526
There is an unused stage in the files of Super Princess Peach that consists of a room filled with 256 Sad Goombas. As the game cannot handle displaying that many Sad Goombas at once, it immediately lags, and if enough time is spent with the Sad Goombas on screen, will crash.
527
In Super Mario 64 DS, getting crushed while holding a coin box while on low health will both kill the character and restore some health through the coins. This traps the character indefinitely in a state of simultaneously being dead and alive, requiring the game to be reset.
528
Version 3.0.4 of Super Mario Run, released 9 months after the game's launch, added Small Yoshi as Yoshi's form after taking damage, similar to Small Mario. This is to date the only appearance of Small Yoshi, as usually Baby Yoshi is used whenever a small form of Yoshi is needed.
529
In Mario Kart 8/Deluxe, a melody can be heard faintly near the Aqua Cups ride on the Water Park track. This is actually the Merry-Go-Round music from Big Boo's Haunt in Super Mario 64. An isolated version of the music, extracted from the game, is provided after the footage.
530
For many years, the only Dry Bowser plush available was unlicensed (left), in some cases using fake official-looking tags. In March 2020, the first officially licensed Dry Bowser plush will be released (right). Here is a comparison for potential buyers to avoid being deceived.
531
In Super Mario 64, by jumping slightly off the edge of the Bowser battle arenas, Bowser can be tricked into jumping after Mario. If Bowser falls off the platform, he will never return. The camera will zoom out and show Mario alone in the arena until he exits the level or dies.
532
In Super Mario Galaxy 2, the small icons used in various speech bubbles actually form an alphabet internally, which is translated into icons at runtime. Here is the full alphabet with sample message conversions.
533
I have previously posted about the (at the time) two distinct heights Pauline has had in various games. Since that post, a new Pauline model was introduced in Mario Golf: Super Rush that has yet another different height. Here are all models with their heights relative to Mario.
534
One of a set of educational Mario quiz cards, depicting Luigi as illiterate.
535
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Vivian's body can stretch to an immense height, many screens tall. Below is Vivian's maximum height, visible only by using external tools to move the camera further away than normally possible.
536
Regarding my recent Tweet about the word "walnuts" in the DK Rap in Donkey Kong 64: the game's composer, Grant Kirkhope (@grantkirkhope) has stated that the word was chosen for the rhyme with "peanuts" and did not represent any in-game objects.
537
In Super Mario Bros., kicking a shell earns different point amounts for performing increasingly difficult actions. A simple kick is 400 points, one following a stomp is 500, kicking when the Koopa is beginning to emerge is 1000, and doing it on the last possible frame is 8000.
538
Princess Toadstool design from an early Super Mario Bros. manga predating the wide adoption of her current design; based roughly off of her Super Mario Bros. sprite (left).
539
In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, there is a Toad who offers to explain Action Icons to Mario. Declining will cause him to get increasingly irritated. After declining five times, he will tell Mario to read the instruction booklet and never offer to explain anything ever again.
540
An easily missed bit of worldbuilding in Super Mario Odyssey: in the Mushroom Kingdom, a Toad says Peach brought back hats from the moon. If the Toads are viewed through binoculars before finishing the story, they have no hats because Peach is not yet back from the moon.
541
Prior to the release of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, the only 2D depictions of Small Peach and Small Rosalina were pixelated black and white stamps. Now, with stamps being upgraded to color artwork, they have their first official art, shown here extracted from the files.
542
April Fools joke feature from Expert Gamer magazine that purports to showcase how to evolve a Dragonite into Yoshi in Pokémon Red and Blue.
543
The Checkpoint Flag is usually an immovable fixture of levels. However, in Level 1-5 of New Super Mario Bros. U, a frozen Hammer Bro can be used to lift it and carry it around. Unfortunately, moving or destroying the flag does not change the point at which Mario respawns.
544
Humanized versions of the Koopalings from a 1994 Yoshi's Safari manga. From left to right: Morton, Roy, Ludwig, Wendy, Larry, Iggy, Lemmy.
545
In the Japanese/North American version of Super Mario Bros., Mario is safe at the beginning of World 8-2, as the Koopa Paratroopa that spawns on that screen bounces over him if he doesn't move. In the European version, it was deliberately moved one tile over to kill him instead.
546
In Super Mario Odyssey, there is a giant piece of meat that Mario can capture in the Luncheon Kingdom. The game never explains what animal it comes from; however, the Art of Super Mario Odyssey book answers this question: the meat belongs to a T-Rex.
547
Box art for the unauthorized "Super Mario Castlevania" disk for the Famicom Disk System (left). The game consists of Castlevania with Simon's graphics being replaced by sprites of Mario from Super Mario Bros. (right).
548
For the US commercial for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, 48 seconds of live-action footage of child/adolescent Mario and Luigi were prepared, but only 21 were actually used in the finished version. Below is the entirety of the footage, including the 27 seconds of deleted scenes.
549
Shigeru Miyamoto's opinion on Sonic in relation to Mario, from the British edition of Edge Magazine.
550
The Korean version of Super Paper Mario, released 2 years after the Japanese and US versions, contains unique unused rooms that include sprites of 5 cat characters of different art styles and sizes. Here are the graphics extracted in the respective highest available resolutions.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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