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In Yoshi's Island, almost all levels have an elaborate color gradient set as the furthest background layer - including those where it is never visible due to other layers covering it. Here are examples of the levels as they normally appear and the hidden gradients in them.
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The fourth boss of Super Mario Land, Biokinton, has a very simple design, appearing as a cloud with dot eyes (left). However, the Super Mario Land manga depicts Biokinton as being much more menacing (right).
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In Mario Kart 7, the Lakitu driver's right hand is always open, while his left hand is always a fist. This can be seen in-game during his hurt animation (top). The reason for this is that he reuses the NPC Lakitu model, whose left hand is closed to hold the fishing rod (bottom).
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Today, the first ever photograph of a black hole was released to the astrophysical community (right). While the depiction of a black hole made in Super Mario Galaxy (left) 12 years ago does not entirely match up with the real black hole, the similarity is nevertheless remarkable.
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In the Mario Party 4 minigame "Mr. Blizzard's Brigade", the characters are reflected in the arena's icy floor. Looking closely reveals that Luigi's reflection does not match up with his aboveground model, having slightly bigger irises and being wall-eyed. This affects only Luigi.
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In Super Mario Bros. 3, the Toad seen in the Spade Panel minigame has a single orange pixel next to his arm, seemingly violating the rule that 8-bit sprites can only consist of 3 colors. Below is a technical explanation of why the pixel is orange.
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The data for Pikmin on the GameCube includes an unused model of a Goomba head, called "kuribo.mod" (the Japanese name for "Goomba") internally. While the model appears normal from the front (left), turning it around reveals that it has a second face on its back (right).
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In Super Mario Odyssey, the Moe-Eyes in the Sand Kingdom always turn to look directly at Mario, no matter how far away he is from them. They are the only NPCs to exhibit this behavior.
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In the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 3, if Mario is hit while wearing the Goomba's Shoe (or Kuribo's Shoe), it will turn red while flying off him instead of remaining green. This may have inspired the red coloring of the stiletto in the SMB3 theme of Super Mario Maker.
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In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Koops normally has four fingers on each hand (left). However, during his Appeal animation, he briefly gains a fifth finger on his right hand (right). Note that his other hand still has only four fingers.
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In the majority of 3D Mario games, Mario and Luigi's hat and hair are mutually exclusive, interchangeable parts of their models, never used together in the same scene. However, in Luigi's Mansion, there is a hair layer present underneath Luigi's hat in his main model.
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In Mario Kart: Super Circuit, whenever Yoshi wins a race and waves towards the camera, a single dark pixel can be seen above Yoshi for exactly 5 frames (top). This pixel is in fact part of Yoshi's animation, which can be seen in sprite data extracted from the files (bottom).
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In the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros., Mario displays a victory sign when finishing a level (left). However, inside the game's data are 10 unused alternate versions of this pose, all using an inverted clothing palette with a blue cap (right).
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In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, paintings of Mario characters can be seen through a window in Zelda's courtyard. Due to the camera positioning at the end of the credits, the game's iconic final shot technically depicts four characters: Link, Zelda, Bowser and Luigi.
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In Donkey Kong 64, if a boss room is entered with the wrong Kong, the pre-boss cutscene will apply the intended Kong's animation data to the wrong Kong's model, often leading to distortions. The Pufftoss cutscene causes the chins of all non-Lanky Kong characters to be enlarged.
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Whenever Blooper Babies appear in official artwork, they are depicted with eyes identical to adult Bloopers. In-game, they are very small, making it difficult to tell, but zooming in on them or extracting their models shows that they have blank white eyes with no pupils instead.
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The Piranha Plant fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has legs that appear briefly during certain animations (left). The legs are never completely extended out of the pot. On the right is the model extracted from the game's files, showing the full length of the legs.
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In the Library on the Comet Observatory in Super Mario Galaxy, there are framed pictures above the fireplace that are too far from the camera to view clearly (top). Zooming in reveals that one of them is a stylized painting of Rosalina with a Luma (texture in the bottom right).
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In the SNES version of Mario is Missing, one frame of the animation of Luigi crossing the road while riding Yoshi is heavily distorted, likely due to being created using a scaling algorithm and not drawn by hand as the other sprites.
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In Super Mario 64, the Piranha Plants found in Whomp's Fortress are normally seen sleeping with their mouths fully closed (left). However, there is an unused animation in the game's data that shows them sleeping with teeth visible (right), making them appear to have an overbite.
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In both of his major appearances as an antagonist, Mario is seen flying a helicopter. In addition, he is never seen flying a helicopter in games where he is the protagonist, instead using other types of aircraft. Whether this is deliberate or a coincidence is unknown.
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In Super Mario Odyssey, Mario is able to fall asleep off edges of platforms, appearing to float. However, in Super Mario 64, code exists that checks whether there is ground behind Mario first. Thus, in a game 21 years older, sleeping is implemented in a more sophisticated manner.
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In Mario Party 4, the eyebrows of playable characters disappear during some animations. While characters' eyebrows are modeled separately from their bodies in all GameCube Mario Party games, only Mario Party 4 contains instances of them visibly disappearing during gameplay.
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Unlicensed New Super Mario Bros.-themed seat belt covers, featuring artwork of Luigi from Luigi's Mansion and the same artwork with Luigi wearing Mario's clothes, presumably intended to be Mario.
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The control explanations in the manuals for all games where Mario is the player character are phrased either as e.g. "Move right" or "Mario moves right". The only exception is Donkey Kong for the NES, where the controls refer to Mario as "He" instead.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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