Developers Foresight / Super Mario Bros.

Examples of Developer's Foresight from Super Mario Bros.

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Miscellaneous Games

• Mario Party:
  • In every game, if you somehow have the max amount of stars (99 or 999, depending on game, which can basically only be achieved by hacking), the NPCs doling them out will tell you that you can't carry anymore.
  • Mario Party 7: On Pagoda Peak, the board-specific Cannon Orb's sole purpose is to move you closer to the star. There's no reason to use such a thing on the very last space before the star — but if you do, there's a special failure animation for it. Even if you never make this blunder yourself, the CPU sometimes will.
  • The Mario Party 8 Challenge minigame "Fruit Picker" requires the player to memorize five fruit symbols on a wheel, which then turns, and pick out one to three of the symbols. If the player pauses or presses the Wii's Home Menu button, the symbols disappear until they unpause to prevent players from cheating by writing the symbols down or taking a picture.
  • Mario Party: Island Tour: Extra dialogue is added to the Bowser's Tower should the player be playing as Bowser Jr. For example, Bowser expressing how proud he is of his son's progress.
  • Super Mario Party:
    • The minigame "Rhythm and Bruise" involves whacking plastic Monty Moles with a hammer in time to the music. If you play as Monty Mole, he'll be visibly sweating.
    • if you play as Bowser or Bowser Jr. and land on a Bad Luck Space, Kamek will cower and apologize profusely.
• WarioWare:
  • WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$: In Orbulon's stage, the life counter consists of four Alien Bunnies trying to get Orbulon to their spaceship. In the end, when Orbulon plans to take over the ship, an Alien Bunny replies "Shucks!" and drops Orbulon back onto the Oinker. The default amount is four. But, were you to lose a life and then clear the stage for the first time, then the Alien Bunny who pulls the switch is the one closest to it.
  • WarioWare Gold: The microgame hosts have special responses for different circumstances: clearing 15 microgames in a row with no mistakes, clearing a microgame at the last second, failing a microgame three times in a row, failing a microgame by not doing anything, etc.

Platform Games

• Super Mario 64:
  • If Bowser ends up right by the sides of any of his boss arenas, he'll teeter on the edge briefly. This animation is otherwise unused.
  • Super Mario 64 DS includes boss dialogue to characters who don't get to battle the boss (usually Yoshi), just in case you make it to the boss with that character. Goomboss is an early example. In addition, Eyerok's boss arena is slightly altered: the developers added a fire for Yoshi to eat in case one goes out of their way to get Yoshi to fight Eyerok.
• Yoshi's Island:
  • It turns out Bumpties can steal Baby Mario if he's knocked off Yoshi's back next to one. The twist? This very, very rarely comes up in the game by default, so they programmed in behavior for an unlikely situation that's only likely through going out of your way to take damage and that's so obscure even Super Mario Wiki didn't know about it for years... From here.
  • Similarly, all the bosses are just regular enemies grown to large size by Kamek's magic. One of them, Naval Piranha from the first game, can actually be killed before the boss battle if you very carefully edge close enough to see her but not close enough to trigger the cutscene. If you kill her first, Kamek flies in, panics, and retreats, and you avoid the entire battle. You can do the exact same thing in Yoshi's Woolly World to get similar dialogue, but in that game, Piranha Plants are not killed instantly when hit by yarn balls, so you'll still have to do the fight.
• New Super Mario Bros. series:
  • In the first Bowser battles in New Super Mario Bros., you can abuse invincibility frames by running straight into Bowser, taking the hit and running through him to hit the requisite switch on the other side. If you attempt this in the final battle, you'll still take the hit, but Bowser will actually grab you and throw you back.
  • In New Super Mario Bros. 2, the global coin counter maxes out at 9,999,999. You can only carry 30,000 coins per level, so even with exploitative methods to gather coins, getting to ten-million-minus-one will take an extremely long time. If you're crazy enough to go for it anyway, you get a special message saying "The coin counter doesn't go any higher! You're THAT good," and a golden Raccoon Mario statue on the start screen. (An extreme Bragging Rights Reward; the prize for 1 million coins is the same, except the statue is regular Mario instead of the Raccoon version.)
  • Before the final boss battle of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Peach will call out to the player from her locked tower. She calls out Mario or Luigi's name if you play as them, and a "Help me!" if you play as any other character...but if you play as Toadette while using the Peachette power-up, a question mark will appear over her head and she does a Quizzical Tilt while saying "What?"
• Super Mario Maker:
  • If you enter a pipe or Warp Door, and the exit is blocked off in some way, you get a brief animation of Mario trying to get through the other side before returning to the entrance. If both sides are somehow blocked off, then Mario will lose a life when he tries to go through them.
  • Similarly, if the way between the level's ending and the exit is blocked by something, Mario will push against the blockage for a second, then turn around and crouch down. The level still counts as completed, though.
• Super Mario Odyssey:
  • The fight with Brigadier Mollosque-Lanceur III is unique in that it takes place in the main exploration area instead of in a dedicated boss arena. Because of this, you can still enter the 8-bit pipes in the northern region of the map, even though there's no need to. If you do, you'll get to hear a special 8-bit rendition of Brigadier Mollosque-Lanceur III's boss theme that only plays during that particular fight.
  • Is there a place that looks reachable yet seems to be 'out of bounds'? The developers likely foresaw it, and stuck either a Power Moon or some free coins up there.
• In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the level "Rolling-Ball Hall" has an area that is blocked by a wall until the Wonder Flower summons a giant rolling ball to destroy it. However, if you use your Elephant form to knock a regular-sized rolling ball into the wall, it'll break and you can go right down, where you'll eventually find a bunch of talking flowers confused and annoyed that you did things out of order.

