In Mario Kart World, it is possible for certain vehicles to become stuck on the poles around the Airship Fortress track for a long enough amount of time that it gives off the impression of being trapped, before Lakitu finally does arrive and rescue the racer.
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In Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, some out of bounds objects have inverted collision, whereby instead of being solid on the outside and not solid from the inside (as the vast majority of 3d objects in video games), these are solid only from the inside.
This results in the objects becoming traps, since they can easily be entered due to not being solid from the outside, but can no longer be exited. Note how after clipping out of bounds in the footage, the Bros. are easily able to walk into the stalagmite, but can no longer get back out.
Whenever this happens, the game must be reset to continue playing. It is unknown why these objects were programmed this way, and whether this was an intentional decision.
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Illustration of Mario and Pauline* from a 1986 issue of the Japanese Family Computer Magazine.
The magazine featured type-in programs for the Family BASIC add-on for the Famicom, which allowed the customer to program small games on the console in the BASIC programming language. The game shown here is a “compatibility fortune telling” program.
*known in Japan as “Lady” at the time.
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In Super Mario Odyssey, it is possible for Mario to get unloaded entirely, requiring the game to be reset.
If Mario Captures an Uproot on the frame that it dies from touching lava, Mario will assume the Uproot’s model and the model will be unloaded on the same frame, resulting in Mario essentially erasing himself from existence. The only thing remaining is Cappy floating in mid-air, as seen in the footage.
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In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, it is possible for the player character to become trapped by entering a tight space and then using a stored Elephant Fruit power-up.
Since the Elephant form is larger than the character’s default form, the character cannot exit the space the same way it was entered, and the level must be reset in order to continue playing.
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Pages from an officially licensed 1986 Super Mario Bros. coloring book from Japan.
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In the finished version of Luigi’s Mansion, lighting up a room in the mansion causes the music to no longer play, and instead Luigi to provide an ambience by whistling to himself.
However, in the pre-release versions of the game, there was dedicated music for lit rooms, which was likely removed due to potentially still creating a spooky atmosphere in what is supposed to be a safe location. This is a recreation of the music based on pre-release footage.
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