Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels, Issue 17 (Patreon)

Welcome to another issue of Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels. I apologize for yet another delay between issues, which I will address in more detail at the bottom of the article.

The Hidden End-of-Level Objects of NSLU

Item slots, or an item inventory, have been a staple of New Super Mario Bros. games since the first installment on the Nintendo DS. Usually, items that the player can keep for later are dispensed in a random or semi-random way mainly via one of the following mechanisms: winged red Question Blocks, rewards from Toad Houses, and rewards from beating enemy ambushes in the overworld maps. 

New Super Mario Bros. U introduced a way to use skill to manipulate which item the player receives that is available in every single stage that ends in a flagpole. By touching the flagpole when the timer ends with two of the same digit (except for 00), a special cutscene will activate after the usual end-of-level scene. There will be an amount of fireworks equal to the repeated digit, and afterward, a Toad will call out to the character from off-screen to the right. The character will run past the small fortress that would usually be entered after touching the flagpole, and discover a Toad with a treasure chest in the next screen.

What the Toad will present the player depends on the repeated digit. In New Super Mario Bros. U, 11, 22, and 33 result in the player receiving a Super Mushroom. This was changed for New Super Luigi U, where those numbers gain a 1-Up Mushroom, likely as a play on the Super Mushroom being red and representing Mario, and the 1-Up Mushroom being green and representing Luigi, and the theme of Luigi replacing Mario for this adventure. The other combinations are shared between the games: 44 gains a Fire Flower, 55 an Ice Flower, 66 a Mini Mushroom, 77 a Super Acorn, and 88 and 99 a Super Star. 

However, this is not the what this segment focuses on. The point of interest with these sequences is that the character walks past the small fortress, exposing one additional screen of the level that cannot be seen under normal circumstances. For the vast majority of levels, the landscape beyond the fortress is entirely ordinary, consisting of flat ground with the same tile set as the rest of the level. However, in some levels, this area is slightly more interesting.

The first level of World 2 - Layer-Cake Desert, called Spike's Tumbling Desert in New Super Luigi U opens with a view of a giant skeleton:

Activating the Toad cutscene at the end of this level shows what appears to be the same skull, but mirrored:

However, this is actually a different asset from the first skull. Take a look at the teeth closest to the front of the jaw. On the skull in the beginning of the level, the two front teeth point down, while on the secret skull, the front tooth points up. Smaller details like the texture, cracks and angle at which the skulls are positioned, are also different. The secret skull does not appear anywhere else in the game, meaning it was created specifically for the Toad area in that particular level.

But that is not the only special skull that is exclusive to a Toad area:

The secret area at the end of Layer-Cake Desert 4, The Walls have Eyes, features another unique skull design. This one is completely unlike any other skull seen in the game.

The next one may be familiar to those who have ever looked up a compilation of all "hidden Luigis" in New Super Luigi U. Every level includes some manner of depiction of Luigi - some hidden, some in plain view - but all of them include exactly one except the final level of the game, Superstar Road-9, Flying Squirrel Ovation, which has two. 

The hidden Luigi in Frosted Glacier-1, Broozers and Barrels, is extremely hard to find without a guide, as it is located in that level's Toad area:

Interestingly, this Luigi snowman appears to be an edit of the Luigi snowman seen every year during the holiday season on the official Nintendo website and promotional material - or perhaps the other way around, as it is not clear which one was created first:

While almost all aspects of the snowman have been slightly edited, the shape of the scarf is completely identical. 

Finally, there is one area that appears entirely ordinary during gameplay but is revealed to have some unused functionality by data-mining the game:

The Toad area in Soda Jungle-5, Deepsea Stone-Eyes, contains a single Stone-Eye beyond Toad's position. This is entirely normal given how the level is full of them, but looking at this area with a level editor shows that it has functionality that would have been activated if the player character got close to it:

The column under the Stone-Eye indicates that it moves in some manner when approached, as those columns are present in all moving Stone-Eyes. However, how exactly it would move is not known, as that would require the player character being movable beyond the flagpole, which is not normally possible. It would have been interesting to see the Stone-Eye move during the Toad cutscene, but none of these scenes include any moving objects, and the player character is too far from the Stone-Eye to activate its movement.

Red Names

I have come across information on The Cutting Room Floor wiki at tcrf.net that claimed that project names of certain Mario games were visible in the game's code when analyzed with a hex editor. Unfortunately, the claims did not include any images as proof, so I decided to attempt to search the files for the names myself.