Racing Games

• Mario Kart 8: The game automatically ends any Time Trial once it reaches ten minutes, since by that point you're clearly not trying to actually race anymore.

Role-Playing Games

• In the SNES version of Super Mario RPG, once Mallow reaches level 6 he gains an ability called "Psychopath" that allows him to reveal the HP and a silly "quote" of any enemy he uses it on. If you begin grinding for experience the second Mallow joins you it is possible to get Psychopath far earlier than usual. Anticipating this, all the early bosses are programmed with Psychopath quotes. Even the enemies who appear before Mallow joins have Psychopath quotes, in case you find a way to hack him into the earlier levels. In the Switch remake, Mallow automatically gains the Psychopath ability (renamed Thought Peek) upon joining the party. An NPC in Booster Pass even gives the party the Thought Peek quotes for the enemies and bosses who appear before Mallow joins for free.
• Paper Mario:
  • Paper Mario 64:
    • It would theoretically be possible to skip two fights with Jr. Troopa, if you head back to Toad Town immediately after getting either the Super Boots or Sushi, then open up the shortcuts in the sewers to Boo's Mansion and Lavalava Island respectively, then just taking those back after completing the area. This works because Jr. Troopa ambushes you on the way back from those areas...or it would anyway, if the developers hadn't thought of this and instead had him ambush you if you go back at any point after getting either the boots or Sushi. Sorry, no skipping boss fights for you.
    • In chapter 4, you normally free Watt by breaking open the lantern dropped by the Big Lantern Ghost miniboss with your hammer. You can also free her by blowing up the lantern with Bombette, which earns unique dialogue where Watt calls Mario out for being careless with explosives.
    Watt: You're crazy, mister! Did you have to, um, blow it up to get me out?
    • After beating Fuzzipede in Chapter 5, the Whale offers to ferry Mario anywhere he requires as thanks. Kolorado invites Mario to an expedition in Lavalava Island, prompting Watt to point out that Twink did say one of the Star Spirits was there. While on a regular playthrough Watt would be the one to say it because she's required to be out to illuminate the dark insides of the whale so Fuzzipede can actually be attacked and the aforementioned dialogue immediately follows after defeating Fuzzipede, there are also dialogues for all the other partner characters available up to that point in the scenario Fuzzipede is somehow knocked out while you have another partner out, like for instance, Scratch Damage from the Electrified status.
    • Near the end of Chapter 5, Kolorado who has been accompanying you is smashed by a spiked rolling ball and left writhing on the floor in agony. If you saved Parakarry's letter to Kolorado (which you get as early as chapter 2 when most players will also give it to him) until this moment, it triggers a completely unique interaction where Parakarry breaks off his speech to ask Kolorado if he's okay, and Kolorado reading the letter from his wife is what reinvigorates him to continue forward. This interaction is so out of the way people didn't learn about it until twenty years (2021) since the game’s North American release.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door:
    • You generally won't be expected to do more than about 15 damage in one turn. However, with certain setups, you can manage to deal more than 200 damage (the HP of the Superboss) in a turn. The creators realized this and, in the case of two bosses where plot important events occur in the middle of the fight (specifically, the first fight with Doopliss and the first form of the Shadow Queen), made it so that the bosses would heal a specific amount of HP if you manage to get their health to 0 before the event happens.
    • Downplayed in the prologue. Your first visit to the east side will always feature a Bandit rushing you and picking every coin in your pocket... unless you've already spent it all at the shop. The only difference is that Goombella won't shout at the pickpocket because your wallet was already empty, and the Bandit has unique dialogue if you go and talk to him after.
    • You can access the Pianta syndicate headquarters as soon as you complete Chapter 1 if you know the secret code before Ishnail tells you. All the Pinatas there have unique dialogue, and Francesca and Frankie are present before they elope.
    • During Chapter 3, two new fighters join the Glitz Pit to replace Bandy Andy and King K. At this point, you're too high ranked to fight either one. But if you fall down the ranks by losing, you can fall down far enough to fight them.
    • Also during Chapter 3, you receive two cakes from unknown benefactors. While the latter ends up being poisonous and can cripple your party member if eaten, the former is not. However, if the player is suspicious regardless and attempts to leave the room and save before eating it, they'll return to one of the fighters informing you that they assumed you didn't want it and ate it themselves, right before calling you - both Mario and you, the player - an idiot. What's more is that because the player has likely saved at this point, they are permanently locked into this outcome as a result.
    • In the interlude to Chapter 4, if you already discovered and tried to enter the Twilight Town pipe before presenting the Gold Star to the Thousand-Year Door, your party member will point out to Professor Frankly that they already tried to enter the pipe and the game will trigger the scene where he tells you what to do next instead of forcing you to backtrack to the pipe again and report back.
    • If you choose to go to Fahr Outpost before presenting the Garnet Star to the Thousand-Year Door (after which the location is made known to the party), your partners will have unique dialogue upon exiting the warp pipe. All of them merely comment on not knowing where they're at, except for Bobbery, who simply makes a lighthearted comment on the cold, as he's been to Fahr Outpost before and knows exactly where he's at.
    • When you recruit Ms. Mowz, she gives you a badge. However, if you happen to have the maximum amount of badges you can carry, then there will be a quick cutscene where she leaves the badge in front of the badge store for you to pick up. Note that the maximum amount of badges you can have is 200 and there are only 85 unique badges, so in order for this to happen, the player would have to go waaaaaaaaay out of their way to grind for them.
    • The exit pipe from the Pit of 100 Trials is too high to reach from the ground, however you can immediately go down the pipe after exiting the Pit. If you do, it spits you back out and tells you that you can't use it.
    • One Trouble involves rescuing Pine T. Sr., who's gotten himself lost and injured inside the Pit of 100 Trials. He can be found on Floor 18, and if you help him and make it to a floor with an exit pipe (which is any floor that is a multiple of 10), he'll automatically head straight to the exit pipe and leave. If you somehow meet enough Movers to skip every exit pipe floor and make it to Bonetail along with Pine T. Sr.,^note which requires at least 8 Movers to be found on specific floors, each with a 5.1% chance of appearing to begin with the pre-fight cutscene will include him hiding behind a nearby pillar and shaking in fear just before you fight the boss, and heading to the nearby pipe on his own after you defeat it.
    • If you happen to do some glitching or cheating around and enter Gloomtail's room after defeating Bowser for the final time (the room is inaccessible through normal means), there's a hole in the back area which was used when Bowser jumped down.
  • In Super Paper Mario, it's possible to skip certain Pixls if you use items right, and doing so will change the post-chapter dialogue from summarizing the events of the last stage to giving you the Pixl anyway. This message exists for Thoreau, Boomer, Slim, Carrie, and Dottie.
  This Pixl heard all about your adventures while waiting in a basement in Yold Town. Thoreau the throwing Pixl is now your friend!
• In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, the brothers and their baby selves normally yell "Nintendo!" and appear together on the title screen. Except on a fresh save file before meeting the babies, then it'll be just the adult brothers. But the real foresight comes slightly later: if you save and exit to the title screen during the one point where you play as the babies before they meet up with their older selves, a section that will only last a few minutes in a typical playthrough, only the babies will yell "Nintendo!" and appear on the title screen.

