An extremely minor and easily overlooked detail in Super Mario 64 is that one of the four pillars in Shifting Sand Land actually has a different texture from the other three, being more visibly covered in sand. This is the pillar that is located in the quicksand near the Tox Box maze; it is also the only pillar that is lower than the other three, presumably due to having sunken into the quicksand.

While this may at first appear to be an oversight, it must be deliberate since the texture used for that pillar is unique and not used by any other object in the level. It seems that it was supposed to indicate that this pillar is less well-maintained than the others, with it being sunken into the quicksand, but the difference between the textures is so subtle that very few players would actually notice it during gameplay.

Source: its_mirrors

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In Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, it is possible to make Mario shiver on command. If the analog stick is pushed as lightly as possible, Mario will simply shiver instead of moving. Note the subtle vibrating movement of his hands.

This is unique in that most 3D platformers have a “dead zone” around the middle of the analog stick in which input will do nothing, and moving the stick outside of the dead zone will result in slow movement.

The Super Mario Galaxy games implement the dead zone not as ignoring the small analog stick inputs outright, but instead as simply not letting Mario move from the spot; however, he still reacts to the input by skipping frames of his idle animation, resulting in the “shivering” effect.

Source: cometobservatory

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It is well known that in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, there is a Toad that references Fire Emblem. However, in the Japanese version of the game, Luigi’s adventures have two more Fire Emblem references that were removed in other languages.

Source: IkeRadiantHero

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Top: in Donkey Kong Bananza, the elephants in the Tempest Layer are a community of weather forecasters. While at first this appears to be simply a deliberately odd combination, similarly to the zebra ice cream makers or snake sculptors found elsewhere in the game, this may actually be based on a real-world scientific fact about elephants.

Bottom: it was long suspected and finally confirmed in a 2014 study that, using a combination of not yet understood subtle signs in the environment, elephants are able to predict rainfall from 150 miles away and migrate towards it to increase chances of finding food and water. It is theorized that the mechanism of their detection involves their acute hearing and an ability to sense atmospheric pressure changes.

Whether this connection is deliberate or merely a remarkable coincidence is unknown.

Source: altermentality, original study

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Original illustration used for a 1986 officially licensed Super Mario Bros. jigsaw puzzle from Japan.

Source: blacktangent

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Super Mario All-Stars contains a debug mode for Super Mario Bros. 3 in its code, which can be activated either deliberately by setting a single address in memory to a specific value (e.g. via a cheating device) or, curiously, by complete accident simply upon starting the console (as explained in my video here).

Two of the functionalities of the debug mode is the ability to swap between power-ups at the press of a button, and the ability to enter “free movement” mode whereby Mario slides freely around the screen in all directions instead of needing to walk.

If the free movement mode is activated while Mario is in specific animations, and then the power-up is changed during it, his sprite may become jumbled. While normally, the sprite simply changes to other parts of Mario’s sprite sheet, a particularly amusing change occurs when swimming as Frog Mario and then swapping to Fire Mario while in free movement. This will make Mario assume a big “25” graphic alongside bits and pieces of his body.

Source: IgorOliveira66X

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Super Mario World concept art only ever shown once, extremely briefly, during a montage in the September 2025 Nintendo Direct, while the camera was panning across it. Here is the artwork stitched together from all frames showing it, at the highest resolution available from the video.

Source: LadySophie17

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Donkey Kong Land contains a unique glitch that causes Diddy Kong to be unable to throw a barrel for several seconds, making him appear to frantically try to get rid of it while it is stuck to him.

In Tricky Temple, the first level of the Kremlantis world, picking up the barrel before the first Krusha enemy and taking it slightly further without killing any of the enemies on the way will make the game slow down if Diddy Kong attempts to throw the barrel, due to too many entities being on screen. Only when one of the Kremlings leaves the screen will Diddy finally be able to let go of the barrel.

Source: ivanfranco120

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The original storyboards for the North American 2010 commercial for Super Mario Galaxy 2 contain a piece of Super Mario Bros. fan art from DeviantArt.

Top: the storyboards, recovered from internal files of the ad agency.
Middle: zooming in on the frame with the TV reveals an image of Super Mario Bros. in 3D.
Bottom: this is the 2008 fan art “Nintendo 3D Mario” by DeviantArt user “NES–still-the-best”, which was extremely popular and commonly reposted online at that time.

Source: discovery, original artwork

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With the recent release of Donkey Kong 64 for Nintendo Switch Online, more players have discovered the Beaver Bother minigame and its infamous reputation for being unfairly difficult. The image in this post presents a method (the “60° Rule”) used by Donkey Kong 64 speedrunners to consistently succeed at this minigame.

The object of Beaver Bother is to play as a Klaptrap crocodile enemy who needs to corral a preset number of Gnawty beaver enemies into a hole before time runs out. Pressing B makes the Klaptrap gnash its teeth and make the Gnawties run away briefly. During this scared state the Gnawties are able to fall into the hole.

However, the Gnawties often appear to run away unpredictably, giving the game its reputation. The image demonstrates how the Gnawty and Klaptrap need to be aligned for the scaring to work:

-drawing an imaginary line tangential to the hole parallel to the direction of the Klaptrap’s travel, the Gnawty and Klaptrap need to be aligned so that they are both on the line that is at a 60° angle to the tangent line.
-once they are aligned like this, and the Gnawty is close enough to the hole, pressing B at that moment will actually scare it away in the correct direction to make it fall into the hole.

Source: 2dos

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