Early concept art for Valentina in Super Mario RPG, shared by the game’s visual effects artist Jiro Mifune.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Drew Mackie
In Donkey Kong Bananza, Donkey Kong can parry enemy attacks by punching them with precise timing, which will activate a cinematic slowdown effect as seen in the footage.
This is never mentioned in-game; while the final boss battles of the game do expect the player to punch back projectiles, those have a more lenient timing and do not use the same kind of parrying as shown here.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: looygi
In Super Mario Galaxy, Spring Mario can normally never sleep, as he always keeps bouncing in that form even if no input is made, and he cannot enter a sleep state while moving.
A glitch exists that allows Spring Mario to stand still without bouncing, activated by touching both a wall and a Gearmo on the same frame. However, performing it reveals that even then he does not sleep, as the code for the Spring Mario state explicitly forbids it.
By combining the glitch with a small modification to the code to force Spring Mario to go to sleep, it becomes apparent that the code doesn’t merely never call the sleep function for Spring Mario, but doesn’t even define it in the first place.
This leads to a visual glitch when it tries to load undefined sleepy eye textures, causing his eyes to appear completely black instead.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Source: SMG (NA, Wii), additional info: cometmedal
Top: cannons that fire the Kongs to bonus rooms are a recurring object in various levels of Donkey Kong Country 2. This footage shows a typical example of how one is activated; a cannonball must be found in the level and brought to the cannon, which will turn it green, showing that it will shoot them to the bonus level when entered.
Bottom: however, surprisingly, using a cannonball is not the only way to activate the cannon. Barrels shot by enemies will also turn it green, though that requires finding an enemy that shoots barrels and then escorting the barrel to the cannon so that it does not despawn.
Notably, this was only documented in 2025, 30 years after the game’s release, despite requiring no glitches and being relatively easy to perform - possibly simply because no one involved with analyzing and speedrunning the game expected this interaction to work.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: thestaticcling
“Wario Busters” is a Mario & Wario-themed arcade game that presumably released in 1994 in Japan, where the aim was to throw balls at Wario.
Outside of a promotional image in a trade magazine, no evidence of the game’s existence has surfaced, and no actual physical units are known to exist.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SuperMarioFact
The person voicing Funky Kong in the Japanese dub of the Donkey Kong Country cartoon series has both an extremely fitting appearance and name for the role, going by the stage name Banana Ice and being known for wearing sunglasses.
In addition to voicing Funky Kong, Banana Ice was also the composer for the Japanese opening theme for the cartoon.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: pyrrhickong
In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, if the player is using the Invisibility badge when meeting Bowser Jr., he will have unique dialogue for this in each of his encounters, mostly involving him not seeing the player and Prince Florian but still somehow feeling their presence. Here are all the special Bowser Jr. messages for this scenario.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Mixeli