Design from an officially licensed 2007 T-shirt. While the presentation is clearly intended to evoke an “evolution” theme, suggesting that each successive Mario is from a more advanced game, the last two Marios are actually both from Super Mario 64, being the in-game model in the second to last place and the promotional render in the last place. This suggests that Promotional Art Mario is somehow “fitter” than his in-game self.

In addition, the Super Mario Bros. sprite in the second place is using an incorrect palette (being the palette from Donkey Kong; though interestingly, concept art for Super Mario Bros. reveals this was initially Mario’s palette in that game before it was changed), and the Super Mario World sprite in the third place is larger than the Super Mario Bros. sprite on the design despite being smaller in reality (Super Mario Bros. is 32 pixels tall while Super Mario World is 28 pixels tall).

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There is an extremely bizarre oversight in Super Mario Kart that causes all Question Panels that point towards the east side of the map to turn around to point south after they reset (Question Panels start resetting after 30 of them have been used up), and vice versa.

Top left: at the beginning of a battle in Battle Course 1, this panel points south, towards the yellow wall.

Top right: after battling enough for this panel to reset, it will now point east, away from the yellow corner.

Bottom: a two-frame animation of the panels changing. Note that panels that point north and west remain unchanged. The reason for this is unknown.

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

Custom render of Mario aggressively presenting a Game Boy Advance, used in 2001 for the UK Nintendo Official Magazine.

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In Super Mario Galaxy, the battles against Bowser take place on spherical planetoids where Bowser must be tricked into Ground Pounding the blue spots on the floor, causing him to break the glass and get burned by the lava underneath.

However, if he is lured to Ground Pound on the metallic green platforms, he will destroy them and reveal a coin instead. If he does this from a very specific angle, he will escape the gravity of the planetoid and never come back down. Note Bowser slowly moving away in the footage.

There is no way to continue the battle in this state and the mission must be reset.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: dot-lvl

On the Nintendo Today app, one of the selectable themes is the Donkey Kong theme. The theme has an Easter egg whereby on the 30th of each month, the animation actually differs based on whether that is the last day of that month, or whether that month also has a 31st day.

Both animations start off identically, with King K. Rool playing dead on the ground, with the text “The Month is Over?” However…

Left: on a month that does not end on the 30th, King K. Rool wakes up suddenly as the text disappears, signifying that there is still one more day left.

Right: if the month does end on the 30th, the text fades into “The Month is Over” without a question mark as King K. Rool remains dead.

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The files of Mario Super Sluggers contain an unused early model of Daisy that has mysterious finger bones inside her hands. All other characters, both used and unused, are completely boneless.

It must be noted that model control points used to rig animations are usually called “bones” in the industry, but those are not themselves modeled, and their visual representation (often as cones or other simple shapes) exists only within the 3D modeling program for the benefit of the designer.

These bones, however, are actually modeled, which is highly unusual for the kind of bones discussed in the above paragraph, and is mostly the case for when literal bones actually need to be seen in-game, such as for cartoony animations of a character’s skeleton being visible.

It is speculated that there may have been an oversight during the model export that has assigned a model to the bones. Either way, it is notable if it is an error (especially since it makes them look like actual real-life bones seemingly coincidentally), and highly bizarre if it is on purpose (as nothing explains what kind of purpose having bones only in the hands, and only for Daisy, would have).

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In Yoshi’s Island, a glitch exists that allows for the game to be finished immediately upon reaching the end of level 2-2. Near the end of that level, a Little Mouser enemy is carrying an egg. If Yoshi is able to touch the egg without defeating the Little Mouser, he will obtain a glitched object called a “null egg”.

The null egg can be or do more or less anything, given how its entire existence is pulling from unintended data which can be manipulated indirectly by the player’s prior actions in the game. By carefully manipulating the console’s RAM to have the correct value at the unintentionally read address (done through precise movement throughout the game), the null egg can allow the end goal of level 2-2 to be eaten and then spat out.

When spat out, it also becomes glitched and will now take Yoshi directly to the credits, ending the game.

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Top: page from a 2000 style guide issued by Nintendo of America to merchandise licensees. Note the caption below Lakitu reading “Jugem”.

Bottom: this is, surprisingly, a holdover from the 1990 North American NES manual for Super Mario Bros. 3, which failed to correctly translate the Japanese name for Lakitu, ジュゲム (“Jugem”), and left it as is. Despite Lakitu being known as “Lakitu” both for years before this and in the decade between it and the style guide, the guide somehow managed to pick the incorrect name for the character.

Also note that “Little Toadie” as a name for Toad was also long deprecated at that point, being used mostly around 1993 in licensed material.

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In Donkey Kong Country 2, there are always No Animal Signs preventing Animal Buddies from being taken to the end of a level. However, if glitches are used to skip them, the Animal Buddy will become corrupted upon jumping onto the goal.

In the footage, Rambi is taken to the goal of the Barrel Bayou level, whereupon he turns into a copy of Diddy Kong, makes both the original Diddy and himself freeze, and starts very slowly sliding to the left. He will continue sliding to the left indefinitely, even over pits.

If he touches a barrel on the way, the glitch will end and control will be returned to the player, but the level goal will be “spent” and no longer able to be activated, forcing the level to be restarted.

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Top: the preview image for Cloudy Court Galaxy in the original Wii version of Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Middle: a re-rendered version of it used in the Nintendo Switch version. Note the different Paragoomba.

Bottom: the Paragoomba is actually not a part of the scene at all. It is instead an official art render of a Paragoomba from New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS.

It is likely that during the capturing of the new render, the developers were unable to get the Paragoomba in the exact same spot as it was before, so they opted to simply superimpose a picture of it in the hopes that this would not be noticeable.

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