You don’t need another reminder that the Super Mario franchise is gaming’s most historic and iconic in the history of the industry. Gaming’s greatest plumber has been Nintendo’s main mascot since the 1980s with some of the best platforming games ever made in both 2D and 3D. Additionally, there are just about no limits to what Mario and friends can do with so many spinoffs such as kart racing, sports, and party games. It is nearly impossible to think about video games and not have Mario come to mind as the Super Mario series is virtually everywhere.
Super Mario has played such a strong role in the development of video games throughout different eras. From 8-bit, 16-bit to 3D gaming and beyond, many Super Mario games have been the subject of hacks, data mining, and behind the scenes development stories. As such, there are many things that are discovered through data mining or hacks. With so many games in the Super Mario franchise, there is plenty of unused or deleted content that never saw the light of day, many of these could actually have been game changers. Could there have been secret characters that could have been planned to be in the game but was cut? What about extra levels for some of the older games? Some of the things that could have been in these games are quite surprising to hear about. Let’s jump down those warp pipes and learn about what could have been in the many Super Mario games over the years.
25 Bowsette Could Actually Be Official!
Recently, the internet let their creative juices flow and suddenly came the creation of Bowsette (Bowser with the Super Crown) through a comic created by Twitter user @ayyk92. Bowsette took off immediately and has been one of the most explosive memes of 2017.
Nintendo was asked to comment on the creation of Bowsette, but they said nothing.
Interestingly enough, recently there has been an art book that was released in Japan featuring many concept art pieces for Super Mario Odyssey. What is really odd is that there appears to be a rough sketch of a Bowser/Peach mashup. Perhaps the idea of Bowsette isn’t too far off from being a real thing!
24 Rosalina A Rock Star?
Forget Bowsette, the really cool thing that was shown in the recently released Super Mario Odyssey art book was concept art depicting Rosalina as an indie guitarist. Rosalina, a mystical princess from the Super Mario Galaxy games has an extra sense of royalty in her personality. Here in this concept art, she is in a very casual appearance as she is playing the guitar.
Much like Bowsette, guitarist Rosalina is catching a lot of attention.
This is such a cool look for one of the better princesses in the Super Mario universe. This could be a really awesome side of the character we may see in future games.
23 Mario Party Mini-Games That Are Too Weird To Be Included
The original Mario Party has had its share of unused content as well. Here there were five mini-games that were removed from the final version. Most of these mini-games were simply unfinished. One of the mini-games is All or Nothing, a mini-game that relied completely on luck, and is a bit similar to what became Chance Time. The others included Tour de Mario, Bungee Jump, and Same Game. The last one, in particular, has a very bizarre title called Yoshi’s Tongue Meeting, which featured Yoshi’s holding wigglers in their mouths and the objective is to press A at the right moment to unite the baby wigglers with their mothers on the other side.
22 Yoshi Could Have Been More Useful In Super Mario 64
In the original Super Mario 64, Yoshi didn’t appear until Mario collected all 120 stars. Meeting Yoshi at the top of Peach’s castle would grant him 99 lives and that’s all you get from Yoshi. It turns out that there is a graphics coding of Yoshi’s egg in the game’s files. It could suggest that Yoshi would have been a usable partner in some levels. Of course, Yoshi would eventually become playable in the Super Mario 64 DS remake.
21 What Could Those Mario Kart 8 Cup Icons Mean?
There were plenty of rumors recently that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch could receive some rather late DLC support. The game already comes with all of the Wii U version’s DLC, but with all of the recent updates featuring Nintendo Labo and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, there could be a possibility that perhaps there is further DLC planned for the Switch version, especially if the next Mario Kart has yet to be announced.
One piece of evidence that could support more DLC is the unused cup icons that were discovered in the Wii U version.
There are 3 additional icons that have yet to be used: Shine Sprite, Boo, and Blue Shell.
