I’ve always been impressed by the drive of people who create mods and ROM hacks for their favorite games. It’s made by fans, for fans, and that’s just a beautiful thing.

1. Super Mario Sunshine Co Op Mod
2. Super Mario Sunshine Mod Luigi

Nintendo is known for being hard on ROM hacking communities, but they endure thanks to the love all of these creators. And consider Super Mario 64, arguably one of the best platformers out of Nintendo’s library… it’s got a lot out there.

I’ve recently gotten into hacks for Nintendo’s classic Super Mario 64 and I can’t help but admire the work put into them.

GameCube - Super Mario Sunshine - The #1 source for video game models on the internet! This patch will let you play multiplayer in Super Mario Sunshine. If you need help with this program, please visit E Gadd's Workshop to ask some questions. Controls: Start - Drop in R - Double jump/Spray. Prerequisites (Included).NET Redistributable.

It’s especially impressive considering the weird and frankly antique way the game is coded, which is to be expected from a pioneer of the 64-bit era.

I’ll do my part to fan the flames of ROM hacking and share what I think are the 10 best Super Mario 64 ROM hacks ever made. Let’s dive in!

10. Super Mario 64: The Green Stars

A pretty good option to try out ROM hacks and decide whether or not it’s for you is Kampel64’s SM64: The Green Stars.

It adds many levels and showcases a lot of what’s possible through these modifications.

It features 130 stars to collect throughout many custom levels. Some of which you’ll have to find by exploring the overworld with a detective’s lens, as the creator made it a point to hide every secret very well.

The reason it’s not higher in the ranking is simply that the quality of level design varies more than it should.

Some areas are so easy they’re boring, whereas others require some hyper-specific trick jumps and feats only an expert could pull off without trying 200 times.

9. Super Mario 64: Kirby Edition

If you’d prefer to start with something less ambitious then consider SM64: Kirby Edition by creator Dudaw.

This hack replaces the classic red-capped plumber with the lovable Kirby.

It was the first full character hack ever released on SM64, and despite the practice being more common nowadays I’d say the polish level is still striking.

Not only can Kirby move and glide as the character should. But also power-ups are modified to turn the pink puff into a Boo or a Thwomp, mimicking his copy ability.

You can even ride Kirby’s signature Warp Star on some levels. Neat!

8. Super Mario 64 Land

Anyone who’s been following the SM64 ROM hacking scene is familiar with Kaze Emanuar, the hard-working visionary behind a lot of the most ambitious and amazing hacks for the classic game.

Super Mario 64 Land is one of their earlier creations. It has less scope than some of the others but the same final quality.

It plays a lot like Super Mario 3D Land, featuring 33 new levels that are much more linear than those present in vanilla.

Mario also has a couple of new moves to traverse them better. Namely, a Butt Bounce and an Aerial Dive, which you’ll find remarkably useful.

7. Super Mario 64: Star Revenge Redone

Developed by ROM hacking personality BroDute and many collaborators, the Star Revenge series is one of the most prolific hack series in existence. Counting over six main releases and a ton of remakes.

SM64: Star Revenge Redone is the most updated version of the original hack. It includes over 125 new stars to gather over 13 different levels.

What makes this hack so unique, other than the surreal humor and self-referencing jokes, is its complex lore and an overarching story you’d have to play every release to understand.

If you wish to embark on that quest, this is the place to start.

6. Super Mario Bros. 64

For something remarkably less complicated we have Kaze Emanuar’s Super Mario Bros. 64, which brings back the side-scrolling platformer charm of older Mario games like Super Mario World.

But rendered in SM64’s 3D engine. Cool, right?

I love how the camera angle is tilted just in the right diagonal angle so that you can appreciate depth without abandoning the side-scrolling perspective entirely.

You can play as many characters from the Mario universe such as Luigi, Wario, fan-favorite Waluigi, and Mario himself.

5. Super Mario 74

Sometimes all we’re looking for is a more challenging experience from our all-time favorite games.

If that’s you, consider Super Mario 74 by Lugmilors.

It features 120 new stars to get in its many custom levels, all of which present a considerably greater difficulty than your average vanilla SM64 scenario.

That includes most boss fights, which now have added challenges like having to swing Bowser higher to hit the bombs.

Once you clear it you could go on to play Super Mario 74 Extreme Edition, which is a more absurd, Kaizo-level challenge.

4. Super Mario 64 Sapphire

Given the artisanal nature of ROM hacking in general, I’d say most of these games have… varying levels of quality, to say the least.

Yet one of the most consistently good hacks around is NebulaSM64’s Super Mario 64 Sapphire, a short but sweet experience consisting of 30 stars spread over six incredible levels.

And these levels feature some of the most beautiful landscapes ever seen on this 64-bit engine.

If you’re looking for a quick Mario fix with a twist on SM64 then this is it.

3. Super Mario: Star Road

I believe in showing respect and appreciation for pioneering efforts in any field. And when they’re as good as Skelux’s Super Mario: Star Road, it’s a real pleasure.

This massive ROM hack was one of the first ones with any mainstream appeal outside of the hardcore ROM hacking community.

