Over the last couple of years, the video-game preservation community has grown exponentially, with a particular focus on prototype and canceled video-games. Among the most revered is the original N64 version of MOTHER 3, which has a small, yet incredibly passionate sub-community behind it. These particular fans aim to put their talents together to bring the ill-fated game back to life in one way or another. Consequently, we are proud to share a special project from one of these fans with you today!

Inspired by both the iconic minecart scene and the dedicated modding community behind Robo Blast 2 Kart, Sam the Salmon is proud to officially launch his first custom racer mod: N64 Lucas. If you weren’t already familiar with Robo Blast 2 Kart, it’s a popular mod for the freeware fan game Sonic Robo Blast 2, which is built in the classic DOOM engine. It’s a lovely callback to the early Mario Kart titles, featuring hundreds of tracks and custom racers from all your favourite video-game franchises! In the past, you may have seen other MOTHER characters modded into the game, such as Mit’s mega pack which featured Lucas, Kumatora, and the Chosen Four. However, Sam’s mod is significant not only because it expands Robo Blast 2 Kart’s MOTHER roster, but also because it’s the first officially released MOTHER 64 mod.

However, one may be curious – why choose Lucas over Flint, the more iconic MOTHER 64 character?  Sam had this question in mind, relaying “…I chose Lucas over other characters like Flint, it’s been a few months so I don’t remember exactly, but i think it was because he rides in a minecart in the trailer, and I thought that would be perfect for a kart racer. I did plan to also make sprites of Flint riding a Pork Bean as the next character, but I never got around to it. I may still do it eventually though, he would make a very good character.”

Ever since he completed this mod, Sam has been burning rubber around the game’s countless tracks with his friends. Henceforth, he’s ecstatic to finally release it to everyone after all his hard work and attention to detail in creating Lucas. Thankfully, he didn’t break as many sweats when compared to developing an entire game like MOTHER Encore, “…a simple character mod is a lot less work than the amount of sprites I need to make for Encore of course. It did require much more time than a single character in that game would though, I had to make 5 directional sprites, and then a second sprite for every direction, to be used in the drifting animation. I also had to make another set of 5, for his damaged/falling animation. There were several others too, like the minimap icon. The sprites are also much larger, and more 3-dimensional too, so that definitely took some time to make”

Of course, this is not the first time we’ve seen MOTHER 64-related elements imported into other game engines. In the past, we’ve seen projects such as Dudaw’s Super Mario 64 Tazmily Village map, PolyGarrett and Zen’s OcarinaBound, as well as Sam’s own Fall of the Pig King GBA hack. Alas, those were more experimental in nature and haven’t been released to the public. Sam hopes that in the future, that may change as other artists are inspired to show more love for the canceled game, “…Sprites of Flint in the pre-rendered style of Mario Kart 64 would be awesome, maybe i should suggest that to some of the 3D-modelers i know. EB64 characters modded into Smash Brothers would be cool as well, maybe a Smash 64 mod that replaces Link with Flint.”

So, there you have it! Check out the enclosed video if you’d like to see the mod in action before diving into the download below. If enough people enjoy this content and are interested, perhaps we’ll see more MOTHER 64 racers added into the game in the future. Until then, please give Sam the Salmon your support by checking out his other projects.

How to Install the N64 Lucas Racer Mod

Step 1. Make sure you have Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart installed. If you do not already have it, you can find the latest release on their message board here.

Step 2. Download the N64 Lucas racer zip archive here. Once it’s downloaded, extract it in your downloads folder and you should get a .wad file.

Step 3. Launch Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart. Once on the main menu, scroll down to “Addons”. Find the “KC_N64Lucas.wad” file and select it. If done successfully, you should hear a jingle and Lucas will be ready to race!

Step 4. Additionally, if you would like to play as Claus instead, just scroll down on the select screen and change Lucas’s colour from “Mustard” to “Crimson”.