A Super Mario variety blog.
Screenshots, photos, sprites, gifs, scans and more from all around the world of Super Mario Bros.
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Top: The title screen animation from Mario Party 5. Note that the middle of the round character-filled background behind Mario is visible for a few frames before the “Mario Party 5″ logo appears over it.
Middle: A screenshot of one of the frames before the logo appears. A penguin can be seen just under Yoshi on the right side of the background. This penguin becomes completely covered up by the logo and is only visible during the few frames before the logo appears.
Bottom: Zoomed-in and rotated images of the hidden penguin.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Source: myself (Mario Party 5 in GC emulator)
When starting up Mario Party Advance for the first time, the player is asked to fill out a passport with personal information. After the passport is complete, the Star asks an additional question that does not appear in the passport, but which is still saved to the game files. In the North American version (top), the question is “What is your silliest secret?” However, the European version (bottom) takes a sudden serious turn and instead asks players to input their single biggest secret. Why this change was made is unknown.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Source: myself (Mario Party Advance (US, EU) in GBA emulator)
In the data of Super Mario Galaxy, an unused planet called “StarManFort” can be found. Its design matches up with concept art of a fortress planet featured in the Super Mario Galaxy Prima Official Guide. Here is a comparison of the two pieces of concept art of the fortress on the left and the unused model extracted from the game, rotated into the same perspective, on the right.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Sources: concept art, model
Mario Family is a Japan-only program released in 2001 for the Game Boy Color that connects to the Jaguar JN-100 sewing machine and sends it instructions to sew Mario-themed patterns. The software contains 32 patterns, most of them consisting of several colors and requiring multiple steps, where the thread must be replaced with the proper color. Wario is unique among the patterns for requiring 11 steps - the most out of all - and needing an extra step specifically to sew a tiny area on the inside of his ear in a unique color.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Source: myself (Mario Family (Japan) in GBC emulator)
Character select screen from Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium, a title for the Japan-exclusive Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom. Wario bullying Toad may be a reference to the at the time recently released Wario’s Woods, another game featuring Wario antagonizing Toad.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Source: see bottom of image
North American print ad for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. This ad is notable for its inventive avoidance of a spoiler. (Spoilers follow if you have not played the game.) The map behind Mario is the finished version of the Magical Map, which can only be seen in-game 7/8ths the way through the story. Before this, the map is missing key locations, with the final location being a surprise reveal of a building on the moon. The ad positions the map in such a way that the top left corner is out of frame, thus not revealing the secret.
Unfortunately, the game’s cover then spoils it anyway, as explained in this post.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Source: see bottom of image
The textures used for the characters’ 8-bit transformations when under the influence of the Bitsize Candy in Mario Party 8. The decision to represent 8-bit sprites in 3D space and use textures in this manner typical of conventional 3D models, rather than simply apply a 2D image of the actual sprite to the front and back of the model, is highly unusual.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Store | Source: see bottom of image
