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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Top left: the Mario Circuit 3 course, as it appears in Super Mario Kart.
Top right: this was actually the first course ever designed for the game, as revealed by internal development files and associated timestamps. This is the earliest iteration of the track, which is the first image of a course made during development.
Bottom: it is possible, though not confirmed, that this track is based on a real-life racetrack called Circuito de Jerez, near the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Spain. In addition to a similar layout, the early version of Mario Circuit 3 features audience stands on the left side of the straight section, and a long thin structure near the center, which both match up with the real-life racetrack.
Since the development team revealed that they did “real-life research” for Super Mario Kart by taking a trip to an amusement park and actually racing go-karts, it stands to reason that near the beginning of development they would also start designing the tracks by basing them on real-life layouts.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SMKWorkshop
Segments from a 2012 Mario Tennis Open trailer showing Mario being bad at tennis before going through a training regimen and becoming better.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: TheMarioBros.net
In Paper Mario, during the Peach interlude between Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, Peach is able to use the Sneaky Parasol item. By pressing B while facing an enemy, Peach sends out sparkles from her parasol that turn her into a copy of the enemy if they connect.
If she is discovered by a wandering Koopatrol at the same time as turning into one, she will be taken back to her room while still in her Koopatrol form. Since she doesn’t have a special sprite for being carried in that form, she instead appears to simply be standing on top of the two Koopatrols that carry her.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: PM (NA, N64)
In the Free Roam mode of Mario Kart World, a spot exists on the Dry Bones Burnout track where the player can consistently clip out of bounds by Wall Riding against an overhanging bone from below. Doing so makes the player character fall through the course and land on an invisible floor that spans the entirety of the open world underneath the visible geometry.
Interestingly, this type of failsafe with the invisible floor appears to be a direct influence of Monolith Soft, the creators of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, who have worked on Mario Kart World. In their previous open world Nintendo franchise games, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, similar floors are implemented underneath the world to stop the players from falling infinitely if they somehow clip out of bounds.
What makes these floors specific to that company is that they are sometimes angled and actually join up with the visible floors in specific spots to allow players to walk/drive back into bounds instead of simply being a flat rectangle underneath the entirety of the world.
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Segments of Mario dancing, from the official 1992 music video for the Super Mario Land rap by Ambassadors of Funk.
While many assume the song to be either unofficial or merely one of the many bizarre Nintendo of America-licensed projects typical of the early years of the franchise, this is not the case. The musical project to create that song, and later the entire Super Mario Compact Disco album, was greenlit by Shigeru Miyamoto personally.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: rachroyston6697
In Tall Trunk Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2, the central planet with a giant tree can sometimes be seen from further away, such as by looking back from other planetoids, but it would be easy to assume that the crown of the tree looks bigger due to perspective distortion.
Here is a view of the tree using orthographic projection, which displays the true proportions without distorting them (compare this e.g. to a technical blueprint of a structure). This shows clearly how absurdly wide the foliage is compared to the size of the trunk.
With this in mind, it becomes ironic that the location is called Tall Trunk Galaxy when the tree’s trunk is actually extremely short compared to the crown, and would have been more accurately called Wide Crown Galaxy or something similar. The original Japanese name for this location is ビッグツリーギャラクシー, literally the English phrase “Big Tree Galaxy” transliterated into Japanese, which is more accurate since the tree is certainly big, only horizontally instead of vertically.
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In Super Mario Odyssey, the Tail Tree from Super Mario 3D Land can be found in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Its leaves are more subdued in their resemblance to the Super Leaf power-up than they are in Super Mario 3D Land, lacking the eyes and the round holes, and appearing similar to “fresh” Super Leaves as seen in the Toad Houses in Super Mario Bros. 3.
However, as an Easter egg, there is a very difficult to see singular leaf on the tree that actually has a hole in it, seen in the center of the screenshot.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SMO (Switch)
In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, a combination of the Bubble Flower and the Boosting Spin Jump badge allows the player to reach any arbitrary height by blowing a bubble and then bouncing off of it.
While most levels in the game have been designed in a robust manner that accounts for the ability to go anywhere, some places contain oversights such as the one seen in the footage in the Missile Meg Mayhem level.
Using the above trick in the portion of the level with the twisting clouds reveals that one of the clouds ends before going off-screen, appearing jarringly cut-off.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: LooygiBros