A Super Mario variety blog.
Screenshots, photos, sprites, gifs, scans and more from all around the world of Super Mario Bros.
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Previously, I have posted about “Mario’s Stock Market Dance”, an animation of Mario dancing on a waiting screen in “Nomura no Famicom Trade”, which was a stock trading application for the Japan-only dial-up modem add-on for the Famicom.
While the animation was believed to be unique at the time, it was discovered that another game for the same add-on, “Famicom Anser”, used not only the same animation but also adds three dancing Toads to the waiting screen. Famicom Anser was an application that was used to connect to banks and send payments through the Famicom, so that this can now be a considered a general “financial dance” rather than a stock market dance in particular.
Source: NintendoDuoPlays, mrmxy
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WarioWare: Snapped for DSiWare included comics that made use of the camera, like the main gameplay of the game, to insert the player’s face into the images. Here is a comic extracted from the game’s files, where Kat and Ana attack the player with throwing stars, whereupon the player cries (note the tears in the background of the last panel, which should be aligned with the player’s eyes).
To replicate the experience of the original comic, simply superimpose the transparent images over photos of your own face.
Source: Adrot
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Original illustration of Mario, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Sonic, used for the cover of a 1995 issue of the Australian Hyper magazine.
Source: White vader
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Whenever Mario talks to NPCs in Super Mario Sunshine, he tilts his head up or down to look directly at the other character’s face. However, the maximum tilt allowed for this animation is actually much larger than anything that can be seen during regular gameplay.
Normally, Mario needs to be directly next to NPCs to talk to them, and as such the amount of head-tilting is limited. However, if glitches are used to desync NPCs from their regular walking paths (by clipping a lilypad in Bianco Hills out of bounds and then transporting the NPC to a different spot with it), the NPCs can actually fall out of bounds while Mario is talking to them.
This is seen in the footage, where Mario talks to a Pianta just as he is walking into a wall he is not prepared to handle, and falls to the death barrier. This causes Mario’s head to assume the maximum downward tilt since he is looking at something directly underneath him.
Source: miguelgcgamer
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Data for Mario Kart World contains names for nine removed drivers. Most of them are straightforward romanized Japanese names of objects or enemy species and can thus be assumed with relative confidence to be them.
However, two of them are more vague. “Driver_Bird” does not seem to refer to any specific type of bird; while it makes sense to assume it would be the decorative birds found throughout most modern Mario games (which are often called “bird” internally), those are small while Driver_Bird was supposed to have been medium weight.
The other one is “Driver_KuriboTwins”, being Japanese for “Goomba Twins”. This was most likely a two-Goomba stack, though it is possible it would have been two Goombas sitting side by side in a kart, or possibly even new original characters.
Source: mondomega
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In Super Mario Galaxy, Spring Mario has “phantom arms” that can only be seen through walls.
Top: Spring Mario normally has no arms. This is both visible during gameplay and can be seen by extracting his model, which shows that his arms end at the shoulders and there are no arms underneath the spring enveloping his body. Despite this, when he bounces off a wall in such a way that the wall is between him and the camera, his silhouette can briefly be seen extending an arm to push himself off the wall with.
Middle and bottom: a closer look at the arm, as well as a halfway view of Spring Mario’s visible model and the silhouette model.
The reason for this is that all forms that have a silhouette to begin with (so e.g. not Boo Mario, who simply cannot be seen through walls) share the same silhouette model, which is a low-polygon version of default Mario. This results in some forms missing things in the silhouette (Bee Mario has no wings) and some forms having “phantom limbs” like this.
Source: supertoastymutt
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Sketch of a Yoshi and Toad alongside a Yoshi Egg and a Super Star, drawn in 2000 by Takashi Tezuka, director, designer and producer for 60 different Mario-related games.
Source: VGDensetsu, Heritage Auctions
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Top: in Paper Mario: The Origami King, there is a story sequence during the Green Streamer segment whereby Mario, Olivia, Kamek and Bowser Jr. are running away from a Chain Chomp up a giant tree. During this, there is a Piranha Plant that shoots fireballs at Mario from an unreachable ledge, after which it is torn apart by the Chain Chomp.
Middle: due to being in an area Mario cannot reach and being needed for a cutscene, the Piranha Plant does not actually have a valid battle ID associated with it. By modifying the game to drop Mario on that ledge and touching it, it is revealed that entering a battle with an enemy without a valid ID brings Mario to a unused “default” battle against 4 Toads.
Bottom: the battle is clearly intended for internal testing during development and as such is very glitchy and unfinished. There are 5 rings instead of 4, though the fifth one is purely cosmetic and nothing can actually be pushed to it. The Toads are just reskinned Goombas (also simply called “Goomba” when targeted), and will attack with headbonk attacks, during which they also shrink down. Finally, the Toads can not be attacked with anything except the Tail item, with all other items missing automatically.
Source: ZXMany
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