The claim - which is provided without an attribution on three of the games in question, and attributed to users "Catley" and "ItsEasyActually" on the fourth - is that four Mario games that were released starting in 2011 all had internal project names that seemed to be part of a larger pattern:

Super Mario 3D Land - "RedPepper", Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - "RedSpark", Super Mario 3D World - "RedCarpet", and Super Mario Odyssey - "RedStar". As you can see, the common element here is the word "red", followed by nouns that would make sense to be used with that word; pepper and carpet especially so. Of interest here is the fact that Super Mario Odyssey is the game with the name referencing stars, when it actually has very little to do with stars, being the first 3D collectathon-style Mario game where he is collecting Power Moons instead of Power Stars.

Although I do not have access to the code for the latter two, I was able to analyze the data for the two Nintendo 3DS games on this list.

The column on the left shows the relative position of the cursor in the code, shown in hexadecimal. Using this address, you can check this information for yourself if you wish. The middle field shows the data using raw hexadecimal numbers, each two of them standing for one byte of data. The field on the right shows the same row, but with each byte translated into its ASCII value (if less or equal to 7F) or Unicode value (if more than 7F). We can see that the name "RedPepper" appears in the data, although there is a "ÿ" character being used in lieu of a space - which corresponds to "FF", the highest value of a byte, likely used as a control character in the code.

Although I was able to find several instances of the name "RedSpark" in the code of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, none of them were broken up in the logical place between "Red" and "Spark", instead being separated in the middle of either of the two constituent words, like "RedSpar.k" here. This caused me to think about the following possibility:

1. If the compression/compilation/assembly process causes the names to be broken up in this manner in the code, it is very hard to find them unless you know exactly what you are looking for. I was able to find these names by searching for the string "red" and parts of the string "spark"; but if I did not know in advance what I was searching for, I would have never found them as even general searches for "more than 7 letters in a row" would not have returned the full name.

2. This means that it is likely that project names are still left over in other games in the Mario series, but none of the dataminers was able to find them due to being either too broken up or not adhering to the "Red [noun]" pattern.

While my verification process did not turn up any information not already covered by the claims of TCRF users, I hope that the insights I have shared here could maybe inspire someone to find a way to more efficiently search for these names in other Mario games and possibly discover previously unknown information.

Misleading Advertisements

Since the beginning of the advertising industry, companies have searched for ways to make their product appear more desirable than it really is, and most of them - even now - resorted to misrepresenting the product one way or another. This can be as benign as making the product appear bigger while hiding a "not actual size" disclaimer in small print at the bottom, or as malicious as taking advantage of the letter of the law to claim something has 0% of a certain ingredient while in fact having a nonzero percentage that is under the threshold for obligatory legal disclosure. 

Mario and Mario-related games, in general, have had a history of rather straightforward and "honest" advertisements, which no doubt was also part of why Nintendo has recently been declared one of the top 10 most trustworthy companies in the US. However, there are a few examples of advertisements that have been clearly made with the intent to drastically misrepresent the product and possibly sell it to an audience that would not be interested in the product if it was depicted fairly.

This is a print ad for Tetris Attack that ran in magazines in the US in 1996. Here is a zoomed-in image of the text:

Now, if you are not familiar with Tetris Attack, it is a puzzle game - known in Japan as Panel de Pon - that has appeared on Nintendo systems many times under different IPs, such as Pokemon Puzzle League and Planet Puzzle League. It has nothing to do with Tetris outside of a license to use the name, and it is themed entirely around Yoshi's Island.

This is the game's title screen, showing clearly the kind of characters and imagery that you can expect to be seeing throughout your playing experience. Now compare it to the advertisement. 

Note how the ad has no mention of Yoshi, no Yoshi characters, and no aesthetics even slighly resembling the Yoshi's Island style despite it being crucial to the game. The only characters depicted in the ad are the Garbage Blocks, which resemble stylized Thwomps, made to appear more aggressive than they do in-game and less resembling Thwomps - likely to minimize the connection to the Mario series, as this ad seems to target an audience that would find Mario (and especially Yoshi) to be for someone younger than themselves.

Now, you may note that the ad has the same aesthetics as the box art - which is in fact visible in the ad itself - so it is not misrepresenting it. This is true until you consider that the box actually drops the "tough" act and provides both a correct description of the game (including Yoshi) and representative screenshots of it if you turn it over:

Since the ad does not give the reader access to this information, it may have misled someone who would otherwise not liked the Yoshi visuals into buying the game.

For our next example, please take a look at this commercial for Donkey Kong Country 3. It is relatively normal save for the bizarre live-action ape visuals; it even features scenes of gameplay. However, there are two things about it that are purposefully misleading.

