In Super Mario Galaxy, the battles against Bowser take place on spherical planetoids where Bowser must be tricked into Ground Pounding the blue spots on the floor, causing him to break the glass and get burned by the lava underneath.

However, if he is lured to Ground Pound on the metallic green platforms, he will destroy them and reveal a coin instead. If he does this from a very specific angle, he will escape the gravity of the planetoid and never come back down. Note Bowser slowly moving away in the footage.

There is no way to continue the battle in this state and the mission must be reset.

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On the Nintendo Today app, one of the selectable themes is the Donkey Kong theme. The theme has an Easter egg whereby on the 30th of each month, the animation actually differs based on whether that is the last day of that month, or whether that month also has a 31st day.

Both animations start off identically, with King K. Rool playing dead on the ground, with the text “The Month is Over?” However…

Left: on a month that does not end on the 30th, King K. Rool wakes up suddenly as the text disappears, signifying that there is still one more day left.

Right: if the month does end on the 30th, the text fades into “The Month is Over” without a question mark as King K. Rool remains dead.

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The files of Mario Super Sluggers contain an unused early model of Daisy that has mysterious finger bones inside her hands. All other characters, both used and unused, are completely boneless.

It must be noted that model control points used to rig animations are usually called “bones” in the industry, but those are not themselves modeled, and their visual representation (often as cones or other simple shapes) exists only within the 3D modeling program for the benefit of the designer.

These bones, however, are actually modeled, which is highly unusual for the kind of bones discussed in the above paragraph, and is mostly the case for when literal bones actually need to be seen in-game, such as for cartoony animations of a character’s skeleton being visible.

It is speculated that there may have been an oversight during the model export that has assigned a model to the bones. Either way, it is notable if it is an error (especially since it makes them look like actual real-life bones seemingly coincidentally), and highly bizarre if it is on purpose (as nothing explains what kind of purpose having bones only in the hands, and only for Daisy, would have).

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In Yoshi’s Island, a glitch exists that allows for the game to be finished immediately upon reaching the end of level 2-2. Near the end of that level, a Little Mouser enemy is carrying an egg. If Yoshi is able to touch the egg without defeating the Little Mouser, he will obtain a glitched object called a “null egg”.

The null egg can be or do more or less anything, given how its entire existence is pulling from unintended data which can be manipulated indirectly by the player’s prior actions in the game. By carefully manipulating the console’s RAM to have the correct value at the unintentionally read address (done through precise movement throughout the game), the null egg can allow the end goal of level 2-2 to be eaten and then spat out.

When spat out, it also becomes glitched and will now take Yoshi directly to the credits, ending the game.

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Top: page from a 2000 style guide issued by Nintendo of America to merchandise licensees. Note the caption below Lakitu reading “Jugem”.

Bottom: this is, surprisingly, a holdover from the 1990 North American NES manual for Super Mario Bros. 3, which failed to correctly translate the Japanese name for Lakitu, ジュゲム (“Jugem”), and left it as is. Despite Lakitu being known as “Lakitu” both for years before this and in the decade between it and the style guide, the guide somehow managed to pick the incorrect name for the character.

Also note that “Little Toadie” as a name for Toad was also long deprecated at that point, being used mostly around 1993 in licensed material.

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In Donkey Kong Country 2, there are always No Animal Signs preventing Animal Buddies from being taken to the end of a level. However, if glitches are used to skip them, the Animal Buddy will become corrupted upon jumping onto the goal.

In the footage, Rambi is taken to the goal of the Barrel Bayou level, whereupon he turns into a copy of Diddy Kong, makes both the original Diddy and himself freeze, and starts very slowly sliding to the left. He will continue sliding to the left indefinitely, even over pits.

If he touches a barrel on the way, the glitch will end and control will be returned to the player, but the level goal will be “spent” and no longer able to be activated, forcing the level to be restarted.

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Top: the preview image for Cloudy Court Galaxy in the original Wii version of Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Middle: a re-rendered version of it used in the Nintendo Switch version. Note the different Paragoomba.

Bottom: the Paragoomba is actually not a part of the scene at all. It is instead an official art render of a Paragoomba from New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS.

It is likely that during the capturing of the new render, the developers were unable to get the Paragoomba in the exact same spot as it was before, so they opted to simply superimpose a picture of it in the hopes that this would not be noticeable.

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Extremely detailed high-quality 3D scan of an officially licensed 1996 Whomp pewter metal figurine from Japan.

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In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, there is only one Double Pain badge that is normally obtainable, the effect of which is to double the damage Mario receives. Despite there being only one in the game, the code contains functionality for multiple being worn, multiplying the damage by (1+amount of Double Pain badges worn), so x3 for 2 badges, x4 for 3 badges etc.

Interestingly, this is even directly stated in-game in the Nintendo Switch version, which states “Wearing two or more of these badges further increases the damage taken.” in the menu despite only one being obtainable.

The footage shows 98 of these badges being worn by modifying the game, turning a Goomba’s 1-damage attack (and by extension every other damaging attack in the game) into a devastating attack dealing the maximum possible 99 damage (any attack that would deal 100 or more damage deals 99 damage instead).

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In Mario Kart World, half of the long part of the Crown Bridge’s model is mirrored from the other half (divided lengthwise into north and south), which would be completely unnoticeable if not for metal plates on the ground that also become mirrored due to this.

Top: on the south side of the bridge looking towards Koopa Troopa Beach, the text on the plates reads “Crown Bridge” normally.

Bottom: however, on the north side looking towards Peach’s Castle, the text is mirrored. It is curious that this has not been yet fixed in any of the game’s updates.

Note that in Mirror Mode, naturally, the south side’s text is mirrored while the north side’s text is correctly displayed.

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