Officially licensed 2026 limited edition Mario canned tuna from Japan.

Source: fukuya_mentai

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Top: Tetris Attack was the only Mario-related game to have ever had a print campaign that completely hid its Mario nature. Despite being a Yoshi’s Island-themed game with Yoshi and his friends being prominent during all gameplay, the 1996 North American print ad (please zoom in to view details) does not mention or depict Yoshi anywhere in the image or text.

Bottom: since using even a single screenshot from the SNES version would immediately reveal the Yoshi theming, the ad only uses a single, extremely small and blurry screenshot of the Game Boy version instead, which is additionally darkened at the edges. The screenshot is so low-quality that even players actually familiar with the game would have difficulty recognizing the two characters in it (Naval Piranha in the top right and Lakitu in the bottom right) while those unfamiliar would be unable to even recognize these as characters at all.

It is well-known that Tetris Attack was changed from its original Japanese version, Panel de Pon, due to that version’s fairy theming that Nintendo of America believed would not appeal to the US audience, and replaced with a Yoshi theming instead. As such, it is highly ironic that even after specifically changing it to appeal to the new market, the print ad completely avoided depicting the new theme as well.

Source: TC_support

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In Super Mario 64, Mr. I enemies are defeated by running a circle around them. However, some players may have difficulty running in a circle fast enough and get hit by Mr. I’s projectiles, or misjudge the angle and run into the enemy.

There is an alternate way of dealing with the enemy that does not rely on speed, precision or dodging projectiles, but does require to take a single hit from it to be performed. The game is programmed in such a way that Mario’s post-hit invincibility blinking will never run out if he is inside an enemy’s hitbox. As such, by taking a hit from the Mr. I and then entering it, Mario will continue blinking and be completely safe unless he steps back out of the enemy.

After entering the Mr. I, Mario merely has to move in a very small circle to defeat it. Since Mario’s regular walking can easily make him move out of the enemy and lose his invincibility, it is recommended to start crawling instead, which will give precise enough controls to be able to make a small circle and defeat the Mr. I from inside.

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Unique illustration used only on an officially licensed 1990 Super Mario Bros. foil balloon.

Source: TheUltiMarioFan

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In Mario Tennis on the Nintendo 64, the Ring Tournament mode is a special mode where the player can enter codes to access special tournaments. The codes were given away on Nintendo’s official site between 2000 and 2004, and included such cups as “IGN64 Tennis Cup”, “Nintendo Power Cup” etc. After completing the tournament, the player would get a result code that could be submitted to Nintendo for a chance to be shown on the official site’s leaderboards.

However, there are also codes for tournaments that were never published on Nintendo’s site. One of them is the enigmatic “Mr. Pickle’s Cup”, accessed with the code 4YHWOR4Y2. Not only is the name not explained anywhere in the game, but the tournament appears to be a joke, since it ends not after a specific number of sets or matches but after scoring a single point, being the only Ring Tournament to do so.

This is most likely an inside joke from Camp Hyrule, Nintendo of America’s online camp that ran yearly from 1995 to 2007. Very little of Camp Hyrule has been preserved, but it appears that pickles were a common running gag, and it is likely that this tournament was publicized internally at Camp Hyrule instead of publicly on the website.

Source: GamerFolklore

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In Super Mario Galaxy 2, it is possible for Luigi to fall sideways out of reality and die.

In the second mission of Slipsand Galaxy, there is a 2D room with adjustable gravity. If Luigi is made to land on the pipe in the specific way shown in the footage, the gravity will become glitched, so that upon emerging from the other end of the pipe he will no longer be aligned with the 2D plane of the room. This will cause him to miss the floor and continue falling upward out of bounds until a failsafe kills him.

Source: Nokoo-game

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As is very widely known, the North American Super Mario Bros. 2 is a retool of the Japan-only Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic for the Famicom, while the original Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was not released on the NES and was later retroactively called Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels internationally.

As such, since the Japanese market already had a game called “Super Mario Bros. 2”, when the international Super Mario Bros. 2 was brought back to Japan, it was renamed “Super Mario USA” due to its origin as a US-specific game.

To play into this, the official 1992 Japanese guide for the game featured a fold-out poster meant to teach Japanese children the English alphabet, using Mario characters. Note that despite being included with a Super Mario Bros. 2 guide, the poster uses Super Mario World artwork instead.

Source: jossemiati0

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The Hot Top Volcano music from Diddy Kong Racing features singing in the background. This is actually taken from a commercial sample CD called “Heart of Asia”, where it is a chant in the Kannada language (spoken mainly in the Indian state of Karnataka).

The post plays back the original sample, followed by the point in the Diddy Kong Racing track where it is sampled.

Source: TheEisenbergExperience

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In Mario Super Sluggers, all characters have unused ice skating animations, which are compiled here. These were likely intended for the Peach Ice Garden stadium, which features no ice skating in the finished game.

Note that out of all characters, only Tiny Kong (among the characters in the bottom right) has two unused ice-related animations: ice skating and twirling. It is unknown if she would have interacted with ice in a unique way from everyone else, or if the animation was planned for all characters and hers was the only one finished.

Source: Geno Penguin

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In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Crazee Dayzees and Amazy Dayzees actually change the pitch of their song attack if they are afflicted by the Tiny status effect (making it higher-pitched) or the Huge status effect (making it lower-pitched).

While making the enemies Tiny is trivial as a variety of moves and an item exist for this purpose, the only way to get them to become Huge is for them to spawn holding a Power Punch, and then use it on themselves, making this very rare during regular gameplay.

This post plays the Tiny attack sound, the regular attack sound, and the Huge attack sound in order.

Source: Koopatrol

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