The voice-over says "Donkey Kong Country 3, starring Kiddy Kong!" While it is true that Kiddy Kong is one of the two playable characters and so the game is technically "starring" him, it is disingenuous to leave out Dixie Kong, who is the main character of the story and after whom the game's subtitle "Dixie Kong's Double Trouble" is named. In fact, Dixie is not mentioned anywhere in the commercial. This alone is already suspect, but what truly pushes this over the edge into blatant lies is the representation of the box art.

Above is the box art for the game as it appears in real life. Note the extremely visible subtitle right under the logo. (While the box art depicted here is European, the logo is the same in all non-Japanese regions.)

Now compare it to how the box looks in the commercial:

As you can see, the subtitle has been crudely edited out - the top of the words "Dixie Kong" is still somewhat visible to a viewer who knows what the text is supposed to be, but the actual subtitle is smudged into a blue blur. 

What warranted such drastic steps to deny the importance of Dixie to the game? It is likely that the marketing firm responsible for this thought that what was assumed to be the main audience for video games at the time - boys under the age of 18 - would not like to play a game with a female main character. Regardless of the rationale behind the decision, the resulting fabrication is truly remarkable in its bluntness.

Finally, an ad that not so much denies reality as it denies itself, repeatedly, by stating opposites several times:

Mario is Missing is an educational game where you play as Luigi. Mario himself does not appear outside of cutscenes in the beginning and ending of the game. In fact, the ad admits this in the second paragraph on the second page. Why then does it feature the tag line "Mario's Greatest Adventure Yet!"? This is repeated in the second-to-last paragraph - "Best of all, this is Mario's greatest adventure yet", before telling you again that he has been kidnapped and it is actually Luigi going on an adventure. 

Especially humorous is the Mario clip art on the bottom right, where Mario, bearing a cheerful expression and a victory sign, says "Help Me!" Also note how many times the word "Mario" appears in large font on the ad, while every mention of Luigi is in small print, downplaying the fact that once the player puts in the game, they will see Mario for a total of less than a minute per playthrough while Luigi will be on-screen literally the entire time.

Of course, perhaps downplaying Luigi's involvement is for the best, financially speaking, as during the "Year of Luigi" in 2013, where Nintendo heavily marketed games featuring and revolving around Luigi, they posted an extremely heavy financial loss. It appears that although Luigi has many very dedicated fans, the majority of the audience does not find him especially appealing compared to Mario.

Grodus's Strange Threats

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a game well-known for its expertly written, humorous dialogue. Still, even games known for high-quality writing contain slip-ups from time to time, and this game is no different. Here is an example of what is almost certainly an error in the coding that results in two branches of a dialogue tree being swapped.

(Spoilers for the game follow.)

In the final part of the story, when Mario and his party confront Grodus in the Palace of Shadow, the following exchange takes place:

Grodus: Once you fools are gone, no one will stand in my way! Grodus will rule the world!
Mario's partner: No way we will let that happen! (or variants, depending on partner)
Grodus (of Peach, who is encased in a forcefield): Move one step, and she will breathe no more!!!
Mario's partner: You wouldn't! (or variants)
Grodus: Now try THIS!!!
(Mario and his partner are hit with a lightning attack.)
Grodus: Gaaack ack ack ack ack! Now! AGAIN!
(Mario and his partner are hit with lightning again.)

After this, the partner will tell Mario that they are done for if they do not attack Grodus, upon which the player receives a prompt with two options: "Attack!" and "Don't attack." What is remarkable about this sequence is that Grodus's responses to the options do not seem to make sense, but instead appear to be switched around. Take a look at the first option:

Grodus responds to Mario choosing to attack by saying "Stop your blubbering!" This is merely odd by itself, but starts to make more sense if the other alternative is considered:

If Mario chooses to not attack, Grodus reacts as though Mario is "defying" him, while Mario is doing precisely what Grodus is asking him to. The next dialogue box also seems to suggest Grodus is actually responding to Mario attacking, as he says "Move one step, and she will breathe no more" earlier and acts like Mario did, in fact, move. After this choice, Grodus turns around towards Peach and attempts to use the attack on her, only to be interrupted (in both cases) by Bowser falling from the ceiling.

In addition to this mix-up, it is interesting to consider what would have happened in the second choice if Grodus were not interrupted. Is it not in his own best interest to leave Peach alive given how she is supposed to be the vessel for the Shadow Queen? Is he supposed to simply be bluffing at this point? Or could the Shadow Queen, if necessary, take control of a corpse if the corpse was to her liking? Of course, it is unlikely any of this was considered by the writers as the scene is clearly written to have Grodus be interrupted, but the implications are still curious to think about.

