ermelber Circuit 1, a fully custom track, and I bet you can't guess who made this one. This track is quite short, being one of the few tracks in this hack that uses five laps. It’s very reminiscent of the SNES circuit tracks as well as the GBA circuit tracks and features music from Starlight Zone from Sonic 1, a song I enjoy a lot, making this track a fun one to race on. Additionally, this track has a cool advertisement for Volcano Beach, another track made by Ermelber in Mario Kart Wii. All in all, I like this track; it’s a nice, relaxing race to finish up the cup.
Star Cup
Starting with the Star Cup, we have DK Pass Summit by Super. And, it's DK Pass with textures from DK Summit from Mario Kart Wii. The snowmen are now Shy Guys, the asphalt road is now wooden, and the music used here is the music from DK Summit. There’s not much else to say here, but maybe when I proofread this once again, I may put a joke here or something to pad out space. (I didn’t)
Next is Rainbow Place, by Super, Yoshidude, and Szymbar15. It’s a reskin of Dokan Course but with textures from Rainbow Road. Like many Rainbow Road tracks, it's very aesthetically pleasing, and it has very good music to boot. The music in this track is from GBA Ribbon Road, which surprisingly fits well. Unfortunately, though, those are the only good things I can mention about this track. This is probably the track I enjoy playing the least. One problem I have is that, despite being an average-sized course, there is only one set of item blocks near the beginning, and nothing else for the rest of the race, leaving most races as a simple, unengaging drive. The lack of shortcuts, alternative paths, or anything else makes this even more noticeable. There is also this weird bug where AI racers are a lot faster than they're supposed to be, making them hard to overtake, let alone win a race. And the cherry on top is that this already uneventful track is five laps long, just because.
The next track is N64 Mario Raceway by Ermelber, this track looks and plays nearly identical to how it did in Mario Kart 64. The only things missing are the original's funny designs for the Pirahna Plants. Other than that, it's a well-made remake of the track, and there's not much else to add apart from the fact that it uses the cool Ghost Trick theme that was used in Luigi's Mansion 2.
The last track in the Star Cup is Sky Arena, by Super. This is a reskin of Airship Fortress, but the texture changes are so minor that you wouldn’t notice it much. The airship portion of the track is nearly identical except someone drew all over the ship in sharpie. The fortress section conversely only has a minor green tint, and the arrows on the track are green instead of red. The music used in this track is Song of Unhealing from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and it doesn't really fit the track very well. Even for a reskin, I wasn't too impressed with this one, I much prefer Mario Kart Arcade GP DX's version of Sky Arena.
Special Cup
The Special Cup starts off strong with Volcanic Beach, a reskin of Nokonoko Course by Yoshidude4. I'm a big fan of this track. It has some issues like the harsh respawn points, but man, I’m a sucker for the aesthetics of this track. The water in this track is now lava, the sand is now black rock, and the palm trees are now dead trees. There's a crab and one singular green Goomba on the track, but overall, the track is solid; I really enjoyed Grumble Volcano in MKWii, so this track evokes a similar sense of enjoyment for me. The camera flashes from Wario Stadium still appear in this track's skybox, but I like to imagine those are meteorites or falling stars or something.
Next is DK Garden, which is a reskin of Donkey Course with Peach Garden’s textures by Yoshidude4 and Szymbar15. Donkey Course is a very old version of DK Pass before they decided to turn it into a snow-themed course instead. Donkey Course featured a grassy mountain motif resulting in this track being referred to as DK Alps or DK Grass by fans. Donkey Course is of such an early state that it lacks barriers and out-of-bounds sections outside of a few places. This holds true for the Mario Kart Zero track, DK Garden, and a lot of the fun comes from exploring the out-of-bounds sections and seeing which cuts count the lap and which ones don't. In fact, this track is more fun to roam around and explore than it is to actually race on.
