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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Left: there is a rare alternate side art for Donkey Kong Jr. cabinets (confirmed as official by being posted in a 2002 issue of Nintendo Power) that contains a woman sitting in the top right, whose identity is unknown. The only prominent female character in the Mario series at that point was Pauline, but Pauline does not appear in the game and was never depicted wearing a green dress in official material.
Right: the closest design to this character in the Mario franchise is the human form of Wendy Koopa (known as “Kootie Pie” in the cartoons) from “The Beauty of Kootie” episode of the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon series. Of course, the cartoon was released 8 years after the Donkey Kong Jr. artwork, so the artwork cannot be in reference to it, and the cartoon is very unlikely to be in reference to the artwork.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Source: 1, 2: MarioSonicFan_1992
In Super Paper Mario, there is one chapter in which the Void is not actually visible in the sky upon entering it, but later appears surreptitiously without anyone mentioning it.
When first entering Chapter 2-1, there is no Void in the sky. However, there is a pipe at the end of the first area that must be entered to retrieve the key to the next area. Upon exiting that pipe, the Void will suddenly be in the sky, which is noticeable when specifically paying attention to it but very easily missed otherwise.
It is unknown if this is some manner of oversight or whether the Void’s sudden but unceremonious appearance is intentionally meant to evoke a subtle feeling of impending doom in the player.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source
Stained glass windows on the ceiling of the Nintendo Super Star Store at in Universal Epic Universe at the Universal Orlando theme park.
Note that while the idea of Mario, a Super Mushroom and a Fire Flower being depicted as constellations in the sky was first seen in Mario Party 9, the actual configurations of the stars here do not match up with the ones in that game.
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In Donkey Kong ‘94, there is a minor visual glitch when the final boss battle loads whereby, for a few frames, the screen will display six headless Paulines before immediately switching to the correct scene setup.
The glitch can be seen on original hardware, but appears to not always be present; in the Nintendo Switch Online version, it can be seen consistently whenever the final boss level is entered.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: luigicat117
In Super Mario Odyssey, if Yoshi is uncaptured above a slope (such as the spires of Peach’s Castle), he will enter a unique state while falling whereby he only exists when viewed at certain angles.
During regular gameplay, this would manifest as him either being visible or invisible during this depending on the camera angle, but entering Snapshot Mode allows the phenomenon to be examined more closely. Note how Yoshi appears and disappears when the viewpoint changes.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: syrkl_dsc
Top: in Donkey Kong Bananza, the font used for the UI and dialogue is called “Ad Lib”. Interestingly, the choice of this specific typeface appears to be an extremely deep reference to the history of the series.
Middle: this typeface was used in the 1990s in various promotional material for Donkey Kong Country games, such as the big captions in the official Nintendo Power guide for Donkey Kong Country.
Bottom: in addition, it even made its way to material included with the games themselves, such as the Donkey Kong 64 manual.
If this is an intentional reference, it demonstrates the lengths to which the development team has gone to research the history of the series. If it is not intentional, it is a remarkable coincidence.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Cameron Reigle
In Toad Houses in New Super Mario Bros. 2, Toad sometimes produces treasure chests containing items for Mario to pick. Interestingly, the code allows him to produce any number of them between 1 and 360, with the footage showing 10, 30 and 360 chests.
Together with the fact that the chests have a rudimentary collision allowing them to stand on top of each other despite this never happening in regular gameplay, it suggests that this might have been deliberately programmed and the designers could have at some point considered making Toad produce an absurd amount of chests at once as a visual gag.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Bin_3ds
Left: in New Super Mario Bros. U/Deluxe, Yoshi activates Donut Blocks by standing on them, causing them to turn red and subsequently fall.
Right: in the New Super Mario Bros. U game style of Super Mario Maker 2, however, Yoshi does not activate Donut Blocks, and can stand on them indefinitely. Of course, if the player is riding Yoshi, the blocks are activated as usual.
Assuming the properties of the Donut Blocks themselves are identical between the appearances, there are two ways of interpreting this: if the Donut Blocks are taken to be weight-activated, then this suggests Yoshi lost weight between these two appearances. If instead the internal logic is taken into account whereby enemies do not usually activate Donut Blocks, but player characters do, this suggests that Yoshi is now an enemy.
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In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mini Goombas appear occasionally and appear to simply be regular Goombas, but scaled to a much smaller size during regular gameplay.
However, extracting the model from the game’s files reveals that they surprisingly actually use a different model from standard Goombas, which appears to be more stylized with exaggerated features.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source