20 Super Mario Bros. Could Have Used An Unusual Item
Oddly enough, there isn’t a whole lot of noticeable unused content from the original Super Mario Bros. There are just a few music tracks here and there and even some different enemy A.I. However, there was a peculiar item that could have changed a bit of how certain levels could have been designed. In the game’s code, there is a brown flagpole-like item. The purpose of the flagpole is to act as a climbable object, similar to vines. Not much else is known about the item, but it can be used in a level editor.
19 A Few Baddies Didn’t Make The Cut In Super Mario 64
Among the plethora of unused content for Super Mario 64, there are a couple of baddies that couldn’t make their way into the final game. The first is a Blargg that would have shown up in Lethal Lava Land. Blarggs are typically lava monsters that will materialize from lava and chase after playable characters, best known for their appearance in Yoshi’s Island. The other enemy was a small Chill Bully in Snowman’s land. As their name implies, they are basically little bully guys but encased in ice to try and ram Mario off the platform. The Chill Bully would eventually appear in the DS remake.
18 I Wonder What Those Yellow Spaces Could Mean…
Another interesting hidden piece of data within the original Mario Party is that there originally were going to be yellow spaces. Mario Party traditionally has three color types, blue spaces, red spaces, and green spaces. Theses colors determined what type of mini-game that would be played, depending on the space you’re on, that’s the team you’ll be on with green being random.
Yellow spaces would have resulted in something rather drastic in Mario Party, skipping mini-games.
There is an unused graphic that says “No Game.” This would make party matches much quicker, but it would have also defeated the main feature of Mario Party.
17 Customizable Levels In Mario VS Donkey Kong
Mario VS Donkey Kong was a Game Boy Advance platforming game reminiscent of the classic Donkey Kong game on Game Boy. This series of games was based on the classic rivalry between Mario and Donkey Kong in the arcade days. Many of the levels featured navigating through enemies, dodging traps grabbing keys to open doors to the next level.
It turns out that there originally was supposed to be a level editor included into the game, which would have given the game strong replay value.
Since this game was on Game Boy Advance, it wouldn’t have had the luxury of online sharing, which explains why this feature was held off until the next game on the DS.
16 Bring On Gombario’s Entire Family, And Twink!
Gombario is Mario’s first partner in the original Paper Mario. Gombario was quite the know-it-all, having information on most enemies, and always able to provide advice. Hidden within Paper Mario’s code are additional partners, Gombaria, and Goompa, Gombario’s sister and grandpa respectively. Additionally, the tiny little star Twink was discovered as a planned partner at one point as well. It is unclear as to what their role would have been; perhaps these partners lacked anything new and unique, resulting in their cut.
15 Red Toad In New Super Mario Bros. Wii Would Have Been Awesome
The New Super Mario Bros. series became the new generation of 2D Mario platforming games. These platforming games provided the same kind of enjoyment but built under modern gaming engines. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the first 2D Mario game to focus on cooperative play, supporting up to 4 players. The characters you could choose from were Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad, and Yellow Toad. However, there originally was going to be a Red Toad too.
There is a lot of relevant content that would have changed this game quite a bit.
Additionally, Princess Peach was planned to be in the game but was cut due to the difficulty of animating her dress. Each character plays exactly the same so having Peach might make things a little difficult. Finally, the Mega Mushroom from the first game on DS was planned to make a return. It would have allowed the player to grow super large and rampage across levels.
14 Super Mario Sunshine Multiplayer?
Super Mario Sunshine was a beloved classic on Nintendo Gamecube. Many fans have been asking Nintendo to develop a remake or port of the game, but as of the time of writing, nothing has been confirmed.
One piece of noticeable cut content from Sunshine is that it appeared that the game could have had some sort of multiplayer function.
It is only accessible through action replay of the European version of the game. It’s unclear as to what it actually was supposed to be but it appeared to feature Mario chasing Shadow Mario with a broad camera view in some sort of way.
