1
In Super Mario RPG, Valentina's Japanese name is "マルガリータ" (Margarita), referring to a cocktail often served with a lime slice. However, in her original artwork, she was holding a drink with a cherry in it. In the remake, her model was updated to correctly hold a margarita.
2
Unused graphic found in the files of Mario Superstar Baseball, possibly used as a placeholder for the title screen during development. The image features crude sketches of Mario and Luigi and the text "ルイージの兄野球", which translates to "Luigi's Brother Baseball".
3
Mario games have never given Peach and Daisy their own Wario-like counterparts. However, a 1994 Super Mario Land 2 manga features Wario brainwashing Daisy into becoming "ワルデイジー" (Warudaisy/Waludaisy), who has similar demeanor to Wario.
4
Unused Mario model found in the files of Mario Superstar Baseball. The model assigns a skin texture to Mario's mustache, hair, eyebrows and shoes.
5
In early versions of Mario Party Superstars, a rare glitch could occur in the Ice-Rink Risk minigame where it would simply never end. After all players are eliminated, the camera would fly upward and show a grey void while wind sound plays, forever.
6
In Super Mario 64, punching Big Goombas seemingly does nothing. However, internally, it actually activates their "mark_goomba_as_dead()" function, so they exist in a state where the game considers them already dead. Leaving and coming back will cause them to not respawn.
7
In a 2008 interview, Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the concept for the Megaleg boss battle in Super Mario Galaxy was originally envisioned for the final boss battle against Ganon in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
8
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon contains an unused cutscene that consists of E. Gadd going through every single animation he has, for several minutes, while saying only "missing loc string", over and over.
9
Message found in the files of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions. It is unknown whether this was intended solely for debugging or testing or whether some manner of error exists that would cause this to appear during regular gameplay.
10
Live-action segment of Mario taking a smoke break, from a promotional VHS tape for the Japanese Famitsu magazine.
11
In Paper Mario: Color Splash, there is an extremely obscure interaction that happens if Mario has no usable cards when Roy covers him with yellow paint, whereby Mario will hit Roy with a stick while dancing.
12
Super Mario Galaxy contains an unused early model for a Luma, appearing similar to a red Power Star. Below is the model inserted into various official artwork to show what the series would have looked like if it had kept that design.
13
The Mario Clock DSiWare application has an obscure functionality that activates when the console's battery is nearly dead and the battery indicator starts flashing. To show the urgency of the situation to the user, the entire game world turns red.
14
Instead of displaying the frame rate as a number in debug mode, Super Mario Strikers uses an "FPS Smiler" that dynamically adjusts its facial expression from green and smiling (high FPS) to red and frowning (low FPS). Below is footage of how it looks when the game undergoes lag.
15
Due to being a repackaging of a SNES game on a Wii disc, the 2010 Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition has a staggering amount of unused disc space. The game uses only ca. 12 megabytes of a 4.7 gigabyte disc, leaving 99.7% of it unused.
16
Unused low-quality Goomba model found in the files of Super Mario 64 DS. Due to the extremely low (4x8 pixel) resolution of the facial texture, the Goomba's eyes are fused together, giving it a cyclopean appearance.
17
In Super Mario Sunshine, if Mario dismounts Yoshi while he is spitting juice, Yoshi will follow Mario's head movements while in first person view. By hacking the camera to see Yoshi from the side during this, it is revealed that his model is scrunched considerably.
18
In Paper Mario, if glitches are used to bring Bow, Watt, Sushie or Lakilester to meet Luigi in the first chapters of the game, then upon meeting Luigi, they will repeat his line "I wonder what my brother Mario is doing right now..." back to him, appearing to mock him.
19
In Luigi's Mansion, Professor E. Gadd's head is, for an unknown reason, defined as an icy surface. Normally, Luigi cannot move around in maps where E. Gadd is present; but if cheats are used to make him stand on E. Gadd's head, he will shiver from the cold.
20
To this day, any meaning or etymology of the name "Lakitu" is completely unknown. It seems to have been made up without explanation for the US manual for Super Mario Bros. Below is a chart of the history of Lakitu's name across different languages.
21
Unique artwork of Mario in three different beach outfits, found only on an extremely rare officially licensed 1991 Super Mario Bros. towel.
22
In Super Paper Mario, Nastasia has opaque glasses that hide her eyes. Removing the glasses reveals that she does not normally have eyes, except for a few brief cutscenes. By putting the cutscene eye texture back onto her model, we can restore her eyes and see her original design.
23
New findings have revealed that an unused object from Super Mario 64, which has for decades been presumed to be a Yoshi egg, was actually Hoot the Owl's egg instead. It is possible that it was removed to not confuse or disappoint players who expected the egg to contain Yoshi.
24
Despite Mario having a reputation as a family-friendly brand, there was an officially licensed Mario product bearing the warning that it was not intended for children: the 2007 Mario Power Up Energy Drink, which contained 50% more caffeine than common energy drink brands.
25
In Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, unfinished out-of-bounds areas of the game have large floating "WIP" signs for the benefit of the developers. Using a glitch that allows him to walk on air, Bowser can reach these areas and see the signs.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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