The Wii U version of Skylanders: SuperChargers includes Donkey Kong as a playable character, alongside Diddy Kong as a companion. Uniquely for their models, their default expressions are not the completely emotionless faces normally used as defaults for the vast majority of 3D models, but these odd smiling faces with squinting eyes instead.

The reason for this to be their default expression is unknown.

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In World 3-7 of Yoshi’s Island, the bubble-spitting Barney Bubble enemy and the Clawdaddy crab enemy appear in the same room. While they are a few screens away from each other, Yoshi can still easily eat one of the bubbles, backtrack to the Clawdaddy, and spit the bubble at him.

This interaction was evidently not tested during development, as the Clawdaddy will then enter a glitched state in which he will slide back and forth rapidly. The Clawdaddy will no longer be able to be interacted with, and will continue sliding forever until the room is exited.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: raindingrandom

In Super Mario Sunshine, Shadow Mario paints the portal leading to Bianco Hills after the first time Mario thwarts his attempt to kidnap Peach, and disappears into the drawing.

Interestingly, by moving quickly enough, Mario can actually reach the activation zone of the portal so early that Shadow Mario still hasn’t started drawing it yet. This will cause Mario to start his “enter level” animation at the same time as Shadow Mario starts drawing the portal, which will result in Mario actually overtaking Shadow Mario and entering the portal before he does.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: zelpikukirby

In Super Mario Odyssey, the final moment of the game before the ending sequence is Mario and Peach capturing a Spark Pylon (while Mario is also capturing Bowser), very briefly appearing in these Spark Pylon Bowser Mario and Spark Pylon Peach forms. Due to this being seen only very briefly and both characters emitting light and pulsating, some of the details of their designs can be best seen when extracting the models from the game instead (please zoom in to view).

Spark Pylon Peach’s lightning bolt-shaped hair on the sides of her face is very difficult to see in-game and can only be seen clearly on the model. Note that her eyelashes and eyebrows have a red texture on the model but are recolored to be black in-game; this suggests that they were originally meant to be red before it was decided to leave the color unchanged instead.

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Top: it is well known among Super Paper Mario enthusiasts that the Korean version of the game contains a set of 11 unused areas that appear to have been a test or prototype for a new game in the same engine, referred to as “Korean Cat Adventure” due to the absence of an official name.

The rooms are designed in the same colorful style as the rest of the game, but contain five cat characters that are named after various character designers at Intelligent Systems. Evidently, the Korean Cat Adventure concept was abandoned, as no other material related to it was ever published.

Bottom: however, merely viewing the extracted graphics on their own does not provide a scale for how large the characters would have been. By loading the rooms in-game through modifying the code, Mario can explore them and compare himself to the cats, which reveals that they would have been approximately 1.3 times his height.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Source: dimensio_italian_magician

Top: officially licensed 1996 Japanese poster for Super Mario RPG.

Bottom: interestingly, the Mario image in the poster is not a real render, but a combination of two other pieces of official art overlaid over each other; using a base image of Mario standing in isometric perspective with a head that is looking directly at the viewer.

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In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a glitch may occur on the online menu whereby two of the astronaut Toads that float randomly in the background may accidentally spawn at the same time, causing them to appear fused together as seen in the footage.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: footage, info: sybeez

Top left: this Mario illustration was commonly used in various video game magazines, such as the British Computer and Video Games magazine, starting with 1997. Mario’s expression and the light being emitted by an unseen object in front of him is intended to convey amazement at e.g. a new reveal.

Top right and bottom: a version of this artwork was used in the Mexican “Nintendomanía” TV show as part of the background. However, due to removing the light effect and slightly changing Mario’s mouth shape, it inadvertently made him appear to express fear or a similar emotion of unease instead.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: elrohpro

A Mario Paint reference appears in the Homestar Runner game “Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate”, where one of the random lines after a Game Over is “Undo Dog! Undo Dog!”, referring to the Undodog character that debuted in that game and later also appeared in the Super Mario Maker games.

The choice to reference Mario Paint specifically may be due to the very first Homestar Runner animation being made in Mario Paint in 1996 (four years prior to the official launch of the website), to acknowledge its part in the series’ history.

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In Super Mario Bros. 3 (shown here in the Super Mario All-Stars version, but applicable to all versions), diagonal Thwomps have faulty collision that does not turn off entirely after their death.

As such, defeating one of them with a Star will allow Mario to “juggle” it after death for additional points, as seen in the footage.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: MrPyt1001