The European version of the Wii U just got Mario Kart 64 on Virtual Console! However, there’s one disappointment. The original release contained a feature that let you save your best record on any track, then play a ghost version of yourself to attempt to beat that record. To this day, the only release of Mario Kart 64 to include this feature has been the original. It can’t be done here.
The problem is, the data for the ghost kart wasn’t stored on the cartridge itself, but on a Controller Pak — the N64’s version of a memory card. It plugged into the port at the back of the N64 controller and saved data that for one reason or another couldn’t be saved on the cart’s Flash chip. In some cases the memory needed was just too large and in others the culprit was a third party too cheap to include a save chip.
This is not the first time ghost racing has been MIA from Mario Kart 64; the game was released on the Wii Virtual Console as well, with the same issue. Odds are fairly good that we will never get an official answer from Nintendo as to why Controller Pak data is unable to be emulated. If you really miss ghost racing in this game, digging out the old N64 and Controller Paks is your only option — but since the majority of N64 carts used Flash saves instead of battery saves, the cart should remain functional for a long time.
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