In a world where retro gaming rides high on nostalgia, a modder named JNMartin has pulled off something that feels like a SEGA fan’s wildest dream. Mario Kart 64, Nintendo’s 1996 kart-racing gem, has been lovingly transplanted onto the SEGA Dreamcast—a console that never got to pal around with Mario and friends during its brief time in the spotlight.
JNMartin, already a rockstar in the Dreamcast homebrew scene for ports like WipEout and Doom 64, tackled this project using a freshly decompiled codebase from the Nintendo 64 original. Kicked off in June 2025, the project came together in just three weeks, as hyped by Falco Girgis, a big name in Dreamcast modding. Early clips showed a messy work-in-progress—glitchy visuals, shaky framerates, and no sound—but by July, it had morphed into something seriously impressive, running smoothly on actual Dreamcast hardware with visuals that pop.
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- DYNAMIC DISPLAY STAND – Position Mario at dramatic racing angles to recreate that perfect drift moment or high-speed action from your favorite Mario…
- POSEABLE MARIO FIGURE – The brick-built Mario features movable head and arms, letting you customize his racing pose for the ultimate display
A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES!
You guys all begged for it, and now jnmartin has brought it! Sonic is now a playable character in the Sega Dreamcast port of Mario Kart 64! Here’s an actual HW capture of him in action!
NOTE: Sorry Toad lovers, but… he’s Sonic now! 😂 pic.twitter.com/4MMpt86rXB
— Falco Girgis (@falco_girgis) July 5, 2025
What makes this port more than a cool tech trick is the addition of Sonic the Hedgehog as a playable racer. It’s a cheeky wink at the old Nintendo-SEGA rivalry from the ‘90s. To make space, poor Toad got the boot, though his portrait still hangs around as a placeholder—a quirky little flaw in this early build. Sonic’s not just there for show; he’s tearing through tracks like Wario Stadium and Luigi Raceway, where the port now flaunts jumpotron monitors running at a slick 30 FPS—six times smoother than the N64’s original.
Porting a game across consoles is no joke, especially to the Dreamcast, with its oddball hardware and short shelf life. The Nintendo 64’s cartridge setup and unique graphics pipeline are worlds apart from the Dreamcast’s GD-ROM and PowerVR GPU. JNMartin leaned on the decompiled Mario Kart 64 code to rebuild it from scratch, dodging Nintendo’s proprietary stuff. Early versions had rough spots—glitchy visuals and no audio—but recent tweaks have smoothed things out, with tracks looking sharp and feeling close to the original’s charm. Those upgraded jumpotron monitors, for example, show off how the Dreamcast’s hardware can flex, delivering a crisper, livelier vibe than the N64 ever could.
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