Mario Kart Tour uses automatically-generated low-quality models to be used when drivers are too far away from the camera, made by simplifying the high-quality models with a rudimentary algorithm.

The driver most affected by this is Roy, whose low-quality model is completely mangled by the automatic simplification. His snout is crooked, part of his sunglasses is embedded in his head, and his bracelets are splintered into fragments.

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Top: the manual for Wario Blast contains a secret password. The tiny screenshot next to the section explaining passwords has the barely visible password “2264” already input. While one would logically assume that this is merely a regular password one would obtain during gameplay, this password is actually manual-only and is not given out by the game itself.

Bottom: while most passwords simply start off the game in a different level, this one starts the game at the beginning, but with all power-ups unlocked. Note how Wario is already riding the Moto (the bike he obtains as his last power-up) and can set several bombs with large explosions, while regularly he can only set a single bomb with a small explosion at the beginning of the game.

Note that playing through the game as both Wario and Bomberman and writing down their passwords reveals that Bomberman’s passwords are Wario’s, but reversed. As such, this allows the player to also figure out the password “4622” for the same effect, but playing as Bomberman instead. This one is not given anywhere at all, neither the game nor the manual, and relies entirely on pattern recognition to deduce.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: NA manual for WB(GB)

Officially licensed 2008 Dr. Mario boxer shorts.

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According to Rare engineer Paul Machacek, he had been working on a possible Donkey Kong Country port to the Virtual Boy in 1995. In a series of posts on his social media account, he reports that the only thing created for the project before it was abandoned was a “single horizontally scrolling jungle background with graphics lifted from DKC” and “Donkey Kong running around being surrounded by rat sprites taken from Battletoads on the Game Boy”.

Donkey Kong community DKVine has recreated the look of this prototype as accurately as possible based on Machacek’s descriptions, seen in the above image. Note Donkey Kong, visible between the palm trees in the top middle of the image, and the rats on the platforms.

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Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the only game in the Mario Kart series in which it is possible to “tire out” a pursuing Spiny Shell (known colloquially as a Blue Shell), causing it to give up chasing the player after a while.

In this game, the Spiny Shell will follow players at roughly their top speed and wait for them to slow down to hit them. If a player can keep up the same speed for long enough, the shell will give up the chase. In addition, hitting the shell with trailing items such an bananas or other shells also contributes to reducing its remaining “stamina”.

As such, the strategy when pursued by a Spiny Shell is to try to maintain top speed at all times and possibly collect enough items to hit it with to tire it out. This is starkly different from many following games, which encourage the player to slow down either to avoid being targeted at all, or to catch other players in the explosion if already targeted.

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Mini-feature on “Mario’s lesser-known friends and foes” from the 2026 Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition. It is unknown why these three in particular were chosen, though it might have been simply at random without any overarching theme.

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Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast concept art for a female Kremling character named Kressa/クレッサ (left), provided by Paon to Nintendo during the design phase of the game’s development. Nintendo’s character designers used this artwork to create Kalypso (right), which can be seen by their similar clothes and pose in the artwork.

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In the Rickety Race level of Donkey Kong Country 2, Diddy Kong and/or Dixie Kong need to ride a skull rollercoaster and race nine Klanks, a type of Kremling enemy, to the finish. Every time they catch up to and defeat a Klank, they receive a prize, with all Klanks needing to be defeated for 100% completion of the level.

A severe glitch occurs if the player deliberately plays badly and never overtakes a single Klank until the very end of the level where the checkered flag announces “10”, indicating the final standing of the player arriving in last place. Defeating the Klank placed in 9th after being declared last results in an error in the programming since the game does not expect the standing to change after the end of the race.

Depending on which specific frame after the flag the Klank is defeated on, the game will either graphically corrupt or freeze. Interestingly, if it freezes, the freeze will occur on the frame the Klank is defeated, where it looks directly at the screen. This causes an inadvertent comedic effect as though the Klank is shocked that the game stopped working.

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Top: a well-known trick in Super Mario Bros. 3 (shown here in the Super Mario All-Stars version) is that in the final battle against Bowser, Mario cannot be hurt by Bowser as long as he is either touching the ground as Small Mario, or crouching as other forms.

Bottom: interestingly, this trick was explained with custom illustrations in an official 1990 Super Mario encyclopedia from Japan. Here, Mario shows off being small and not being hurt, crouching and not being hurt, and finally finishes off with a warning that the player should not do that while Bowser breaks the final floor tiles, or else Mario will fall down with him.

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Extremely rare 1999 “Wha hoo hoo!” ball from Spain. This ball features the rare and bizarre spelling of Mario’s “Wahoo” exclamation from Super Mario 64 as “Wha hoo hoo!”, which appeared on European licensed merchandise between 1997 and 1999.

The bottom image is the full phrase seen on an officially licensed T-shirt for reference, since the ball is too small to show it all at once.

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