In Super Mario Galaxy 2, pressing B before entering a pipe while riding Yoshi will cause him to look upward with his mouth open while entering the pipe.

Source: cometobservatory

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The Wii U and Nintendo Switch versions of Lego City Undercover feature a variety of Mario objects that the player can discovered and built. The footage depicts a Super Star being built (note that the Super Mario Bros. Invincibility music also plays during this).

Source: ShiromiGames

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In the Bobbing Barrel Brawl level of Donkey Kong Country 3, there is a relatively hard-to-see different floor graphic underneath the Koin enemy. The player is supposed to first defeat the Koin in the standard manner by using a steel keg, and then throw a TNT barrel at the floor that was under it to reveal a blue 3-Up balloon.

However, if the player does not defeat the Koin (or the red Zinger above it) and instead throws the TNT barrel at the Koin directly, the balloon will still emerge from the hidden spot, but will have a glitched color palette giving it a yellow-white color scheme with red eyes.

Below is a comparison between the correct and glitched appearances of the balloon.

Source: Saestrol

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“Super Donkey” was the name of an unreleased project that was developed between 1991 and 1992 for the SNES, and aspects of which were repurposed for the development of Yoshi’s Island later.

The main character in most of Super Donkey’s playable builds, found in Nintendo’s internal archives, is a pilot character who resembles either the main character from the 1981 Sky Skipper arcade, or Stanley the Bugman from the 1983 Donkey Kong 3 arcade, drawn in a Rayman-like “floating limbs” style.

However, there is also this earlier build that features Mario himself in the same style, indicating the game has started out as being Mario-themed. The footage shows some of Mario’s basic actions, such as walking, jumping, climbing, and flying at will. Note that the character continued being able to fly at will in later builds, which may have been one of the reasons he was changed since that is not an ability one would traditionally associate with Mario’s moveset.

Source: LJSTAR_

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In Super Mario 64 DS, Koopa the Quick is programmed to slow down whenever he runs up a slippery slope (seen in his Bob-omb Battlefield race when he runs up the white slope after falling off the seesaw bridge). The slow-down appears to be predetermined in-game (due to his path always being the same), but is in fact based on the incline of the slope.

If he is put in a different course and given a different path, it becomes apparent what happens when the slope is both slippery and steeper than the one slope he was ever supposed to run up. He slows down to the point that he starts running backwards, descends back down the slope, and continues fruitlessly to climb back up forever, as seen in the footage.

Source: mariomadproductions

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Original Mario Kart 64 illustration of Yoshi being pelted with bombs, used for the cover of an issue of the Australian N64 Gamer magazine.

Source: White vader

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In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Gigi and Merri (also known as the Jellyfish Sisters) are one of multiple sets of red and green character pairs that teach Mario and Luigi new abilities. In Gigi and Merri’s case, those are the Dash and Tickle overworld moves.

In the finished version of the game, the segment takes place in a unique area, the Relaxation Room. Upon giving Mario and Luigi a hand massage, they discover they have elemental powers. However, in the prototype version of the game, there is no Relaxation Room and no massage, and instead they are encountered in a generic beach area.

The prototype features a cutscene that has no equivalent in the finished game. Upon seeing Gigi and Merri from a distance, Luigi runs over and stares at them while they explain that they are offering to teach the Mario Bros. a new move. If the player selects “Yes”, the tutorial starts.

However, if the player says “No”, Mario will motion for Luigi to leave only to discover he is still too distracted by the Jellyfish Sisters to notice him. In the end, Mario gets angry and needs to slap Luigi to get him to snap out of it, as shown in the footage.

Source: Skawo

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Top and middle: Mario Superstar Baseball contains two unused graphics of Donkey Kong, which differ very slightly between their rendering (one has rough/aliased edges, while the other has smooth/anti-aliased edges).

Bottom: these appear to be screenshots of Donkey Kong’s taunt as seen in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Source: Geno Penguin

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In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, if a POW Block lands on a player character’s head, it surprisingly does not burst as it would when colliding with any other object.

This can be used for a mildly amusing activity/self-imposed challenge to balance the block on the character’s head, as shown with Luigi in the footage.

Source: LooygiBros

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With the proper setup in Super Mario 64 DS, it is possible to get a Power Star within a single second of entering a course.

This relies on the game being programmed to put the player into the most recently used sublevel entrance if entering a course after dying. A common way to experience that is e.g. dying in the volcano in Lethal Lava Land; reentering the painting puts the character directly in the volcano.

Top: normally, the slide exit in Tall, Tall Mountain is covered by a grate. As such, it is not actually possible to die after completing the slide under normal circumstances. However, it is possible to perform a Sweep Kick into the corner with precise positioning that will clip the character out of the alcove, whereupon he can then die.

Bottom: after reentering the painting, the character will spawn right next to the star, whereupon Yoshi can grab it immediately with his tongue.

Please note that this is not possible in the original Super Mario 64, where there is no grate and as such dying after completing the slide is trivial. In that version, doing so spawns Mario at the start of the slide.

Source: Adeal’s TASes et al.

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