Captain Toad Coins

In Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the plot revolves around a giant bird named Wingo stealing various important artifacts and characters. Wingo takes stars, Toadette, and even Captain Toad himself, on different occasions. As Wingo is based at least partially on a magpie, a type of bird known for collecting shiny objects, his own dwelling is shown to be full of treasure as well, particularly coins. However, there is something special about Wingo's coins, and in fact all non-collectible coins in this game: they do not match up in design with any other coins in the franchise.

Here are a few pictures of the coins seen on top of the tower in the Wingo's Watchtower level, the last level of Episode 1:

At a passing glance - especially at the oblique angle the coins would appear if the camera is not raised further than usual - the coins seem to have a halfmoon design on them. However, upon closer inspection, the design is revealed to actually have two partial circles in it. One circle is large and is mostly inside the design, while another is smaller and is mostly outside.

When I first saw this design, I could not come up with an explanation for it. Why not just use standard coins, the ones that also exist as collectible items in this game itself? Of course, having coins that are identical to the collectible coins could raise the question in players' minds as to why Captain Toad is not automatically picking them up. Still, this does not explain the unique design. Then I had an idea.

I believe these are stylized "Toad coins", or "Mushroom coins" given how similar Super Mushrooms are in style to Toad heads. Of course, this is only conjecture on my part and is not backed by any official material, but my reasoning is that using Toad iconography would make sense for a game centered around Toad characters, and that there does not seem to be any other common Mario species or item that would fit this design. Of course, it is entirely possible that this is merely a random pattern that is not supposed to have any significance, although given how much Nintendo is known for including little details tying design elements together in their games, this is unlikely.

Also note that putting a stylized face on coins has a subseries-wide precedent in the Mario body of work, with coins in all Yoshi-centered games having simplistic Yoshi faces on them:

There is something strange going on with the coins in the rest of the game. While some of them match up with the ones seen on Wingo's tower, some other places contain different coins:

Battle Tower Blitz, the last level of Episode 2, has another cache of gold at the end, but here the coins are completely blank. Interestingly, although blank coins like these are a staple of cartoons, they have never appeared in Mario games - with one exception:

The coins from Hotel Mario on the Philips CD-i share this design. Of course, given how Nintendo has chosen to not acknowledge the existence of their licensed CD-i games, the chances of this being a deliberate reference are infinitesimal. As hard as it is to believe, no other Mario games feature coins without some sort of design in the middle (discounting games on systems with such low resolution that the sprites are drawn as blank coins; these still have designs on them in official art).

The level Pickax Cave Plummet in Episode 3 has the Toad coins again.

...while Goomba Galleon from the Special Episode DLC has blank coins again.

Up until now, the only pattern has been that within a single episode, only one type of coin appears - however, Wingo's Double Trouble, also in the Special Episode, has Toad coins:

I have tried very hard to come up with anything tying together the locations with one type of coin versus the other, but could not make any convincing connections. Wingo himself appears in places with both types; while Toad coins are not exclusive to places Wingo appears either - in other words, neither of the sets of "Wingo locations" and "Toad coin locations" is completely inside the other.

The fact that Captain Toad and Toadette cannot pick up Toad coins - if they really are based on Toads - raises further questions, as if they, being Toads, cannot use them, then who can? In addition, why do both types of coins come in slightly different sizes, which has never happened with collectible coins in the Mario series? (Whenever there are differently-sized coins, they are typically wildly different and not within 20% of each other's diameter.)

In the end, the game offers no answers to these questions and only a sequel, or perhaps an official art book, could provide any insight into these coins.

German Card Games

In the early 1990s, a company called CBD Spiele released four card games under a Mario license in Germany. While the games themselves are generic rebrands of other card games and do not have any gameplay that is inspired by Mario in particular, and the card designs use stock official art, the box art for each of the games is unique - or at least "unique" in the sense that while it copies many pieces of official art, they are brought together in novel ways.

(Unsourced images in this section are from a scan of a German magazine that I unfortunately lost the exact name and issue of. If you have any information about these, please let me know and I will amend the images with sources.)

