What is Mario Kart Wii Fun?
I’ve been a fan of Mario Kart Wii ever since I first played it on the Wii as a child. The game had great maps, great game mechanics and is still beloved by a huge amount of players. Yet, 15 years after its release, I’ve played every cup countless times and started to get bored by the repeating tracks. This is where Mario Kart Wii Fun enters the scene. The mod adds over 400 custom tracks to the game and reads multiplayer capabilities, and let me tell you, most of the maps are amazing. Here are some of my personal favorites:
Wimmfi Wonder World:
Honeyhive Galaxy
As you can see, these tracks are great and yet, showcase just a fraction of the great tracks included in this mod. One big advantage this Mod has compared to something like CTGP-R is that it can be run in an emulator like Dolphin. With that being said, multiplayer will only work on a real console or by dumping the NAND of a real console and adding it to Dolphin. According to the devs, this is necessary to avoid hackers. You can still play with friends using Dolphin’s net play feature though, it emulates couch coop over the internet, instead of enabling real multiplayer.
How to install the mod?
You need two things to play MKW Fun:
- A backup of Mario Kart Wii (PAL or NTSC) in one of the following formats: ISO, CISO, WBFS, WDF or WIA.
- The Modpack installer: https://wiki.tockdom.com/wiki/Wiimms_Mario_Kart:_Download_and_Install#Downloads
There are different methods to obtain a copy of the game. You could for example dump your game using a tool like Cleanrip. Once you have obtained a copy, you can download the mod pack installer. There are several different versions of the pack. I recommend the latest one called “Wiimms Mario Kart Fun 2023-09”. You can now extract the archive and place the copy of your game in the resulting folder. If you are on Linux, you will need to make “create-image.sh” executable by running the terminal command in the new directory:
chmod a+x *.shIn the folder you unpacked. Alternatively, you can right-click the file, go to properties and tick the box execute as program (or similar).
After starting “create-image.sh” You will be taken through the installer, where you can decide on language settings and how to safe the game. On Windows, simply double-click the “create-image.bat”. Installing the Mod will take a while, but after it is done you can find your new image in the “new-image” folder. Now you can simply start it with dolphin and enjoy playing. If you plan to play it on the Wii, you will need to softmod your console. Make sure to use this guide and refrain from following a Youtube tutorial as they mostly use outdated methods to softmod the console.
Lastly I want to thank the two creators, Wimm and Leseratte for this mod. They have been maintaining it for 13 YEARS, which is just incredible.
Now have fun playing Mario Kart and comment your favorite custom track 🙂