Joker cards from an officially licensed 1999 Mario Party 2 deck of playing cards from Japan, featuring Pirate Bowser and Pirate Wario.

All the other cards in the deck have standard faces with no Mario imagery. Curiously, this is one of the few times officially licensed Nintendo playing cards used unique images seemingly cropped from gameplay instead of relying on preexisting official artwork.

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A humorous visual glitch with Rosalina’s galaxy display can occur exclusively in the Nintendo Switch version of Super Mario Galaxy.

Top: how the display is supposed to look like under normal circumstances.

Bottom: however, if during a cutscene of Mario landing in front of Rosalina after a mission and a new dome being unlocked, the player mashes through all the dialogue at maximum speed in this version specifically, the maps and labels on the display will be tiny instead.

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The Donkey Kong Bananalysis stream continues!

Please join me as I point out details and provide obscure information about Donkey Kong Bananza on the Supper Mario Broth Twitch channel!

In Super Mario Odyssey, the first Power Moon Mario and Cappy are supposed to obtain during regular gameplay is called “Our First Power Moon”.

Due to a glitch in Version 1.0 of the game, this name was not merely descriptive, but also mandatory, since collecting that moon at any point after collecting Madame Broode’s Multi Moon (i.e. it no longer being Mario’s and Cappy’s “First Power Moon”) would cause the game to crash.

The technical reason is that a stone pillar next to the moon is supposed to fall down and create a bridge after it is collected, but the bridge is automatically set to be down after defeating Madame Broode. Collecting the first moon afterwards causes the pillar to fall twice, causing the crash. This was fixed in all later versions.

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

As is well known, the game known as Super Mario Bros. 2 internationally was originally a non-Mario Japan-only game called Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, which was retooled into a Mario game for worldwide markets.

However, coincidentally, the original 1987 Japanese print ad for Doki Doki Panic did in fact feature Mario despite the game having nothing to do with him at that point in time yet*. Mario is shown shaking hands with Imajin, the protagonist of the game, to demonstrate the collaboration between Nintendo, the developers, and Fuji TV, the publishers and IP holders of Yume Kōjō, a tech event the game was originally made to promote.

As such, this ad could be seen as an inadvertent foreshadowing of the future of the game, especially with how out of the four playable characters in it, Imajin was actually the one replaced by Mario in Super Mario Bros. 2.

*at least in its released form; according to interviews, the game did start development as a Mario demo before proceeding development with the Yume Kōjō IP, which also explains the inclusion of POW Blocks and Super Stars in that game even before it became Super Mario Bros. 2.

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In the character selection menu of Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Luigi has a unique dance animation accompanied by him continuously chanting “Luigi, Luigi, oh yeah, oh yeah”. In-game, this can never be heard without the menu music in the background.

Here, the chant is isolated from the game’s files.

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Super Mario Sunshine contains an unused “violent spill” mechanic in its code that, when activated, causes Mario to involuntarily spray water in a large radius whenever he is hit by an enemy.

The droplets are not merely cosmetic, but can clean goop and affect enemies just like a regular FLUDD spray. Note the Strollin’ Stus around Mario becoming stunned as a result of the spill.

It is possible this was removed from the finished game since it makes enemies less effective, as every hit Mario takes from an enemy has a chance to stun or damage that enemy from the spill, making them much less threatening.

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Unauthorized Cheep Cheep plush from Japan.

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Animal Crossing: New Leaf contains a variety of fortune cookies with fortunes that may be exchanged for merchandise relating to other Nintendo franchises.

Every fortune relates either directly or tangentially to the item received upon turning it in. Here are the Mario-related fortunes in the game, from left to right (please zoom in to read the text):

Row 1: Mushroom Mural, Block Floor, Peach’s Parasol
Row 2: Toad Hat, Block, Coin
Row 3: Goal Pole, Fire Flower, Super Mushroom
Row 4: Green Shell, Super Star, 1-Up Mushroom
Row 5: ? Block, Pipe, Fire Bar
Row 6: Bill Blaster, Yoshi’s Egg, Triple Red Shells
Row 7: Bad Bro’s Stache, Big Bro’s Mustache, Triple Bananas

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Top: in Super Mario Galaxy 2, rolling Thwomp-like enemies called Rhomps appear on a slide in Slipsand Galaxy. While they appear to be simply a group of the same kind of enemy, internally, there are actually two different kinds of Rhomp objects.

Bottom: every time two Rhomps are seen rolling side by side, they are actually a separate fused “Double Rhomp” enemy (with its own dedicated model), and not merely two regular Rhomp objects next to each other. It is unknown why this implementation was chosen since putting two regular Rhomps in the same position instead results in the exact same behavior.

From an in-universe perspective, this may imply some Rhomps are fused to other Rhomps forever in a sort of symbiotic or partner relationship.

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