First off is Mario Madness. The tag line on the left translates to "A crazy card game that will make you flip out". The artwork will likely be familiar to you if you have ever seen the Super Mario Land box art. However, there are some differences here. First off, this box is actually based on the wallpaper version of the Super Mario Land box art rather than its actual box:

Note that the mountains in the far right background have been recolored to brown, and in an impressive display of creativity, the waves below Mario have been recolored yellow to become sand dunes, tying them together with the pyramids on the left. Since the water is now sand, the Honen (the fish bone enemy) has been removed and replaced with original artwork of Hiyoihoi, the throwing Easter Island head boss. There are two problems with this, however: Hiyoihoi is a unique enemy, meaning there should not be two of him; and the fact that he is wearing sunglasses, but the artist interpreted this as halfmoon-shaped eyes with black sclera and white pupils.

In addition, the two Goombos (the Goomba-like enemies on the far left) have been colored entirely blue, resembling Sad Goombas from Super Princess Peach (which was not released at that point in time). 

This is an example of Mario Madness cards. They all seem to depict various official art of Mario. Note how even with only two examples, inconsistencies are already visible - the M emblem is black on the left, but red on the right, which is indicative of these games' overall build quality.

Next up, Super Zock. "Zock" is the shortened form of the verb "zocken", a slang word meaning to play a gambling game or a video game. The tag line is "a quick card game for bright heads". This one is not taken directly from a reference image; instead all elements were put together from different sources. 

The Hammer Bro to the left of Mario is from Super Mario Bros., while the one to the right is from Super Mario Bros. 3. There is a Goomba and a Koopa Paratroopa from Super Mario Bros., a completely out-of-proportion, tiny Boom Boom from Super Mario Bros. 3, and Mouser, an Albatoss with a Bob-omb, and an Ostro from Super Mario Bros. 2. Bizarrely, there are also a Red and a Yellow Virus from Dr. Mario in the corner - except, the "Red Virus" is actually a Blue Virus colored red. As far as I can tell, the bar background, the barrel, and the candle on the Goomba's head seem to be original artwork.

It is odd why a bar with what are clearly intended to be alcoholic drinks was chosen to be depicted on the cover; while that background does communicate the "gambling", or "Zock", aspect, it is still not exactly the image the Mario franchise aims to convey. Then again, the German branch of Nintendo during the 1990s did things that would make this seem tame by comparison, such as featuring the literal Satan in its comics.

Thirdly, here is Monster Trix:

The tagline is "a tricky card game for monster hunters". The recolors are in full force on this one. The Goomba to the left of Mario is entirely green (or perhaps a shade of blue, depending on how accurate the scan is), resembling a Gu Goomba from Super Mario RPG (which was not released at the time). A Koopa Paratroopa and two Viruses are colored ochre, which none of those species have ever been in a game, and Lemmy's hair is colored blue.  Wart seems to be taken from a panel in one of the Nintendo Comics System comics. 

In terms of original art, there is the background (although it seems inspired by the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon) and the extremely simplistic bats. 

Here is an example of the card designs in Monster Trix. As you can see, the art assets were shared across all games, as the Boom Boom from the Super Zock cover is here as well.

Finally, there is Super Bluff. The tagline is "an exciting card game for strong nerves". There is a lot going on here. A tiny Pokey from Super Mario Land 2 is under the left tree, while a Bob-omb from Super Mario Bros. 2 is on the right tree. The same panicking Koopa Paratroopa from the cover of Monster Trix is here as well, except without his wings and recolored to resemble a Bombshell Koopa from Super Mario Land. 

A Goomba is being cooked alive in a pot behind Mouser, and a Clawgrip seems to be playing another game of Super Bluff against a Gunion (the octopus enemy from Super Mario Land) that is colored blue in the bottom left corner. Finally, a nondescript fish that appears to also be from a Nintendo Comics System comic is in the bottom right. 

The cards from Super Bluff are, again, simply various pieces of Mario artwork.

The illustrations on these covers present a very interesting idea: characters from the Mario universe that do not appear in the same games together interacting with each other. The concept here, if executed well, could have resulted in very dynamic scenes that would become favorites among fans of worldbuilding in the Mario series. Unfortunately, the complete lack of effort going into these scenes destroys their potential. The artists clearly had no greater plan to have these different character interact in meaningful ways and simply copied whatever official art they thought was most appropriate.

Perhaps one day in the future, this idea can be revisited by Nintendo themselves, providing us with interesting scenes of characters interacting across game boundaries. After all, HAL Laboratories already does this with Kirby artwork on their official Twitter account.

Bob-Omb AI in Super Mario 64

Very few 3D games have been as well-analyzed and thoroughly taken apart as Super Mario 64 - both due to the game's quality presenting an interest to game enthusiasts and due to it being one of the first popular games built entirely around being in three dimensions, which lends insight into how developers tackled the issues of gameplay in that space without a wide body of previous work to rely on, as we do now.

