Top: in Mario Kart 64, there are unused “pillar of fire” objects found on the Bowser’s Castle track, particularly around the wooden bridge leading out of the castle. Here is what the track looks like when they are reenabled.
Bottom: interestingly, when the track returned in Mario Kart Wii, actual geysers of lava were added to these locations, showing that the developers did not merely base the track on its finished version but also consulted the internal files to be able to actualize the original vision for the track.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: rlgcarrot
Original painting used for a promotional poster for the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie (please zoom in to view detail).
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Original_VG_Art
Mario Kart World does not have any measures in place to prevent the camera from clipping into other racers’ models during races.
As such, moments like the one shown in the footage may occur, whereby an opponent Piranha Plant racer is briefly positioned perfectly to cause the camera to show the inside of its mouth.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: BigManBikk
In both Paper Mario: Sticker Star (top) and Paper Mario: Color Splash (bottom), entering a battle while on quicksand and then not issuing any commands to Mario will cause him to slowly sink into the quicksand, and finally get an automatic Game Over if the player does not press any buttons during that time.
The time it takes to get a Game Over is 1 minute in Paper Mario: Sticker Star and 1 minute and 15 seconds in Paper Mario: Color Splash. While it is unlikely that a player would idle that long while actually playing, especially without noticing that Mario is sinking, this can lead to an unwelcome surprise if the player enters a battle and then steps away from the game (since in a turn-based game like these, normally there is no penalty for waiting indefinitely on one’s own turn).
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: 1, 2
A common trick used in speedruns of Super Mario 64 is obtaining the “Behind Chain Chomp’s Gate” star by using what is known as a “Bob-omb clip”. For this, a Bob-omb is thrown and then grabbed again on a specific frame before exploding, which gives it the ability to push Mario backwards, including through walls. Normally, Mario is simply pushed through the gate itself using this method.
Whenever Mario is pushed out of bounds, he dies. However, there is still a short window of time whenever Mario is already dead when he can still interact with objects.
In the footage, the Bob-omb is used to push Mario through an out of bounds area into the star. This causes him to first die and then collect the star while the death fade-out is already active; note the star counter in the top right of the screen actually increasing since the collection is in fact still counted even in this state.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: PlushSM64
Top: in the Darker Side post-game area in Super Mario Odyssey, one challenge consists of capturing Glydon and flying as him over an extremely large gap filled with obstacles. If Assist Mode is used to not land on the platform on the end and instead kill Glydon and fall down, Mario will be put into a safety bubble and returned to the starting platform, where Glydon will respawn.
Bottom: however, Glydon will be glitched. Talking to him will make him ascend in the manner shown in the footage. He will not come back down.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: CLYrandoms