13 Shine Sprites That Are Literally Impossible To Get
Super Mario Sunshine’s versions of collectible stars are Shine Sprites. Just like Super Mario 64, Sunshine features 120 Shine Sprites to collect. But what if I told you that there are an additional 5 that are actually in the game, but the method to get them is not? Super Mario Sunshine has mini levels and areas where you could normally get one or two Shine Sprites, but some of them have an extra one that could only be collected by collecting a certain number of coins (some are specifically red coins.) The problem is that the number of coins needed exceeds the number of coins that are available to collect. The only way you can get these Shine Sprites is to hack the game and increase your coin count.
12 Mario’s Odyssey Wardrobe Could Have Been So Much Larger
After Odyssey’s release, there have been constant streams of free updates that add even more costumes. Additionally, it appears that there may be a lot of unused content that may or may not ever appear in the game.
Some of these costumes could still come later as they are related to holidays, but there are a few that are noteworthy, such as a Link outfit and an 8-bit Mario outfit.
Also, there are many of concept art for costumes in the Super Mario Odyssey art book. One of these costumes features Pit from Kid Icarus. Hopefully, we get at least that one.
11 Super Mario World: The Lost Levels
Like with many of the old-school 2D Super Mario platformers, there is a batch of unused levels that were programmed into the game. With Super Mario World, there are a ton of levels that were developed. While their data exists within the game, they actually can’t be accessed by hacking a normal copy. However, these levels have been discovered, but they are mainly debugging stages. One of them even has a giant formation of blocks that spell “TEST.”
10 A Partner Reunion In Super Paper Mario?
The first two Paper Mario games are still the best games in the series and remain as classics. One of the most memorable parts of both games is that there are a group of characters that accompany Mario on his quest. These partner characters all had unique personalities and moves. Super Paper Mario had Catch Cards where each of these partners would have made a cameo appearance. This would have been welcomed as these partner characters would be the last memory of the great Paper Mario games.
9 Why Is Peach On Bowser’s Back?
Super Mario Maker was one of the few great games on the Nintendo Wii U. It was a game where you can create your own 2D level as well as share and download levels to the internet. The level of creativity is astounding in how you can combine many different items and enemies together to make something absolutely crazy.
Apparently, there are unused 8-bit sprites that show a mustached Bowser and Bowser Jr. carrying Peach and Luigi respectively on their back.
Not sure what is going on there, but if you played certain parts of Super Mario Odyssey, you might draw an interesting connection.
8 Yoshi’s Nemesis A Kart Racer?
Surprisingly enough, there aren’t a lot of planned playable characters for Mario Kart 8 that didn’t make the final cut. In fact, there is only one character that hasn’t made his debut yet but could have in this game.
A character icon for Kamek was discovered, leading to the conclusion that Yoshi’s nemesis could have been a playable character.
Kamek, in all likelihood, would have been at least a medium-sized character and possibly would even have a bike based off of the magic broom that you always see him ride on.
7 Good Thing You Don’t Have To Worry About Cart Paths In Mario Golf
Mario Golf was a stellar golf game that Camelot, the makers of Mario Tennis, developed. One of the great qualities of the Mario Golf games was the scenery, both in traditional golf course style and in Mushroom Kingdom style. In the original Mario Golf on Nintendo 64, there was an additional ground type that was cut from the final game, the cart way path. This was basically a concrete road that had a high bounce value and low friction. Since cartways are usually close to the out of bounds area, if you landed here you basically ended up that way.
6 Paper Mario’s Original Title
Paper Mario is an RPG that follows a similar basic formula to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. It is actually so similar, that the game was supposed to be called Super Mario RPG 2. However, thanks to Square, the title would have to change. Square has obviously been very protective of their past work (even though the Mario IP is obviously Nintendo’s).
Since Paper Mario was not developed by Square, they didn’t agree to the game becoming a sequel to a game they developed.
The game would go through multiple titles including Mario RPG 64, Super Mario Adventure, and Mario Story. Eventually, they would go with Paper Mario as the final name.