Today,  I would like to show you some peculiarities of the Bob-omb pathing AI that are very hard to discover on your own in-game if you do not know they are there, but become very easy to manipulate once you do know what to do.

First, take a look at this footage:

Each Bob-omb has an "active radius" within which it will chase Mario if it sees him. However, if Mario approaches the active radius while the Bob-omb is facing away from him, a variety of interesting behaviors can be observed. Here we can see what happens if Mario simply stands in the middle of the area without moving while the Bob-omb is facing away. Instead of continuing to walk in a circle, as is the Bob-omb's default idle behavior, the Bob-omb will continue walking in a straight line. It will still be subject to collision, as seen here - instead of walking up the steep slope, it will correct its course. Unfortunately, the Bob-omb will not walk infinitely far, as it simply unloads once it is a certain distance away from Mario.

Here is footage of the Bob-omb walking down a cliff. I use an emulator tool to move the camera around, which unfortunately does not allow smooth motion, so please excuse the erratic movement of the viewpoint. You may be wondering why I could not simply have moved Mario in such a way that the Bob-omb could be visible using the in-game camera.

This footage shows what happens if Mario moves away from the Bob-omb's active radius. The Bob-omb will slowly turn around and start walking towards its spawning point to resume its idle animation. However, due to Mario reentering the active radius, the Bob-omb sees him and enters its "chasing" state. What makes this interesting is that the Bob-omb's vision does not seem to have any limits to how far away it can detect Mario - as long as Mario is within the active radius.

Here is what happens if Mario leaves the active radius and does not reenter it:

The Bob-omb simply turns around, walks all the way back to the active radius, and resumes the regular idle animation of walking in a circle, essentially resetting itself. 

I cannot mention Super Mario 64 AI without referring to the foremost expert on the subject, youtube.com user "UncommentatedPannen", who is also known as "Pannenkoek2012". However, despite him releasing many videos about this subject, I am not personally aware of him tackling this exact Bob-omb behavior before, so I decided to make a segment about it myself. I also believe that unlike many tricks showcased by him, this Bob-omb manipulation is rather simple to perform and can be enjoyed even among those of us who are incapable of the more complex techniques that other enemy manipulation in this game necessitates.

The Secret of the Hurt Kings

The tcrf.net page for Super Mario Advance 4 contains this entry, added by user "AstroblastRedux3000":

The entry shows graphics of the kings of all kingdoms from Desert Land to Pipe Land (in other words, all kingdoms except Grass Land that have a king) standing, talking, and being hurt. The reason the Grass Land king is missing is not because these sprites do not exist for him, but rather because they are used very conspicuously in the game's intro:

The intro depicts Larry's airship approaching the Grass Land castle, then Larry dropping down from the ceiling, being unsuccessfully attacked by Toad, grabbing the king's wand, and turning the king into a Cobrat using the wand. During this, the sprites of the king standing up, talking and being hurt are used.

However, during normal gameplay, no such scenes are seen with any other kings. When Mario reaches their respective castles, they are already in a transformed state (just like in the original NES version and in the Super Mario All-Stars version), and defeating the Koopaling only shows them sitting on their throne and talking, not standing or being hurt.

Still, the fact that no such scenes are normally seen does not mean the graphics are unused. They are in fact used under a specific condition: the player must skip completing the kingdom in question by using a Warp Whistle, and then go back to that kingdom after beating the game. 

Upon defeating Bowser on a save file and reentering it, the World Map becomes available. Any kingdom that was not completed during the initial playthrough will have a speech bubble with an exclamation point displayed next to it when it is selected on the map. Reaching the castle in one such kingdom will cause this cutscene - with the respective Koopaling and king - to play:

As you can see, this is the exact same cutscene from the intro, only with the sprites for the Koopaling and the king being replaced; at least until Mario walks in, where it smoothly transitions into the regular "enter castle" scene. The king's sprites, which the tcrf.net entry shows as being unused, are actually used here, as are the other kings' sprites in their own cutscenes.

I believe that the reason the existence of these cutscenes is so little-known is that if a player is planning to beat all levels of the game, they would not skip any kingdoms to begin with, while if they plan to beat the game as quickly as possible, they would not go back to that save file. In my research I was only able to find one person even mentioning the existence of these cutscenes, which is remarkable for a Mario platformer (although perhaps mitigated by the fact that this game is essentially a second remake of a 1988 game and would as such not be as thoroughly explored by players as a completely new release).

