The battle system in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is designed in a modular manner so that every entity, whether it’s Mario, his partner, or an enemy, can theoretically use any move simply by calling its script. Of course, most moves are only supposed to be used by specific entities, causing many unintended effects if they are given to others.

A humorous effect occurs if an enemy is made to use the Earth Tremor special move. The enemy correctly hops onto the giant Crystal Star, and the move correctly deals damage to Mario and his partner (as those are that entity’s enemies, and thus the targets).

However, the script for that move calls for Mario’s partner specifically to jump onto the Crystal Star alongside the move user, even if the user is not Mario. This can be seen in the footage with Goombella joining the Goomba that is using the move on the star.

The visual result is that Goombella looks like she is “betraying” Mario by joining the Goomba in performing the move against him.

Source: SilverGames136

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For an unknown reason, the placeholder images in the official Twitch application for the PlayStation Vita have to do with Mario, a character from a different company that has nothing to do with the console, instead of anything related to Sony or their intellectual properties.

Top: the placeholder for searching games and searching broadcasters depict Super Mario 64 and a streamer named “Mario”.

Bottom: another placeholder depicting a preview of a stream uses a screenshot of a stream of Mario Party 2.

Source: DogToon64

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Reader-submitted Super Mario World artwork in a unique style, featured in a 2004 issue of the Japanese Nintendo Dream magazine.

Source: Nintendo Dream (Japan), Issue 104, 2004

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Three original illustrations (partially based on the 1986 Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach anime movie), from an officially licensed 1987 Japanese Nintendo/Suntory Ade soft drink cross-promotion calendar.

Source: its.a.me.scanio, historyofhyrule

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An extremely minor and easily overlooked detail in Super Mario 64 is that one of the four pillars in Shifting Sand Land actually has a different texture from the other three, being more visibly covered in sand. This is the pillar that is located in the quicksand near the Tox Box maze; it is also the only pillar that is lower than the other three, presumably due to having sunken into the quicksand.

While this may at first appear to be an oversight, it must be deliberate since the texture used for that pillar is unique and not used by any other object in the level. It seems that it was supposed to indicate that this pillar is less well-maintained than the others, with it being sunken into the quicksand, but the difference between the textures is so subtle that very few players would actually notice it during gameplay.

Source: its_mirrors

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In Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, it is possible to make Mario shiver on command. If the analog stick is pushed as lightly as possible, Mario will simply shiver instead of moving. Note the subtle vibrating movement of his hands.

This is unique in that most 3D platformers have a “dead zone” around the middle of the analog stick in which input will do nothing, and moving the stick outside of the dead zone will result in slow movement.

The Super Mario Galaxy games implement the dead zone not as ignoring the small analog stick inputs outright, but instead as simply not letting Mario move from the spot; however, he still reacts to the input by skipping frames of his idle animation, resulting in the “shivering” effect.

Source: cometobservatory

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It is well known that in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, there is a Toad that references Fire Emblem. However, in the Japanese version of the game, Luigi’s adventures have two more Fire Emblem references that were removed in other languages.

Source: IkeRadiantHero

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Top: in Donkey Kong Bananza, the elephants in the Tempest Layer are a community of weather forecasters. While at first this appears to be simply a deliberately odd combination, similarly to the zebra ice cream makers or snake sculptors found elsewhere in the game, this may actually be based on a real-world scientific fact about elephants.

Bottom: it was long suspected and finally confirmed in a 2014 study that, using a combination of not yet understood subtle signs in the environment, elephants are able to predict rainfall from 150 miles away and migrate towards it to increase chances of finding food and water. It is theorized that the mechanism of their detection involves their acute hearing and an ability to sense atmospheric pressure changes.

Whether this connection is deliberate or merely a remarkable coincidence is unknown.

Source: altermentality, original study

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Original illustration used for a 1986 officially licensed Super Mario Bros. jigsaw puzzle from Japan.

Source: blacktangent

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Super Mario All-Stars contains a debug mode for Super Mario Bros. 3 in its code, which can be activated either deliberately by setting a single address in memory to a specific value (e.g. via a cheating device) or, curiously, by complete accident simply upon starting the console (as explained in my video here).

Two of the functionalities of the debug mode is the ability to swap between power-ups at the press of a button, and the ability to enter “free movement” mode whereby Mario slides freely around the screen in all directions instead of needing to walk.

If the free movement mode is activated while Mario is in specific animations, and then the power-up is changed during it, his sprite may become jumbled. While normally, the sprite simply changes to other parts of Mario’s sprite sheet, a particularly amusing change occurs when swimming as Frog Mario and then swapping to Fire Mario while in free movement. This will make Mario assume a big “25” graphic alongside bits and pieces of his body.

Source: IgorOliveira66X

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