Our penultimate Nitro track is Super Christmas Den, a reskin of Bowser’s Castle by Super, Yoshidude4, and Szymbar15. It uses the Panic! theme from Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. It’s not overtly snowy-themed, but it's sprinkled with red and green textures, and the flames in the rotation room look like candy canes. All the red and green checkerboard textures, the dumb faces on the Thwomps, and the music all make me feel like I'm in an insane asylum. It’s a weird concept for sure, but a unique one. I dig it.
The last track of the Special Cup and the last Nitro track is Rainbow Ray Road, a Rainbow Road-inspired track made by Ray. This track is a fully custom creation with elements from Mario Kart 7’s Rainbow Road, such as circling the moon. There are also nods to Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road with sprites of characters decorating the sky, though these sprites are just their portrait renders from Mario Kart Wii. Additionally, the track features the theme from Good Egg Galaxy, and it’s a pretty good rendition. With this track, I have a few criticisms. First, they missed an opportunity to call it "Raynbow Road." Second, there's a part where you go up a ramp and have to already be holding right, as going up the ramp will cause you to fall off the ledge due to its angled design. There are also a few instances where holes you can fall down are hard to see until you're really close. Overall though, it's a decent track.
Red Shell Cup
Now, we have the "Retro" tracks, and starting with the Red Shell Cup, we have GB Mario Land by Yoshidude4. It’s a monochromatic version of SNES Mario Circuit 1 with scenery from Super Mario Land. It also features Supporting Me... For Biolizard from Sonic Adventure 2 as its track theme. It’s as simple as simple can be, but it’s pretty neat. It reminds me of the Flat Zone stages seen in Smash Bros.
Next is N64 Moo Moo Beach, a reskin of Moo Moo Farms by Yoshidude4. The water texture looks pretty wonky when put onto the grassy hills in the background of the course. But the music is pretty nice, it uses In The Fields from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. The track isn't too exciting as Moo Moo Farms is already a track that doesn't leave much to be said, but hey, the cows have sunglasses in this one!
The third track making up the Shell Cup is Neo Peach Circuit by Super and Yoshidude4. It's Peach Circuit, but at night, more accurately though, its design is based on 3DS Neo Bowser City. The track itself though has a similar vibe going on as Delfino City, and the princess's castle that's usually in the background is now three generic skyscrapers. As its theme, it uses music from N64 Toad’s Turnpike which is a great addition to any track, overall, I like it.
Lastly is GCN Sherbet Circuit, a reskin of GCN Luigi Circuit by Ermelber. Sadly, this track doesn’t have the snow effect that N64 Frappe Snowland has. But hey, it’s blue! As its theme, it uses SEQ_Circuit2, which is an unused song found in the vanilla version of Mario Kart DS.
Banana Cup
In the Banana Cup, we have four fully custom tracks, and starting them off is Ray’s Circuit, by Ray. Who would have guessed? There's a rain puddle and a set of item blocks near the start, but if you’re fast enough as the race starts, there's a bug where you just phase right through them without interacting with them. This isn't the only track in which this happens, but it's just kinda funny. The music used here is Marble Garden Zone from Sonic 3. It's an okay theme, but it sounds a bit off in Mario Kart DS' soundfont. Otherwise, it's a pretty simple track. It’s a nice hybrid of GBA Luigi Circuit and N64 Luigi Raceway in terms of design.
Following suit is Ray’s Polar Circuit, also created by Ray. I'm a bit impressed at how many race tracks Ray owns. It's very expensive to own one in the real world, so unless they're cheaper in the Mario Kart Zero lore, Ray must be a billionaire. That aside, Ray’s Polar Circuit adopts the aesthetics of N64 Frappe Snowland, down to the dark snow signifying death zones and snowmen that knock you back 20 yards if you hit them. It's a nicely designed track with a really cool (pun intended) shortcut at the start, skipping a considerable portion of the map, though you need a mushroom to execute it properly. My only real issue with this map is that the AI paths are once again completely broken, except instead of reaching a certain point in the track before breaking and driving in circles, they break as soon as the race starts.