LINE Insights

LINE is a messaging app for smartphones, popular in Japan, that includes the ability to send animated "stickers", essentially animated .GIFs with short sound, with messages. Nintendo has released several sets of official Mario stickers that feature original artwork and due to their high quality can be assumed to be created by one of the core development teams as the company, making them pretty much as "official" as Mario material can possibly be without being contained in an actual Mario video game.

You can see the stickers for yourself here, which is also the source for all images in this segment.

As the stickers depict characters interacting with each other in a more cartoon-like manner than usual for Mario games, they also provide insights into how the Mario developers believe the franchise's world to function. Here are some examples of things the stickers reveal:

This sticker shows that Boo Mario - first introduced in Super Mario Galaxy as the form Mario takes when collecting a Boo Mushroom - is not just a power-up form, but the literal representation of Mario's soul after death. This is not entirely consistent with other depictions of the same thing; for example, Luigi's soul is shown to be a translucent version of him with a ghost tail in the Simon Belmont reveal trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate rather than Boo Luigi:

A smaller but more consistent detail between the two depictions is that both Mario's eyes in the sticker and Luigi's eyes in the trailer are solid white with no irises or pupils. Thus, while it is unclear which of these is more official as the case can be made for either depiction, we can assume that if Mario is ever shown to truly die in one of his games, his eyes will be solid white.

This sticker shows that the Green Shell items, common in all Mario Kart entries, actually contain Koopa Troopas inside them. This is rather concerning given how the shells break into pieces when they hit drivers, however, I found something interesting when researching evidence for this being intended across the games. In no manual for any Mario Kart game are the shells - green, red, winged or otherwise - being referred to as "empty". While the manuals never mention Koopas being inside the shells, they also never deny that possibility, which is curious.

These three stickers are notable for depicting Mario, Luigi and Peach with clothes they presumably sleep in, which have to date not been seen anywhere else. In addition, Peach's hairstyle is unique in this sticker, as it shows the front part of her hair to be asymmetrical, which normally never happens, as all her standard hairstyles are symmetrical. 

While we cannot see too much of Luigi's outfit, it appears to either be identical (save for the colors) or very similar to Mario's, which would suggest that Mario also has a similar night cap (as opposed to the night cap seen in the ending to all versions of Super Mario Bros. 2):

Given how much Nintendo has shown their willingness to use all available Mario outfits as wearable clothes in Super Mario Odyssey, I believe that if we are ever getting a direct sequel to that game that also features the same costume-changing mechanic, the outfit from the Mario sticker will be included, likely with either a red version of the cap from the Luigi sticker or with the original blue "M" cap shown above.

This sticker is interesting in that it confirms that Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings are thought to be close enough by the developers that they would eat together at the same table. Recent games like Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey have shown that the relationship between Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings is complex, with them being clearly subservient to Bowser Jr., but also somewhat resentful of having to obey him due to not trusting his judgment. It is nice to see that despite this, and despite the new official statement that the Koopalings are not Bowser's children, they are still treated by Bowser and Bowser Jr. as part of the family, or at least from what we can tell based on this sticker.

Finally, this 8-bit sticker is interesting in that is contains a new, original graphic in the Super Mario Bros. style, a rare event given how rightfully protective Nintendo is of that particular style. The only other case of new sprites being added to that style was in Super Mario Maker, and presumably Super Mario Maker 2 when it is released a few months from now. 

This sun is a graphic that is not only new, but could in fact appear in Super Mario Maker 2 if more background elements are added to the themes - or an edit of this sprite could be used as the Super Mario Bros. form of the Angry Sun, for which we have confirmation to be appearing in at least the Super Mario Bros. 3 style already.

Yoshi's Orange Arms

If you have played the original version of Super Mario World, as opposed to its Super Mario Advance 2 remake, you most likely have noticed that Yoshi's arms in that version are orange - however, this extends only to the sprites, and not to official art. 

While the box art shows Yoshi with green arms, he and all the other differently-colored Yoshis have orange arms. There is a common misconception that the sprite actually has no arms and the orange object is a strap for Yoshi's saddle - corroborated in part by the fact that Baby Yoshi sprites clearly have no arms - however the image shown above (from the game's ending) shows the Yoshis waving their hands about in a way that makes it impossible for them to have been straps. 

