While patiently waiting for Roguelike Celebration 2025 to start tomorrow, here’s something completely different, yet still somewhat random. The Youtube channel “Hidden Saves” points out two hard-to-reach item boxes in Mario Kart 64: the one hanging from the balloon in Luigi Raceway, and the one over the rock, only accessible from the huge ramp, in Koopa Troopa Beach. Along the way they break down the method the game uses to decide what item to give you from any box. Big surprise: it’s usually determined by what place you’re in.
Here’s the video (10 minutes) Or, since they spend over half of the video explaining the boxes and their methodology, you can click here to go right to the gist.
What did they find? Both of these boxes are rigged to give you a Blue Shell every time you hit it, even if you’re in first, where using it will cause it to circle the track and hit you who fired it. It’s not the result, due to the balloon’s weird timing, of naturally only getting the Raceway box while far behind, or of the spil you always take after getting the Koopa Troopa Beacn box knocking you back. That’s what they report anyway.
