I'm a massive Nintendo 64 nerd, so it's weird that it's taken me till 2025 to properly mess around with Zelda ROM hacks. It's even weirder since I've been craving more outings like Ocarina of Time: Master Quest since getting my grubby tween paws on the disk that came with Wind Waker. So, why now? Well, it's largely because there's now a flash cart for the '90s console that has a more approachable price tag and is readily available.
Enter the SummerCart64 (SC64 for short), a new open source N64 flash cart that arrived on the scene late last year. The version I picked up last month is the $89.99 Kaico edition, and it's pretty much a rival to the existing Everdrive64 options out there that been helping retro console fans run their ROM hacks and their own backups for over a decade. However, the main reason I resisted picking one of those up was the price, as we're talking $125 at Amazon for the cheapest X5 version.
