A Super Mario variety blog.
Screenshots, photos, sprites, gifs, scans and more from all around the world of Super Mario Bros.
- Links
Internal files for Mario Kart Wii reveal that testing for the game’s Mii racer functionality was done using a Mii called “morio”, which was nearly identical to the regular starter male Mii, only with a custom name. Whether “morio” is simply a reference to the game’s name or to Mario as a character specifically is unknown.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: HEYimHeroic
In the Bowser’s Fury mode of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, Fury Bowser has an extremely unorthodox implementation of rain particle effects on his shell.
Top: how the rain appears on his shell, in-game. It seems completely unremarkable and nearly identical to how the rain bounces off all other objects and surfaces in the game, which is handled via regular particle effects.
Bottom: however, the implementation is anything but regular. Instead of using particles, Fury Bowser uses “rain bones” (all the points in the upper part of the image, near his shell) that each intermittently display rain textures at specific intervals. Note the presence of the rain textures in the model itself, as well (the little white dots).
This kind of “rain texture” implementation of rain is extremely low-tech and would be expected to be used on early 3D hardware like the Nintendo 64; the Nintendo Switch is capable of rendering regular dynamic rain particles and is in fact using them for anything but Fury Bowser. Why this method was used for him specifically is unknown.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source
On the Bowser Land board in Mario Party 2, the various interaction points (the bank, the parade office, and the item shop) are all run by different Koopa Kids (known as “Baby Bowsers” at the time of the game’s release).
Using a Bowser Suit item and passing them will make them mistake the player character for Bowser and grant the player various free benefits, such as the bank giving “Bowser” free money, the item shop giving away free items, and the parade office letting the parade route be changed for free.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source
Officially licensed 1992 Super Mario Kart “ball race” board game from Japan. The objective of the game is to push various buttons and levers on the board to move four balls along the track and see which one arrives at the finish line first.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: kikaim
In the “Buried Treasure” minigame in Mario Party, the treasure chest can only spawn in the blue dots shown in the diagram. As such, digging directly diagonally towards the center of the screen is actually a bad strategy as it prolongs the time the character is inside an area where the treasure simply cannot spawn.
A possible strategy is to dig straight down (if spawning at the top) or up (if spawning on the bottom) until reaching the center of the screen before switching to digging horizontally, as that covers the most potential treasure locations in the shortest time.
Note that arrows showing the location of the treasure can also be dug up, which of course require the strategy to be adjusted to follow the arrow instead.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Rainchus
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the Yoshi Kid’s Gulp attack involves licking up an enemy and then spitting it back out toward another enemy. An obscure Easter egg about this move is that whenever a Pokey or Poison Pokey enemy is fought and it only has its head remaining, there is a 50% chance that Yoshi Kid will simply not spit it back out when using the Gulp attack, and just swallow it instead.
Since this only works on Pokeys, only occurs half of the time, and in a typical Pokey battle it would be defeated long before it loses all of its body segments, the chances of encountering this organically during gameplay are very low.
This works in both the original GameCube and the Switch versions (the latter one shown in the footage).
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Getlucky12
Top: in Mario Kart 64, the giant rotating Yoshi egg on the Yoshi Valley track is not actually 3D when viewed from specific spots; instead, it is a stationary 2D sprite moving slowly in a circle.
Bottom: interestingly, this is not a function of how close the character is to the egg, but rather, the egg is replaced with the 3D version (alongside with the track segment itself being replaced with a higher-polygon version) when the racer passes an invisible line in the northwestern corner of the track.
This is cleverly hidden by making the player normally face away from the egg as this happens, so that the egg is 2D the last time one would normally see it in the distance and then 3D when turning around and finally driving towards it. However, by reversing through the activation line while facing the egg, we can see this in action.
Note how, seemingly counterintuitively, the egg becomes 2D when getting closer (since that direction does not lead directly to it) and 3D when getting further away (since proceeding in that direction will actually lead to it, after a U-turn).
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: MK64 (NA, N64)
