Development images of an unused underwater hotel originally planned for Hotel Mario, published in 2025. This was almost certainly the scrapped hotel meant for Iggy, who does not have a hotel in the finished game.

The publication of these disproves the “Iggy’s Cheese Hotel Theory” that stated that Iggy may have originally been planned to have the scrapped Cheese Hotel mentioned in interviews with the game’s development team. It appears that the Cheese Hotel was simply never considered for the final game, and was shot down at an earlier stage in the process.

Please note that everything mentioned under “The facts” in the theory image is still accurate information; merely the speculation has been proven incorrect via the surfacing of additional information.

Source: spooky-jumpropes, TCRF, Trici Venola

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In Donkey Kong Bananza, a glitch may occur with the Kong NPCs on Donkey Kong Island whereby they will not interact properly with the ground, and instead keep shaking in place, intermittently clipping into it and popping back out. Note Cranky Kong’s and Diddy Kong’s unusual vibration in the footage.

Source: QuizzicalWooley

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In Donkey Kong Country 3, Bazaar the Bear talks about Link from the Legend of Zelda series visiting his shop and asking about the local castle. Alongside a reference to Rupees, the currency of that series, Bazaar mentions that Link muttered something about his “shells being the wrong shape”. This is a very specific reference that not even all fans of the Zelda series may understand, and requires having played The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening in particular.

In that game, Link can collect Secret Seashells, which unlock the optional Koholint Sword (that game’s equivalent to the Master Sword). The shells in that game are conch-shaped, while the one Bazaar sells in his shop is clam-shaped, so Link would not be able to use it.

Source: DKC3 (NA, SNES), LADX (NA, GBC)

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Unique illustration of the Super Mario Bros. characters celebrating, used for a 1987 calendar in the Japanese Wanpakku magazine.

Source: its.a.me.scanio, historyofhyrule

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Top: the North American box art for Donkey Kong Country 3.

Second row: zooming in between the boat and the Krumple shows a mostly obscured character in the water that appears to have a black hand.

Third row: this is actually a rare Kuff'n'Klout enemy, which appear only in Krematoa, the hidden lost world.

Bottom: this can be confirmed by looking at the early version of this box art from a point in development when it was still called “Dixie’s Double Trouble”. The Kuff'n'Klout can be seen fully visible on the right.

It is likely that it was removed from its prominent position and placed in the background where it is hardly seen because of how obscure it is, since many players would not even discover the lost world to begin with. Putting the enemy as the second most prominent thing on the cover after the protagonists would have risked players becoming confused after playing the game all the way to the ending and never seeing it during that time.

Source: nefora

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Top: the 2-Up Mushroom is an extremely rare version of the 1-Up Mushroom that grants two extra lives, seen only in the bonus minigames of the original Game Boy Advance version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong, and never again. The Nintendo Switch version of the game replaced it with a chest that contains separate regular 1-Up Mushrooms instead.

Bottom: however, a model of the 2-Up Mushroom can be found unused in the files of the Nintendo Switch version, providing a look at how it would have appeared in 3D. Interestingly, it not merely recolors the green of the 1-Up Mushroom’s cap, but also has a different shade of white for the spots, and a different stem color.

Source: DogToon64

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The engine of Super Mario Galaxy 2 has a very inventive way of handling climbing poles. In the footage, the hitboxes of objects have been turned visible and appear as blue fields.

Instead of having a single long hitbox covering the entirety of the pole, the pole only has a single Mario-sized hitbox that slides up and down the pole in response to Mario’s movement, ready to “catch” him if he comes close. The rest of the pole is always intangible so Mario could technically pass through it, except that the hitbox always catches him before he can touch it.

This allows the developers to reuse the same small hitbox for all poles regardless of their length, instead of making separate long ones for each of them.

Source: SuperHackio

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Top: the intro scene for the Kamella boss battle in Deep Dark Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy features her floating down from a moon-like planetoid in a cinematic manner.

Bottom: however, it is possible to view this scene in an unintended “Fire Moon” state whereby the sky will be red and the moon will appear to be glowing, resembling a sun at sunset.

For this, the cannon at the beginning of the stage must be used to shoot Mario into a specific point in the top left of the cannon range, whereby he will clip into the wall. From there, he can swim all the way to Kamella’s boss arena without activating the skybox change that turns it from the orange sky seen at the beach to the green sky seen in the cave. The orange sky was never meant to be loaded together with the moon, giving it this “Fire Moon” appearance.

Source: FTGalaxy-q5z

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Officially licensed 2006 keychains of a Buzzy Beetle and a Spike Top that took liberties with their design where instead of making their beaks a 3D shape, the beaks were represented by a line drawn on their faces. In addition, the shadow that is normally cast across their eyes is absent as well.

This gave both of them the appearance of smiling, though in a friendly way with the Buzzy Beetle and a mischievous way with the Spike Top.

Source: 1, 2

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Top: the “Where’s Wario” microgame in WarioWare Gold, like many others, changes significantly between the three difficulty levels. On Level 1, the player must find Wario’s face by rotating a ball, but there are no other faces on it. On Level 2, Mushrooms and Fire Flowers with Wario’s face are added to distract the player.

Bottom: however, on Level 3, the Warios and the items are replaced by unique “handsome” variations drawn in an anime style. Here are all the graphics of the heads, extracted from the game’s files.

Source: elbfcambiaformas

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