Interestingly, Baby Yoshis also have arms in the game's official art, which paints a strange picture of literally every single Yoshi sprite in the game being incorrect to its respective official art in some major way. This may be due to Yoshi being redesigned rather late in development:

These pre-release Yoshi sprites show that he looked rather different at a point in development where the design for other enemies was already final; and Baby Yoshis had a blob-like design that was scrapped entirely. Still, in this phase, the arms are colored normally; perhaps the orange arms were an unintended side effect of the design needing to be changed late and not every aspect of it being able to be double-checked. It could also be a general mistake unrelated to the history of Yoshi's design, which the game also has other examples of, like the fact that Bowser is shown to have three fingers plus a presumed unseen thumb while holding onto the edge of the Koopa Clown Car, but only two fingers and a thumb in his hurt sprite:

Of course, an argument can be made that Bowser is simply holding on using his thumb as well, which would have to function differently from a human thumb to be able to be held in that orientation but would not be out of the realm of possibility; still, the fact that the hurt sprite was also changed in the GBA remake to include an extra finger suggest that it was an oversight.

The oddest consequence of Yoshi's orange arms is that some games, particularly licensed spin-offs as opposed to Nintendo's own games, only looked at the sprites of Super Mario World as a reference while creating their own graphics, resulting in them copying the arm color despite no official art existing that would agree with it. Here is a compilation of all instances of Yoshi's orange arms making it into games outside of Super Mario World:

The SNES version of Mario is Missing has not only made the mistake of simply copying Yoshi's arm color from the Super Mario World sprite, but also overlooking the fact that his arm color changes when he crosses the street. The moment Yoshi looks down, his arms change to green and remain that way for the duration of the animation, upon which they turn back to orange again.

The NES version of Mario is Missing is even more inconsistent. Yoshi's arms are orange (or, due to the NES's limited palette, a flesh color) only when they are pointing straight down, as in the image on the left. At any other point in his walking animation, as in the image in the middle, the arms are green instead. When Yoshi crosses the street, his arms disappear entirely, as shown on the right.

The Mario's Early Years series is unique in that it not only includes the orange arms due to copying the Super Mario World sprite, but also contains an entirely original sprite of Yoshi with orange arms, as seen on the player character selection raft that is present in all three games in that series. The Fun with Letters entry also includes a pixel art rendition of Yoshi where his arms are green, making that game unique in that it proliferates both arm colors with original artwork.

Mario Paint simply includes the original Yoshi sprite due to having the aim of providing the player with an accurate representation of what the in-game graphics for Super Mario World looked like. Due to Yoshi's arm color being changed in all later representations of this sprite that are actually playable - Super Mario Advance 2 and Super Mario Maker - it is logical to assume that if Mario Paint gave Yoshi a more important role than simply being one of many placeable graphics, the sprite would have been adjusted here as well.

I personally have always wondered why Nintendo has never acknowledged the arm color issue in any later games, particularly given their history of laughing at their own mistakes, seen in constant references to well-known glitches like the Minus World from Super Mario Bros. or financial flops like the Virtual Boy. We can only hope that perhaps in Super Mario Maker 2, a rare event will cause a Yoshi with orange arms to hatch from an egg in the Super Mario World game style, similar to how a rare event causes a Weird Mushroom to spawn instead of a Super Mushroom in the Super Mario Bros. style. 

This concludes today's issue of Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels.

I am very saddened by my continuously displayed inability to keep up with the schedules I have set for myself on my Patreon. In the past, I have expressed several times my desire to close this campaign due to not delivering adequate value to you, my subscribers. I was told that to do this would be a bad idea and would not be welcome among my readers. Therefore, I have decided on a different plan of action.

This is my April 2019 Stamp Card (inspired by the Star Stamp card from Mario Party 3). I believe that to offer you four more issues of Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels and two more podcasts this month would be an adequate value, and due to having less time being taken up by my medical work now, I believe I should be able to deliver on at least the items shown on this Stamp Card. Here is my promise to you:

If the April 2019 Stamp Card is not completely filled by May 1st, I will restructure my reward tiers to be much lower (1/3 the current contribution on average) and personally offer refunds to every current patron for April equal to the difference between the amount already contributed and the new tier cost, or if desired, any amount at all if you feel that the value you have received over the past months was insufficient as well. I will personally contact all of you via Patreon messaging and offer you the reward in person so that you do not have to seek it out for yourself and feel encumbered by having to need to ask for it. 

I believe this course of action would be most appropriate, as it would allow me to still continue the campaign while also making sure that not a single one of my contributors has to pay more than the value they receive. I will do my best to fill out the Stamp Card and I hope that this promise - which you can very easily follow yourself, simply watch out for my message at the beginning of next month if the Stamp Card is not filled - can give you some assurance about your contribution not being wasted.

Thank you very much for reading.