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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In Super Mario Galaxy, Boo Mario turns back into regular Mario automatically upon using a Launch Star. As such, it is impossible to see Boo Mario being launched. Note that this is different from some other power-ups, like Fire Mario or Bee Mario, that persist through Launch Stars.
Modifying the game to let Boo Mario be launched (shown here in the Dusty Dune Galaxy) reveals that after landing, he does not actually assume the correct orientation relative to the ground. While gravity still works correctly on him, he is stuck at the orientation he was at when he landed instead of rotating to match the gravity.
This raises the question of whether this is a consequence of Boo Mario never being intended to be launched, and as such the developers never bothering to fix this as it would never be relevant, or - conversely - if this was a bug with Boo Mario that led to the programmers removing his ability to be launched in the first place.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SPG64
In a 1993 issue of the Japanese Famitsu magazine, the staff contacted Nintendo Japan with questions about the Mario franchise due to the imminent release of Super Mario All-Stars.
One of the questions asked of Nintendo was “Donkey Kong has not been appearing recently. Why?” whereupon Nintendo replied that “Donkey Kong Jr. appearing in Super Mario Kart is a preview of things to come”, referencing the (then not yet announced) Donkey Kong ‘94, which would feature both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.
However, the magazine then, as a joke, takes that answer to mean that Nintendo is suggesting that Donkey Kong has some sort of extremely important place in an overarching story, and included this illustration of Donkey Kong as a puppetmaster controlling both Mario and Bowser.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Source: Famitsu (Japan), Issue 239, 1993
Early concept art of a scenario for New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey, where a cat is holding a Power Moon in its mouth and Mario tries to obtain it by beckoning the cat to come closer. Nothing even remotely like this scenario occurs in the finished game.
Note that early artwork shows Peach being present in many scenarios in New Donk City (note her being visible cut off at the left edge of the image), suggesting that she was at some point thought to accompany Mario in that area, or be a more important character for that segment.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source
In Donkey Kong Country, a bizarre glitch can happen when riding Enguarde and collecting an Animal Token. Whenever three matching Animal Tokens are collected, a bonus stage featuring that Animal Buddy is briefly entered to collect tokens for extra lives.
However, if the Animal Buddy (Expresso in the footage) clips through the ground and dies during the bonus stage, the game will not return to the regular gameplay prior to collecting the token. Instead, it will restart the game (start the beginning of the first stage, Jungle Hijinxs) using the current characters, which includes Enguarde.
As shown in the footage, this results in Enguarde being controllable in a non-water stage. Due to the game never expecting this to happen, Enguarde still treats the environment as water, allowing him to swim through air.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: RetroTortuga
In the Spin-Dig Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2, a large square planetoid is featured in the second mission where the objective is to drill inside to collect five Silver Stars. The planetoid forces Mario into a 2D plane so that he can only drill it from the sides of the square.
However, there is an extremely small decorative round planetoid near the large square one. If Mario is able to reach it via skillful jumps and tricks, he can jump back towards the square planetoid and drill into it from a direction perpendicular to the plane he is usually forced into.
The footage shows the results. Mario will dig all the way through the planetoid but not actually stop drilling due to this being an unintended direction, and continue drilling through space for a while before dying.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Shadow64_SMG2
Left: one of the releases of Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 features a box art that seemingly has very little to do with Donkey Kong, except for the inclusion of a ladder and hammer. The clown and the monsters do not seem to depict anything that actually appears in the game.
Right: it turns out that the artwork is simply a redrawn version of key art for a different game, “Mr. Do!’s Castle”, which does star a clown. It is possible that the artist chose to redraw that picture specifically due to the prominence of the ladder and hammer, believing it to be a “close enough” rendition of the main gameplay of Donkey Kong.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Source: image: 1, 2, info: MarioSonicFan_1992
In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, blending new drinks at the Starbeans Cafe causes E. Gadd to appear in seven different scenes, one for each drink. However, the game’s files reveal that the scenes were actually meant to each feature a different Nintendo character cameo, with E. Gadd merely being the first. The other six would have been Wario, Fox McCloud, Captain Olimar, Samus Aran, an unnamed Excitebike racer, and Link.
The game contains finished graphics, animations, and even fully translated English dialogue for all of those scenes, suggesting they were scrapped late in development. However, it is missing other cutscene data such as character movement, timing, and the animations for Mario and Luigi.
The footage shows a fan recreation of the Wario scene using all available in-game data and filling in the gaps with reasonable educated guesses based on the game’s other cutscenes, by YouTube user SeanMacProductions. Please note again that Wario’s sprites and animations and the dialogue are official, while Mario and Luigi’s reactions and the timing of the movements are not.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SeanMacProductions
