851
In July 2018, Nintendo of Japan announced a line of licensed travel merchandise using this print pattern, containing original drawings. Some text uses Japanese names, such as "Magnum Killer Airlines" (topmost row, left of middle), that being the Japanese name for Banzai Bill.
852
Decoration on a 1981 "Crazy Kong" arcade cabinet. Despite being widely believed to be an unlicensed knock-off of the Donkey Kong arcade, "Crazy Kong" is officially licensed by Nintendo of Japan. More details in the image.
853
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.
854
In Super Mario Odyssey, the shoes of the King's Outfit are shiny and reflect most major areas (left). However, when Mario enters a side area that does not natively contain reflective surfaces, the shoes fail to find a reflection map and become dull as a failsafe instead (right).
855
1080° Avalanche for the GameCube contains an unlockable snowboard called "8-bit Soul", depicting a sprite of Mario. Ironically, the sprite is not actually 8-bit; instead, it is from the 16-bit remake of Super Mario Bros. 3 in Super Mario All-Stars.
856
In Mario Kart Wii, the poles around the finish line in the N64 Sherbet Land track have a gradient coloring. In an inventive case of asset reuse, the poles do not have their own texture; instead, the letter "I" from the banner is mapped onto them, producing the gradient.
857
Photo of a 1995 promotional campaign by Nintendo UK for Donkey Kong Country. Certain bus stops in London were fitted with speakers that played ambient jungle noises, and an actor in a Donkey Kong mascot costume would randomly appear and interact with people waiting for the bus.
858
This officially licensed 1996 Super Mario 64 telephone is notable for including very subtle Kirby elements despite not having any Kirby branding. The base of the phone includes Kirby among a cast of Mario characters and the back of the box shows three small Maxim Tomatoes.
859
The visual design of the scene in Paper Mario where Mario falls from the sky may be a reference to the intro of Yoshi's Island, where Baby Mario falls from the sky. Among other similarities, both scenes feature unique colorful vegetation not seen anywhere else in those games.
860
In Super Mario Galaxy, whenever Mario is caught in a tornado, his arms begin to twirl extremely quickly. Pausing the game during this reveals that Mario's model gains two extra arms in this animation to create the illusion of them twirling even faster.
861
In the data of Super Mario Maker, early unused sprites of the Stretch enemy can be found in three of the four game styles. The sprites suggest they were intended to have two states, like regular Boos. This was later added to the nighttime Ground theme in Super Mario Maker 2.
862
At the end of Level 1-4 of Donkey Kong Country Returns, there is a shipwreck in the background (top). Just below the surface of the water behind it, there are giant letters spelling out "DONKEY KONG" (bottom), likely intended to rise from the water in an unused Easter egg event.
863
In 2016, Nintendo published a gift coupon book in PDF format on their website (top). Decompiling the PDF shows that instead of raster images, it contains the original vector versions of Mario character artwork, which can be further separated into its constituent layers (bottom).
864
Panel from an official 2006 Super Princess Peach manga. In order to win Toad Shot, a minigame where the player must originally defeat enemies by touching them with the stylus, Peach produces a machine gun to shoot them faster. She is saying "まかせて!", or "Leave it to me!"
865
"POWERFUL WARIO GAME 2004" sticker distributed with a limited edition release of Wario World in Japan. I had previously posted a low-quality image of it in 2017; this high-resolution scan has recently become available.
866
Illustration of Donkey Kong performing a breakdance from the Chilean official Club Nintendo magazine, used for a Donkey Kong Country soundtrack CD giveaway promotion.
867
The data for Super Mario World contains 6 sprites for the Big Boo enemy. The first four are seen in regular gameplay, the fifth (bottom middle) is used for an Easter egg when Mario looks at the Big Boo for 25 in-game seconds, and the last one (bottom right) is completely unused.
868
Extremely rare partial screenshot of an early build of Super Mario RPG, showing Croco's original design and the default standing pose of Mario's early sprite, seen mostly in action poses in other pre-release material. Sprites from the final version are provided for comparison.
869
A 1994 Super Mario Land 2 manga adds context to the hippo statue found in that game's overworld (left). The reason the hippo statue is the access point to the Space Zone is because it was created to honor a hippo astronaut (right).
870
The Fishin' Boo is an enemy that appeared in Super Mario World and has always been considered a ghost (Super Mario Encyclopedia entry, left). However, defeating a Fishin' Boo in Super Mario Run using a Super Star shows it is merely a Toad-like character wearing a sheet (right).
871
The area lighting specifications in the data of Super Mario Galaxy were never updated if an area was deleted, leading to the lighting file containing names of 34 deleted zones and galaxies. Some, like "ChristmasBattleZone", do not resemble anything found in the finished game.
872
In a section of Flipsville Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2, Chomps can be seen rolling by through a window (left). Moving the camera inside the building (right) reveals that unlike the regular Chomp model, these particular Chomps have no visible teeth separation.
873
In the intro to WarioWare Gold, Penny is seen picking up a giant pink phone receiver (top). The phone is never seen in-game again, making it a one-off joke. However, a post-release animation on Nintendo of Japan's YouTube channel finally shows the phone in full (bottom).
874
During the battle against Exor in Super Mario RPG, his mouth is called "Neosquid" (left). This name was added in the localization, as the original Japanese version calls it "くち", which translates to "mouth" (right). To this day, no explanation for this name was ever found.
875
One of the defeat animations in Mario Party 8 causes the characters to shrink until they vanish. Viewing the animation in the game's debug mode shows that it shrinks the characters' models unevenly, with the effect being most pronounced for Wario (note his extremely small legs).
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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