It features 130 stars to collect in some excellent levels, introduces new enemies, and has a revamped soundtrack that gives it the feel of a true sequel.

Considering the intense focus on tight platforming, it’s also important to note all the work put into making a more friendly camera than the original.

2. Super Mario 64: The Missing Stars

Another classic hack that revamps several vital technical aspects in the game is Frauber’s SM64: The Missing Stars.

It features a day/night cycle, a better camera, and a bunch of other tweaks that improve gameplay.

You can also go through its ten levels as Luigi if you’re tired of his plumper brother.

With updated bosses, new enemies, and remixed music that includes some original compositions made especially for the hack, it feels like an entirely fresh take on the SM64 formula.

1. Super Mario 64: Last Impact

If there’s one ROM hack worthy of being considered SM64’s sequel, it has to be Last Impact by Kaze Emanuar.

It includes tons of custom assets, new bosses made from scratch, and even new power-ups. All really cool stuff, like a Yoshi that you can ride and Super Mario Sunshine’s FLUDD, among other things.

This game is a technical marvel!

Every one of the new levels is entirely separate from what we’re used to seeing. And getting each one of the 130 new stars presents several unique challenges.

There’s even a level where you’ll have to play Mario Party games to get the coveted astral body!

Sure, it can get a tad wonky here and there. And it’s not without its fair share of bugs.

But that’s to be expected of such an enormous undertaking, and something you can generally ignore because this rom hack really is SM64’s next level.

• There are ~1500 textures in total in the game (I have tried to dump every single one, however I may have missed a few). Out of these textures roughly 500 have been completely re-textured. Many other textures have been been up-scaled using A.I upscaling. Some filtered textures have been modified or changed entirely to look better as well. Some textures remain completely untouched until I've worked on them since some textures look bad when upscaled.
  

• I am completely up for suggestions, changes and submissions. You will of course be fully credited for any work you submit.
  

• The 4K version of the texture pack is scaled to 8x the default resolution, this means that (if internal resolution is increased in Dolphin) you may be able to view some textures at a staggering 6832x3480 resolution! Taking into account that you are using the widescreen hack of course. The 1080p version is scaled to 4x the default resolution, which results to slightly above 1080p.
  

• This texture pack is made for Ishiiruka Dolphin and includes shader presets to provide nice graphical features like Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (self shadowing around meshes), Bloom, Depth of Field, Tone Mapping and much more. And you can tweak it to make the game look however you like!
  

• My goal with this texture pack is to enhance the original game visuals while staying faithful to the original vision. That means my textures are meant to blend in as much as possible with the old textures so the game feel doesn't change too much.
  
  

• This texture pack is for Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube only. There are no plans to port it to the Switch version in Super Mario 3D All Stars.
  

• This texture pack will work with any custom mods / hacks of Super Mario Sunshine as long as they aren't adding new textures or changing old ones (in that case, conflicting textures will be overwritten by one another but it will still work).
  

• Ishiiruka-Dolphin is required to make material maps, shaders and other nice visual features work and is highly recommended. There is a custom fork of Ishiiruka Dolphin inside the texture pack download which you can use, or alternatively download the latest version of Ishiiruka-Dolphin (pros only!).
  

Super Mario Sunshine Co Op Mod

• There is a 60 FPS patch provided with the texture pack, and it works without any major issues on the NTSC (North American) version of the game. The European version also has a 60 FPS patch, but might cause some glitches (most notably laggy cutscenes). Therefore, the 60 FPS patch is only enabled by default on the NTSC version of the game. The Japanese version has no codes enabled at all by default and is not recommended.
  

• Currently, only NTCS and PAL textures have been modified. You can still use this texture pack on Japanense / Korean versions of the game in Dolphin, it will still work. This will not include the Jap/Kor region specific textures though.
  

Super Mario Sunshine Mod Luigi

• If you don't like the way my texture pack looks over the original, please note that all post processing can be modified easily from user to user to fit your own preference. If you think 'I'd rather play Switch version' then this probably isn't for you.
  

• If you are having issues with stuttering and lag, remember to check 'Prefetch Custom Textures' in the 'Advanced' tab of the Graphics settings before asking for help. I also recommend enabling V-Sync as it removes screen tearing in full screen mode. If it's still lagging, try lowering the internal resolution a bit.
  

• This texture pack is in no way shape or form related to the Super Mario 3D All Stars remaster of Super Mario Sunshine!
  

• Feel free to join my Discord server for updates on all my texture packs!
  

• Better visuals (Higher resolution textures, material maps, rim lighting, depth of field, ambient occlusion, global illumination, tonemapping, post processing shaders and even ray tracing which is coming at a later date!)
• It's cheap (if you own the original game, you don't need to pay 60$ to play it in HD)
• Android Support
• Full GameCube controller support (including rumble)
• 60 FPS & 120 FPS patches
• Ultra Widescreen Support (21:9 or even higher)
• Superior mods and modding tools
• Free Cam
• Supports a plethora of cheats and patches
• Stereoscopic 3D support
• VR Potential
• Supports nearly all gamepads. Including PS4, Xbox One, GameCube or the Switch Pro Controller.
  

• Initial release