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 Donkey Kong 64, the Game Over scene shows King K. Rool being successful in his activation of the Blast-o-Matic, ending with a shot of the Blast-o-Matic’s nozzle being aimed at DK Island.
Normally, the sequence ends here and the game restarts. However, by modifying the game’s code to prevent the game from restarting, it is revealed that the playable Kong (Diddy in the footage) has been in the scene all along. Similar workarounds are used in many other games where the playable character object’s code contains crucial functions; the character is loaded somewhere out of sight even if they should not be, such as e.g. Mario being underground in the void during story cutscenes in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
To prevent Diddy Kong from interfering with the scene, he is laterally locked to a single position (the doorway of K. Lumsy’s prison) and cannot do anything except jump. The game will remain in this state indefinitely.
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All Mario Kart games have difficulty modes named after engine classes: 50cc, 100cc, 150cc etc. In some Mario Kart games, the engine classes do not actually correspond to in-game variables, so e.g. there is no single value that is “50” for 50cc and “100” for 100cc. Instead, each engine class is custom-crafted with different values and the “cc” numbers are just for the player’s benefit.
However, in Mario Kart 7, the “cc” number is actually a real variable in the game’s code that can be changed to create any possible engine class. If it is made greater than 150cc, the karts predictably become even faster. Interestingly, there is behavior for negative engine classes, which is shown in the footage.
All regular acceleration (so Rocket Start being exempt from this) actually accelerates the kart backwards. Note how Yoshi appears to go forward from the Rocket Start but then immediately starts accelerating backwards uncontrollably.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: PabloMK7
Ludwig von Koopa has been voiced by voice actor David J. Goldfarb since 2014. However, his voice acting in games is limited to grunts, yells and other vocalizations, not actual dialogue.
In this recording, David J. Goldfarb performs a line said by Ludwig during his boss battle in Paper Mario: Color Splash at a request from a fan. This offers a glimpse of how Ludwig would sound if he was fully voiced, at least according to the voice actor’s conceptualization of the character.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: TeddoGBear
Officially licensed 1994 Donkey Kong Country phone card from Japan with an exceedingly bizarre, partially misspelled caption reading:
SUPER DONKY KONG
Donky is doomed.
no matter how you play,
he’s sure to stay.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: blacktangent
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the gameplay of Chapter 2 revolves around leading a horde of Punies through the Great Tree. The Punies have two states: “following Mario” and “lost”. If Mario goes somewhere they cannot follow, such as by jumping over a gap, the Punies become “lost”. Only “following” Punies spawn with Mario after he walks into a different room; “lost” ones remain behind.
The Nintendo Switch version of the game rewrites the code for the Punies in a way that causes them to be able to be tricked into thinking they are not lost when they really should be. Punies become lost only if Mario goes somewhere they cannot follow for three frames in a row. As such, if Mario keeps jumping rapidly enough that he only touches the ground for 1 or 2 frames, he can go anywhere he wants without the Punies thinking they are lost.
Note how in the footage, even though the Punies cannot actually physically follow Mario across the pillars, the counter in the top left shows all of them still “following” him, and they all still spawn with him after he goes through the pipe.
This can be used to skip various puzzles in the Great Tree since now the goal is merely to get Mario himself to the exit instead of both Mario and the Punies, as the Punies can now simply be tricked into thinking they went with Mario.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Wookis
In Super Mario 64, the Lethal Lava Land/Bowser in the Fire Sea skybox is taken from a photo of the sky from a texture library CD, mirrored and tinted in a red color.
Top: the skybox recreated as closely as possible using the original assets after being recolored.
Bottom: the skybox modified to use the original sky photo in its real colors.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: PokeHeadroom
Top: during the boss battle against Bowser Jr. in the “Boarding the Airship” level of New Super Mario Bros. U/Deluxe, the floor is made out of unique Bowser Jr. blocks that appear only in this fight. They become cracked and darkened after one hit and disappear after the next, before reforming after a while.
Bottom: there is a small detail about the blocks that is nearly impossible to notice during regular gameplay. When the blocks are damaged, the crack and darkening effect makes it very difficult to see that Bowser Jr.’s face on the block actually changes its eyebrow orientation to look more concerned, as though the block was actually alive and reacting to the damage.
On the left is the texture used for the regular blocks, and on the right for the damaged blocks.
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