The third track is GBA Rainbow Road by Ermelber. This track isn’t too different from its original iteration, aside from the series of jumps at the end being replaced by one big cannon. The theme of the track was also changed, now using the Encounter! Entei, Raikou, and Suicune theme from Pokemon Crystal. One interesting tidbit though is that while a lot of these tracks are free to use in other Mario Kart DS projects, as long as you credit the original creators, I vividly remember a mention that this track in particular is not free to use.
The last Banana Cup track is SNES Rainbow Road (Mirrored) by Szymbar15. This track is not too different from its Mario Kart 7 iteration, and it even uses the same music as the original; in fact, it's the only retro track in this game that retains its original theme. The Thwomps don’t spin you out, but otherwise, there isn't a whole lot to say, it's just a fun track to race on.
Leaf Cup
In the Leaf Cup, you have XoLT’s Garden, a fully custom track by XoLT. This track is on the shorter side and is another track that features five laps. It uses the N64 Koopa Troopa Beach music and features Chain Chomps that run across the track and Monty Moles that pop up from the ground, not unlike Peach Gardens. One big flaw, however, is that the track is extremely buggy. Items occasionally phase through the ground when fired, and there is significant slowdown in certain parts of the track. It’s really unpolished, but it's not an awful track conceptually.
The second Leaf Cup Track is N64 Mountain Raceway, a reskin of N64 Choco Mountain by Yoshidude4. This is the exact same track but the brown mountain textures are replaced with green ones, not even the music is different from the vanilla game, pfft.
The next track is DKR Ancient Lake by Yoshidude4 and Ermelber. This track comes from Diddy Kong Racing, which is a cool idea for a retro track. I wish Nintendo used retro tracks from other racing games like that, honestly. This track uses the slot that GBA Luigi Circuit took up in the original game which explains why there's rain in this track. Similarly, that also causes it to share the same music slot as Neo Peach Circuit, which used Toad's Turnpike theme, which isn't really fitting for this track. That aside, I find it quite fun to play.
The final track in the Leaf Cup is GCN Toad’s Turnpike by Super. It’s a reskin of Mushroom Bridge to look like N64 Toad’s Turnpike, which kinda just means Mushroom Bridge but at night. Very little else has changed, really. One thing that annoys me, though, is that while the theme for N64 Toad’s Turnpike is already used in the hack, it's used for two other tracks. Instead, they gave this track the theme from GCN Rainbow Road (a very loud version, at that). It’s so weird. It makes me even more frustrated that the previous track had the opposite problem, where Toad’s Turnpike's theme didn't fit well.
Lightning Cup
Leafing the last cup behind us, we’re now at the home stretch: the Lightning Cup. Starting up we have Distortion Flipper by Szymbar15 and Super. And huh, I don't really remember playing this track when I was younger, I wonder why--
...Oh, it crashed. Yes, I remember now, I was never actually able to play this track as a kid on my R4 Flashcart. And as such, I wasn't able to beat all the cups. I never actually played this track for myself until recently on an emulator when preparing to talk about it for this blog post.
Anyways, this track is a reskin of Luigi Course, also known as Luigi’s Cookie Pinball or Luigi Flipper, that uses the textures from the Distortion World from Pokemon DPPt. Luigi Course is a very old version of Waluigi Pinball, which I’d recommend checking out. It has a lot of cool differences and is a pretty-looking track overall. The Distortion World is also a cool and unique theme to use for a race track. And while I'm not a fan of the music, everything else about the track makes it one of the better ones in my book.
Contrasting that, we have N64 Bad Bad Chippy by Szymbar15. This is a reskin of N64 Banshee Boardwalk with very little changed outside of having Lavender Town music and a graphic of Starlow from Mario and Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story being plastered onto the boardwalk. I never believed in the Lavender Town creepypasta, but if this version of the song was what kids in Japan heard back when Pokémon Red and Green was first released, maybe that creepypasta would have some merit. It doesn’t fit the DS soundfont at all.
