Getting the classic platformer running on PS2 in the first place was the easy part, it turns out, since that port is one of the many that exist in the wake of Super Mario 64's decompilation. But once Carl starts breaking down his efforts to add multiplayer in the video below (thanks, Retro Dodo), it gets pretty mind-blowing. To enable backwards compatibility with PS1 games back in the day, Sony essentially included a full PS1 console inside of every PS2. So rather than using an actual PS2 network adapter, Carl instead connects a Pico 2 – a small Raspberry Pi device – to the console via USB. He then uses the PS1 CPU to handle network instructions back and forth between the game running on the PS2 and the Pico connecting it to the network. Super Mario 64 runs on PS1 now, because nothing is sacred to modders: "The best reason to do something is simply because you can" Super Mario 64's fanmade PS1 port was just one volley in the renewed '90s console war, as Spyro the Dragon fans are also taking Insomniac's legendary platformer to N64 New speedrun discovery "will change Super Mario 64 forever" by making "one of the hardest tricks in the entire game" completely trivial to pull off It's similar on the N64 end, where Carl uses a customized N64 cart he previously built with another Pico built-in. From there, he 'simply' adds a second instance of Mario to each game, and transmits the extra Mario's position data from one version of the game to the other. Obviously, it's not actually that simple at all, and Carl offers an entertaining breakdown of his troubleshooting process for each issue as it comes along. My favorite detail? The difference in frame rates between the N64 and PS2 initially desynced the animations between the two consoles. That's the march of technology for ya. But ultimately, this hacked-together project works. In fact, Carl says, "it works much better than I thought it was going to." By the end, he's got a co-op mod for Mario 64 with proper crossplay between two consoles that predate the mainstream rise of online gaming. Is there any better ode to the dedication of modders than creating something so unnecessary and yet so beautiful? The best N64 games are always worth revisiting.