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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Nintendo appears to have had a completely different attitude towards NES educational title Donkey Kong Jr. Math between Japan and America.
Top: in a 1986 interview, Shigeru Miyamoto claimed that Donkey Kong Jr. Math was a “rip-roaring good time” and “super popular among the staff at Nintendo”, referring to the Nintendo Japan development staff.
Bottom: according to Bruce Lowry, former vice president of sales at Nintendo of America from 1981 to 1986, Donkey Kong Jr. Math was among the worst games the company released.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Source: shmuplations, Time Extension, reinodocogumelo
In Mario Kart 7, Wario Shipyard contains a “Banana Bounce Trench” where all bananas thrown into it will bounce for up to a minute before disappearing.
This is due to the invisible floor of the trench being mistakenly designated as a wall in the code, and bananas being coded to bounce off walls. Normally a banana will only bounce off a wall once or twice before landing on the floor, but if the floor itself is defined as a wall, the banana will bounce indefinitely until it despawns.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: B_squo
Top: in Super Paper Mario, the intended way to defeat the Mr. I enemies is to flip into 3D and then run a circle around them. This is, of course, a reference to how they are defeated in Super Mario 64, and would be the method immediately apparent to players familiar with that game.
Bottom: however, an alternate way to defeat them is to use the Pixl Fleep on them, which spins them around and makes them dizzy in a different manner.
Interestingly, Tippi’s Tattle of the Mr. I, “Try flipping and spinning around and around it…” can actually be taken to hint at the second method as well. Instead of “flipping into 3D” specifically, she simply says “flipping”, which applies to Fleep’s ability as well.
Normally, one would interpret “flipping and spinning around” as one action with two steps. However, if the sentence is taken to suggest two things, “flipping” and “spinning around” separately from each other, then it describes both methods.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: SPM (NA, Wii)
Top: in Super Mario 64, the third mission of Hazy Maze Cave is called “Metal-Head Mario Can Move!”
Bottom: when the character who has the Metal Cap ability was changed from Mario to Wario in Super Mario 64 DS, the mission was renamed to “Metal-Head Wario Can Move” without an exclamation point.
Note that this is the only mission in the game that lost the exclamation point; others like “Shocking Arrow Lifts!” or “Quick Race Through Downtown!” still retain them in Super Mario 64 DS.
This makes it look as though the game considers Wario being able to move in metallic form to be objectively less exciting than if it were Mario instead.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Pisprit
Since the Mario franchise is itself named after the main character and officially is rendered as “Super Mario” in merchandise, it is sometimes possible for some merchandise to appear to be confused between Mario and Luigi by pairing either the name “Luigi” with generic brand imagery of Mario, or the franchise name “Super Mario” with imagery of Luigi.
Left: a tag from a Luigi plush that uses a generic design depicting Mario, and only indicates that the product is Luigi as text, making it look like Mario is wrongly called “Luigi”.
Right: a mug depicting Luigi but not listing his name and instead listing the franchise name, making it look like Luigi is wrongly called “Super Mario”.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: mrl314
In Yoshi’s Island, the core concept of the game’s plot is that the Yoshis are transporting Baby Mario using a relay system. When passing through a goal gate at the end of any non-boss level, the current Yoshi passes Baby Mario to the next Yoshi, who runs in from off-screen just in time to catch Baby Mario as he is thrown.
Interestingly, despite the catching Yoshi not actually being playable in that level (since he would be the playable character of the next level), he is also coded to be a player character internally instead of an NPC as would be expected, which means that he is able to collect items by touching them.
While normally, there are never any items for him to collect, it is possible to spawn stars in such a way that they hop across the screen and touch the catching Yoshi, as shown in the footage. This then actually causes the stars to count for the level’s totals. Note how the footage starts with the counter reading 28 while the Pink Yoshi is running towards the goal, while the results screen reads 30/30 due to the two stars the Light Blue Yoshi collected during the cutscene.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source
Top: the “Face Lift” minigame from Mario Party 2 consists of manipulating the faces of the six player characters in a manner directly inspired by the Super Mario 64 title screen, to match a given face in the middle.
Bottom: the models are only intended to be viewed from the front, and were designed with that in mind. While the models for the heads of the other five characters are relatively normal even from angles they were never supposed to be viewed from, Peach’s head is highly distorted. Note the floating irises, particularly visible in the 45° view.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: lemurboy12
For many Mario games, their internal project names are known through a combination of officially released material by Nintendo, datamining the files, and leaked development material. Most of the names are self-explanatory and those that are not immediately apparent often turn out to be elaborate wordplay instead.
One of the more mysterious project names is “Bastet”, for Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move for the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Bastet is the name for an ancient Egyptian goddess, often depicted as a woman with a cat head.
It is theorized that since one of the roles attested to Bastet was that of a goddess of protection, and the player’s task in this game is to guide the Mini Marios to the goal while protecting them from danger, then the player takes on a role of a deity of protection in this manner.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source