The following track is Fr33ze Circuit, a fully custom track by Fr33ze. While Ray submitted a lot of tracks to this hack, this is the only track his brother Fr33ze would contribute. But damn, it's a good track. I kinda wish this was the track that this hack ended off on, rather than the next track, but alas. This track has a cool corkscrew loop similar to the one in DS Rainbow Road but lacks railings, so it's easy to launch yourself out of the loop and into some other random part of the track. Additionally, this track has the classic Escape From the City theme from Sonic Adventure 2, which is always a fun time. The only problem with this track is that it’s way too short, especially for a track in the final cup. It would have greatly benefited from the five-lap treatment.
The final track in this hack is GCN Blue Yoshi Circuit, sadly not by Yoshidude4, but done by Super. A lot of the same things I said about GCN Sherbet Circuit apply to GCN Blue Yoshi Circuit—it's the same track, but blue. Mario Kart DS's version of Yoshi Circuit is a lot more underwhelming compared to the GameCube or Mario Kart 8 versions of the track, so my opinion on this track is kind of just, "it exists."
Battle Courses
Before I move on, I want to address the battle courses. There are six battle courses like the vanilla game, the first one being “Black Nintendo DS,” it’s the same as the vanilla Nintendo DS battle course, but the DS is black, no duh, right? But, in addition to that, instead of Mario Kart DS being displayed on the system, it’s Mario Kart Double Dash. I don't know if it's because a lot of beta elements from Mario Kart DS are leftovers from Mario Kart Double Dash and this was some subtle reference to that, or if one of the devs just really liked Double Dash.
The next Battle track is GCN Luigi’s Mansion, which isn’t actually a port of the GameCube Battle Course. Instead, it’s a retexture of the unused GCN Block City course with Luigi’s Mansion’s textures in the same vein as the first race track, Luigi’s Mansion 2. It's a pretty cool battle track, albeit a bit small.
The third course is Volcanic Shore, a reskin of Palm Shore but instead of a beach, it’s volcano-themed, like Volcanic Beach in the Special Cup. It’s really funny driving into the lava and having it not really affect you unless you go into the deep end.
Then we have Ice Tart, which is Tart Top, with a blue filter. While the track is labeled as an ice cake, it looks more like a blueberry cake, which makes it a lot more appetizing.
After that, we have N64 DK Fort, which is N64 Block Fort but with a different color scheme. The ground is black while the walls and bridges are various neon colors.
The last track is GCN Shroob Plaza, which is GCN Pipe Plaze, but purple. So, fans of the color purple, you've hit the jackpot with this battle course.
Apart from this, there is also a Mission Mode. The same Mission Mode that’s present in the vanilla game. A lot of the missions will crash the game if you attempt to play them, but if you use some sort of cheating device or save file that has everything unlocked, you can still access and play a lot of the missions that are on the reskinned tracks.
Mario Kart Zero's Legacy
As a kid, I held this hack in very high regard. And despite everything, I still do. In fact, a lot of the community back then revered this hack as well. It was the first fully custom ROM hack of MKDS, and its release inspired many other projects, some of which I’ll discuss here.
Mario Kart ZR was a hack worked on by Reiatsu0 in 2013-14. It mainly used a lot of the F2U content from Mario Kart Zero but also added original content, like new custom tracks in place of many of the reskins.
Mario Kart ZR’s title screen, it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it’s a fun hack nonetheless
Before Mario Kart DS was released, it had a Kiosk Demo, which featured a lot of beta elements and graphics removed in the final game. Mario Kart Infinity, a hack made by SYStEM, was to Mario Kart Zero what the Kiosk Demo was to the vanilla Mario Kart DS. This hack, like the Kiosk Demo, featured only eight tracks divided among two cups, the Infinity Cup and the Zero Cup. With eight starting characters, it also exclusively featured texture hacks and was mostly a novelty thing.
Mario Kart Infinity’s rather basic-looking title screen.
Another SYStEM hack was Mario Kart First. This hack was notable because of the fact that it featured extra cups—eight extra in fact—and could theoretically have 64 tracks in total. The first 32 tracks were purely reskins while the rest are custom tracks—or they would be, but the hack was canned sometime in 2016.
