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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A bizarre oversight in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels results in some objects being manipulatable after Mario’s death.
Left: normally, whenever Mario dies, all objects on screen freeze for his death animation, and do not move again until the stage is restarted.
Right: however, if the player pauses and unpauses the game at least 4 times during the death animation, the objects will suddenly continue moving until the stage resets, as seen with the Koopa shell resuming its movement and killing the Koopa Paratroopa. The points and extra lives gained this way surprisingly still count even though Mario is dead, as shown with the black screen indicating that he now has 4 lives as a result of the glitch instead of 3 as on the left.
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Earliest known sketch of Donkey Kong Jr.’s proposed design for Donkey Kong Country, which was reworked into Diddy Kong after the decision was made to turn him into a new character, shared by Donkey Kong Country designer Gregg Mayles.
Unfortunately, this blurry version is the only quality the artwork has been made public in.
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Top: the indestructible material in Donkey Kong Bananza that appears in challenge courses and around specific objects that are supposed to not be affected by Donkey Kong’s ability to destroy most terrain is called Neptunite. It comes in two varieties: regular Neptunite with music symbol designs seen here on the floor, and Slippery Neptunite seen here on the walls.
Middle and bottom: interestingly, despite “Neptunite” giving the impression of a fictional material, it is the name of a real-life material. It is a silicate mineral containing many elements, including potassium, sodium, lithium, iron, manganese and titanium. Whether as a coincidence or a deliberate reference, the colors of neptunite in-game are very similar to real-world neptunite, ranging from grayish black to a black with a slight blue tint.
It is possible that another influence for the name was the fact that “Neptune” contains the word “tune”, referencing the musical symbols engraved into the material, though this is merely speculative.
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In Yoshi’s Island, the Fuzzy enemies cause the screen to distort when touched, giving the appearance of Yoshi being under the influence of a psychedelic substance. However, unlike how it may appear at first, this effect is not merely a visual distortion of the image, but rather a physical distortion of space itself.
Top: normally Fuzzies appear only in specific portions of levels where Yoshi interacts only with a curated set of objects. However, by performing a precise jump into the loading zone for the Fuzzies in Level 1-7, they can be made to spawn in the first part of the level.
Bottom: activating the effect here shows that the distortion was not intended to be used with slopes, causing Yoshi to phase through some of them and even be able to clip into the ground. This is because instead of merely the image of the ground being distorted, the waves are applied to the ground and its collision itself, causing issues during unintended applications.
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In Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a glitch that may occur in some cutscenes after a camera angle change is character being in its low-polygon form for one frame before its high-polygon model loads in.
While this is extremely difficult to notice during gameplay outside of a momentary “flicker” of the model, going frame by frame through the footage reveals what is actually happening.
The above distortion can be seen in the Donkey Kong Adventure DLC.
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Concept art for an unused boss design for Super Mario RPG, shared by the game’s visual effects artist Jiro Mifune.
According to Mifune’s comments, the artwork depicts “P. Rose, Queen of the Piranha Plants”, who “enjoys gardening and has an elegant spirit that values the harmony of beauty”. When the boss gets angry, “countless huge Piranha Plants appear from its lower body”.
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In Super Mario Odyssey, the “MARIO” letters in the park in the Metro Kingdom are not normally supposed to be able to be taken out of a confined area. However, through various glitches such as pushing a letter out of the park using a combination of other letters and a motor scooter, it is possible to move as them around the entire city.
If Mario stands in front of a moving taxi, it will honk its horn once, expecting him to move out of the way. If a letter is placed in a precise position in front of the taxi instead, the taxi will be caught in a loop of honking at the letter to move without having a cooldown period, resulting in a sound like many cars using their horns at once despite coming from a single taxi.
The sound in the post is produced by one taxi expecting the letter to move.
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Top and middle: unused official renders depicting two different early versions of the Donkey Kong Country 2 ice cavern backgrounds, shared from the personal collection of Rare 3D background artist Adrian Smith.
Bottom: the background as seen in the game, for comparison.
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In Super Mario 64, the “Shell Mario” glitch is performed by entering a Koopa shell and water on the same frame, or jumping towards a slope in water while riding a Koopa shell with specific positioning.
The glitch results in Mario “fusing” with the shell instead of riding it. Unlike riding the shell normally, Mario keeps his regular moveset, but the continuous forward momentum of riding the shell is still added to his movement at all times, causing him to slide around at high speeds.
The footage in the post shows some of the interactions of Shell Mario in Snowman’s Land.
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