1826
The only existing image of an original Kong character intended to be playable in the cancelled Diddy Kong Pilot for the GBA, extracted from the data of a leaked prototype. According to a dkvine.com interview with an anonymous Rare source, his name was "Redneck Kong".
1827
Mario Party contains a special message from Toad when a player collects 99 Stars in one game. There are currently no reports of any player achieving this without cheating or modifying the game.
1828
Wario: Master of Disguise contains a debug menu. It offers a list of 756 entries, each opening a different room in the game. One of the entries, W59_09_01, loads up this room with an unused character. Nothing in the room responds to input and the game must be reset to proceed.
1829
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was released in Japan four days after its North American release. Despite the short time frame, changes were made to the Japanese version, such as Bowser's side view being changed to make Bowser slightly thinner and give him fuller hair and a smile.
1830
Princess Peach resting under a cubist painting of Mario after being poisoned, from the Japanese "Super Mario Wisdom Games Picture Book 2: Mario and Wendy".
1831
Update to the most recent Tweet: the photo was taken in Maryland, US in either 2001 or 2002. The information in my original post was taken from a Japanese blog. Thank you to @tristencitrine, the person cosplaying as Toad in the image, for the correction! twitter.com/MarioBrothBlog…
1832
In Super Mario World, if Mario has 99 lives and exits a level on the same frame he is touching a 1-Up Mushroom, his life counter on the overworld will indicate that he has "B0" lives. Upon entering another level, the lives display as 99 again.
1833
Illustration from the cover of a 1987 "Super Mario Bros. Detective Adventure" manga, featuring Red Luigi.
1834
As a decoration on the Creepy Cavern board in Mario Party 3, three Whomps are seen playing their own game of Mario Party (left). The board they are using is actually Rules Land, the tutorial board from Mario Party 2 (middle), mirrored vertically (comparison on right).
1835
In the data of Paper Mario, an unused sprite of Peach kissing someone, presumably Mario, can be found (left). As the sprite is only present in a palette used for dark areas, a mock-up of the sprite with the regular palette (and Mario for demonstration) is provided (right).
1836
Paper Mario contains mipmaps of some textures, or low-resolution versions meant to speed up rendering of faraway objects. However, these are never used; the high-resolution versions are displayed at all times, likely due to the simplistic graphics making optimization unnecessary.
1837
In Super Paper Mario, Francis's private rooms in Chapter 3-4 contain posters for what appear to be various anime series set in the Mario universe. Notably, these posters feature designs for original characters seen nowhere else in the game.
1838
If you wait long enough on the title screen for the SNES version of Yoshi's Cookie, Yoshi will transform into a cookie in an extremely quick animation lasting only 5 frames. Here are all frames of that animation.
1839
Signs at "Pirates of the Marioland", an arcade in Ko Samui, Thailand. The arcade is operating without licensing from either Nintendo or Disney.
1840
BS Super Mario Collection is an enhanced port of Super Mario All-Stars for the Japan-exclusive Satellaview peripheral. In the Super Mario Bros. 3 section, the Toad Houses were redesigned from a playable screen into a dialogue window, using these unique Toad dialogue portraits.
1841
Concept art of Mario in a wrestling outfit for the unreleased Super Mario Spikers, a volleyball/wrestling hybrid game planned for the Wii.
1842
In the Bonus Mode of Mario Party 5, Boo is playable in the Ice Hockey minigame. All characters playable in that minigame wear ice skates; however, due to Boo having no shoes to attach the skates to, they are just two blades floating under him.
1843
Frames of a Big Tail Goomba attacking in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. Note that while sprites are regularly distorted for "smear frames" in this manner, the multiple eyes are an uncommon stylistic choice for the series.
1844
Pre-release version of the Stage Clear screen from Yoshi's Woolly World.
1845
Two of the microgames in WarioWare: Twisted involve serving drinks to a person in a dark room. The Japanese version (left column) takes place in a city at night and serves colorful cocktails; this was changed to milk and cola during daytime in the American version (right column).
1846
Please check out the full paper here: journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
1847
In Mario Kart: Double Dash, King Boo changes sizes whenever he switches between the driver and passenger seats. Top: screenshots taken from the same camera position of King Boo in both places; note Toad's consistent size. Bottom: direct size comparison.
1848
A peculiar stylistic choice that recurs throughout Mario media is hairy hearts. Wario's heart in Wario World, Tubba Blubba's heart in Paper Mario and Sluggy the Unshaven's heart in Yoshi's Island all have hair.
1849
By unloading the spring model from Spring Mario in Super Mario Galaxy, we can see how his body deforms under the spring. Note that his hands are removed from his model while wearing the spring, as they take up too much space and would interfere with the animations.
1850
An extremely minor detail is present in Level 4-5 of Donkey Kong Country Returns that is nearly impossible to see during gameplay: an unreachable minecart on top of a ledge has a sad expression. The additional eyebrows are only used once in the game, on this particular minecart.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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