Rare officially licensed Mario Party plush of Bowser from Japan. The eyebrows on this plush are notoriously flimsily attached and have a tendency to fall off over time, as seen on the plush in the image.

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In the Mini-Game Island mode of Mario Party, the final challenge is playing a special version of the Slot Car Derby minigame against Toad, who normally never directly takes part in any minigames.

If Toad wins against the player, the screen simply fades out. However, if the code is modified to prevent the fade-out and treat this as a regular minigame, the winning text for Toad can be seen, which is “ALL WINS!”

This suggests that the developers planned at one point to include a message for all players winning, but the string was unused and its internal ID happened to match up with Toad’s player ID, which is also normally unreachable except for within the challenge.

An alternative humorous explanation would be that this particular Toad’s name is “All”.

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New Super Mario Bros. contains unused functionality for Super Mario Bros. 3-styled enemy challenge rooms (which would also later be implemented in New Super Mario Bros. Wii).

The level settings contain an unused parameter that would automatically mark the level as completed as long as all the following enemies are destroyed: Hammer Bros, Fire Bros, Boomerang Bros., Sledge Bros, and most curiously, Snailicorns.

The Bros subtypes have all been used in Super Mario Bros. 3 in enemy challenges, but Snailicorns are a new addition to the set of enemies. In the finished game, they are underused, appearing only in two levels, so this was evidently another place the developers planned for them to be featured.

Note that the footage uses custom levels to showcase the functionality; the code for all of this is in the game, but no level layouts for enemy challenges remain so custom layouts were used.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: mariomadproductions

Development files for Super Mario World contain sprites of Mario with wings, which appear to be an early version of what eventually became his Cape Mario form.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: NintendoMetro

Artwork of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong fighting Riptor from Killer Instinct, drawn by Kevin Bayliss, character designer for Donkey Kong Country.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: Kev_Bayliss

Original illustrations of Mario for the NES/Famicom version of Donkey Kong, created for an official Japanese guide for various early Famicom games.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: show_kob

Two extremely rare officially licensed 1988 Para-Beetle figurines from Japan.

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The 2003 PlayStation 2 RPG Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne contains unused dialogue seemingly spoken by Luigi in its files. It is part of a text file containing placeholder messages for a negotiation system, with the Luigi message being called “DUMMY_SUCCESS_INFO”, indicating that it was a placeholder for succeeding in persuading a character to divulge information.

Why Luigi was chosen for this is unclear, especially due to the lack of Mario references in the rest of the game and code.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: 1, 2: despiriaSEGA

In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, if the Baby Spin move is performed on top of the giant mushroom near Hollijolli Village and the babies spend enough time spinning down to one of the other mushroom platforms, the babies will assume a glitched state in which they no longer seem to interact with most of the environment.

Note how after landing, the babies are able to walk on air and no longer activate battles when touching enemies. It is no longer possible to retrieve the babies from this state as Adult Mario and Luigi will also pass through them.

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Extremely early design for a Bomp, found in the files of Super Mario Galaxy.

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