The title screen for Mario Kart First featuring Ice Mario, as well as the extra cups added to the game.
The last Mario Kart Zero adjacent hack I want to discuss is Ermii Kart DS which was in development from 2014-2016. This hack aimed to be the successor to Mario Kart Zero, and would include exclusively custom tracks. Additionally, rather than use CW OSE as a base, it would be built from scratch using a vanilla Mario Kart DS ROM. The Ermii Kart team would consist of many of the members from SYStEM minus MKDS1992 and Super, with newcomers Gericom, Tomix, Stomatol, Dark Light, and Swiftie Luma. This hack would not only feature all new custom tracks but also custom characters and some even have multiple skins, kinda like a fighting game.
When it came to the playable roster, Ermii Kart DS featured a lot of prominent internet meme characters, some of which were outdated even back then, such as Shrek, Lanky Kong, Sans Undertale, and Doge. The hack also featured characters from the series Ermii happened to like such as Haruhi from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Pheonix Wright from Ace Attorney, and Lana from Hyrule Warriors. In addition, the hack also featured cute playable versions of the members of SYStEM, like Yoshidude4, Ermii himself, and a Bidoof, as Szymbar15’s avatar on most sites was a Bidoof.
The character select screen features the default 12 characters.
Speaking of cute nods, the hack also pays homage to Mario Kart Zero by featuring updated versions of the tracks Luigi Mansion 2, DKR Ancient Lake, SNES Rainbow Road, and Raynbow Road.
Ermii Kart, in particular, would gain notoriety in the MKDS hacking community but would explode in popularity more when it was played by more popular YouTubers like Nathaniel Bandy and Vinesauce Vinny. This project, like Mario Kart Zero, was very ambitious, and likewise, it was completed due to sheer determination, hard work, and persistence. There’s a certain magic to a lot of hacks like these. Back in 2006, the feats done in Ermii Kart would’ve seemed impossible, hell even Mario Kart Zero seemed impossible back then.
The title screen of Ermii Kart DS.
Conclusion
The original DSHack.org would go through a bit of a tumultuous history following 2013. It would be shut down and restored multiple times. Users began moving to different forum servers like mkdscentral.kuribo64.net. Many prominent hackers would leave, and many others would move onto Discord servers. Nowadays, a lot of community members would either continue working on hacking projects or move on to greater feats in their professional lives. Yet the MKDS hacking community is still alive, albeit a bit smaller.
While I don't actively engage with the community anymore, I still poke in and lurk from time to time to see any new updates or hacks that catch my eye. In particular, hacks that currently catch my eye are CTGP Nitro, a DS version of CTGP using the extra cups ASM hack that was used in Mario Kart First; Mario Kart DS GameCube Grand Prix, a semi-port of Mario Kart Double Dash into MKDS’s engine, by Super GameCube; and F-Zero DSX, a rebuild of F-Zero using Mario Kart DS as a base. These are all really impressive projects that I recommend checking out.
In any case, while I don't have too much else to say, I still wanted to share this interesting and niche piece of history regarding one of my favorite games as a kid. Thank you for reading through this whole article, and I hope it sheds light on the creative and innovative efforts within the Mario Kart Hacking community! So, with all the sappy stuff out of the way. See you next time!
References
Szymanski, B. (2022, February 6). Abridged tales of the Mario Kart DS hacking scene, from MKDSOSE to CTGP Nitro. Medium. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://medium.com/@szymbar1513/abridged-tales-of-the-mario-kart-ds-hacking-scene-from-mkdsose-to-ctgp-nitro-2717382735d0
DSHack 2: Main. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://dswiki.garhoogin.com/Wiki.jsp?page=Main
Mario Kart DS. Mario Kart DS - The Cutting Room Floor. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://tcrf.net/Mario_Kart_DS
YouTube. (n.d.). Mario Kart zero. YouTube. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCXF-Hb-u7K2_vJSpbPIf___bP5FDyPA_
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