Super Mario Kart - Epic Racers (SNES) Romhack

Super Mario Kart – Epic Racers has come a long way. This ambitious project began all the way back in 2003. Starting as a direct follow-up to The Impala Battles, this mod was dubbed The Impala Courses. Later that changed to Epic Battle, and finally the name became Super Mario Kart – Epic Racers.

This mod was intended to be some sort of tribute to the Stifu Board forum. Therefore you’ll encounter members from back then. And no, Jesus himself wasn’t a member of our board, but he was a nice opposite to the dark Loki. 😉

Work on Epic Racers started in a time when only small parts of the SMK ROM were documented. There were no other mods, and only one, very limited, editor. Step by step the complete ROM was documented. Using Lunar Compress, graphics could be extracted and changed.

Stifu started working on the graphics, while Ok Impala! painstakingly worked on changing the track designs. Initially it proved to be too complex to change the A.I., so tracks were created with the old A.I. The results were far from ideal. With the help of smkdan, Stifu started working on a new track designer to fix all the issues with track design once and for all. Epic Edit saw the light of day and was shared with the world. Meanwhile work on Epic Racers slowed down, due to life changes. In 2016 it seemed like the project was dead.

Fast forward to 2020. Ok Impala! decides to start from scratch on the track design, ditching all the ballast of the old track designs. Stifu got on board again to work on the last graphical changes. In several months, revamped tracks and graphics were created, while a lot of bugs and A.I. problems were ironed out.

So, there you have it. 17 years later, Epic Racers is finally, proudly, presented to the world. Hopefully you’ll enjoy all the work and love that went into this mod!

Features:

20 brand new race tracks, with unique gameplay elements!
4 brand new battle arena’s!
8 new drivers are ready to start their engines!
New points system. Every position receives points!
New items and probability sets!
New course themes!
New objects!
New items!
New title screen!
New character selection screen!
Always continue to the next race in GP mode, regardless of your position!
Play the special cup in 50cc!
And a whole lot more!

For more info, please read the Readme.

Hashes:

Filename: Super Mario Kart (U) [!].smc
CRC-32: cd80db86
SHA-1: 47e103d8398cf5b7cbb42b95df3a3c270691163b

Staff/Credits:

Ok Impala! (Production, Track Design, Hex editing)
Stifu (Graphics, Hex editing, Track Editor)
smkdan (ASM Modifications)

Relevant link: https://www.okimpala.net/

YouTube Video:

File download:

Write a review

Reviews:

The best SMK romhack so far! So many options and graphical changes provide a flawless and new experience!

Written by: SNESer - December 8, 2024

In terms of atmosphere, Epic Racers does very well, just like Super Mario Kart. The style of Epic Racers is clearly different, but absolutely successful. The characters come from all over the world and I have to admit that I have no idea who they are supposed to be, except for Jesus of course. The levels aren’t as colorful and gimmicky as in SMK or Parigo Kart. Instead, you have nice interesting worlds, some of which have a spiritual touch. The sky world in particular stands out extremely positively. The Dragon Ball inspired track is also quite cool.

The graphics of Epic Racers are actually better than Super Mario Kart. Both the backgrounds and the driver sprites are animated in more detail. Not only that, I rarely had the impression that the game suffered from slowdowns. Also, the complete menu navigation has simply become a bit fancier and that should be mentioned.

A total of 8 completely new drivers are available. These also drive differently. You can expect 20 completely new tracks, some of which are really innovative. These do not necessarily play as you know it from Super Mario Kart. For example, there’s a track where you have to drive into a pond and then you’re taken to another point on the track where you just keep going. Even the new items in Epic Racers are cool, even if they just have different graphics. But it’s fun to lay or even throw a turd instead of a banana. Apart from that, it doesn’t matter which place you occupy. Because for every place but the 8th you get one point. So 7th place gets one point and 6th place gets 2 points and so on. The winner gets 7 points. That’s really nice, a feature I always wanted.

The music and sound effects have been completely taken over from Super Mario Kart. Therefore, Epic Racers has nothing new to offer here. Nevertheless, the SMK music is of course very good. But there is still a small deduction, because it is completely recycled music.

Oh yeah, all the things I disliked about the Super Mario Kart controls have been corrected in Epic Racers. There is less need for drifting. The controls are less wobbly, which just feels a lot more comfortable while driving. Drifting can and should still be done, of course, depending on your character, but it’s not as overused as in Super Parigo Kart. The controls are also more comfortable in Epic Racers, because the complete level designs are not as tight as in SMK. You simply don’t get stuck on every freaking edge and lose 4 places. There are hardly any nasty corners and edges here, which is great.

Epic Racers is definitely a lot of fun. Easy mode is actually very easy. Normal is really average and Hard is hard. At least for me. I could imagine that some of the hardcore SMK fans may find Epic Racers too easy. In general, all the ideas and the design are somehow consistent and offer a very attractive racing game. The characters, the items, everything is somehow quite funny and nicely designed. Especially the tracks and ideas actually offer something new, I haven’t seen anything like this in other romhacks and even less in the original.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I think Epic Racers is a bit better than Super Mario Kart. The 3 hackers have touched up quite a few aspects of the original to my liking. A favorable coincidence! Less drift-heavy, better track design, no edges to get stuck on, points for every place. I can absolutely recommend it.

Atmosphere / Story: 4 / 5 — Graphics: 5 / 5 — Game mechanics / Gameplay: 4.75 / 5 — Music and SFX: 3.75 / 5 — Controls: 5 / 5 — Fun factor: 4.25 / 5

OVERALL: 4.46 / 5

Full original review in German:
https://snes-testberichte.de/epic-racers/