A Super Mario variety blog.
Screenshots, photos, sprites, gifs, scans and more from all around the world of Super Mario Bros.
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Mario Kart Wii contains a bizarre error on the Mario Circuit track whereby the shadow of one of the houses has the chimney on the wrong side (note how the house has the chimney on the right while the shadow’s chimney is on the left).
This would obviously be impossible with modern games’ lighting engines that create real shadows based on the actual shapes of objects and light direction, and is only possible due to the game using premade textures covering the ground as a low-tech alternative to actual shadows.
It is likely the texture was made when the house was facing the other direction, and not updated when it was rotated or mirrored.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: kevinvg207
In Super Mario Odyssey, a New Donker man is sitting on a bench in front of the Crazy Cap store in Bowser’s Kingdom. Normally, if Mario stands on the bench, he will enter a sitting animation next to the man.
However, by capturing a nearby Jizo statue and strategically uncapturing it while it occupies the other half of the bench, it is possible to make it push Mario into the man’s hitbox. This will cause Mario to sit down inside of the man instead.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SMO (Switch)
Left: the first appearance of Sidestepper, as an enemy in the Mario Bros. arcade in 1983.
Right: the first playable appearance of Sidestepper in Mario Kart World in 2025.
Sidestepper currently holds the record for the longest time between a Mario franchise character’s introduction and becoming playable, being 42 years. The previous record holder has been Pauline, with 38 years between her introduction in the Donkey Kong arcade in 1981 and becoming playable in a Mario Tennis Aces update in 2019.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Mario Universalis
In Paper Mario: The Origami King, the Fire Vellumental Cave features two rooms where Mario is locked until he defeats a number of Paper Macho Shy Guys carrying buckets of burning oil.
As a unique easily missed interaction, during these segments, it is not actually possible for Mario to restore health. If he attempts to use a Mushroom item, a Fire Vellumental statue will peek its head it from the top of the screen and spit a fireball, which will incinerate the Mushroom as seen in the footage.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: mariofantsudoi
The cover of a 1992 Chinese book, “Secrets of Researching Video Game Consoles”, features a bizarre recreation of the original Japanese Famicom box art for Super Mario Bros. 3.
While Mario and Bowser are relatively on-model, the other characters are drawn in a very unique way. Particularly, Peach has no face for an unknown reason.
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For many years, it has been known that the Super Smash Bros. Brawl trophy for the Super Paper Mario boss Fracktail contained unused palm tree textures, though it was unknown what their purpose was and whether they were tied to Fracktail itself or simply some oversight accidentally left in.
However, it was only in 2026 that the original model that used the textures was finally restored from the files. Fracktail was seemingly planned to have the palm tree on its head in place of the antenna.
It is possible that the original vision for the boss battle was that Mario would encounter a lone palm tree in the desert, which would then be revealed to be Fracktail’s antenna as it emerges from the ground, though that is merely speculation.
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In Super Mario Sunshine, there are a variety of glitches that allow Mario to fall down to the death plane below the area; however, most of them require some sort of deliberate series of atypical actions and are as such not likely to be accidentally activated.
However, there is a corner inside the Delfino Plaza sewers that sends Mario down to the death plane and kills him instantly merely for moving into it while holding L. This is a simple enough prerequisite that it may well be possible for some players to have activated accidentally.
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An interesting character design detail added to the Nintendo Switch version of Super Mario RPG absent from the original SNES version is that the Axem Rangers have each been given a unique axe shape. In the original game’s official art, their axes were all identical except for the colors. Even if such differences existed in the in-game models, they are nearly impossible to discern due to the small size of the sprites.
This is difficult to notice in-game due to the Axem Rangers only being seen close-up in a single scene, and each of them holding their axe at a different angle that makes them hard to compare.
Below are all the axe models, extracted from the game, aligned to make the differences easily visible.
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