Survival Horror

• Luigi's Mansion series:
  • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon:
    • In A-4: Visual Tricks, Luigi is supposed to retrieve the Dark-Light device from E. Gadd's Gloomy Manor lab, but the door is hidden by Spirit Balls — which Luigi would need the very Dark-Light device he's going after to remove — prompting him to take a detour. If you redo the mission with the Dark-Light device already in your possession, trying to reveal the door with it causes the Spirit Balls to emerge from the other side of the door. Even if you manage to vacuum them up through the wall anyway, the Boo responsible will simply spawn more to hide the door again (indicated by the Boo's laughter playing again), as if the developers themselves are telling you to play through the level as intended.
    • In the Old Clockworks area, one room features a key guarded by two Slammers... only both of them are too distracted to notice Luigi. Most players would just capture the two ghosts and then grab the key, but if you instead opt to sneak past them, grab the key, and then leave without them noticing, they'll suddenly realize the key is gone and start looking around for it.
  • Luigi's Mansion 3:
    • During the Gooigi tutorial, there is a puddle of water on the floor near the lever to free Luigi that the player will likely overlook as background scenery until they try to move Gooigi over it, which causes him to dissolve. If you walk around the puddle to get to the switch before this happens, E. Gadd cuts in and requests that Gooigi step on the puddle, to prevent you from missing the introduction to this mechanic.
    • The cutscene after beating Kruller, who can only be fought with Gooigi, is different depending on if the game is in single player or co-op, with Luigi and Gooigi's reactions being adjusted to match.
    • The boss of 2F (Chef Soulfflé) does not spawn until the boss of 3F (Kruller) is defeated to prevent Sequence Breaking, as 2F is reachable by stairs and the elevator button isn't required to get there.
    • The same goes for Captain Fishook, to a greater extent. It's normally impossible to reach 12F's beach without Super Suction, since there's a blockade in front of the main entrance, but if you somehow get past that (i.e. clipping through it), Fishook won't spawn until you acquire the upgrade you're supposed to have.
    • Morty will have unique dialogue if you talk to him with certain items, such as the flaming sconce and a clapper board.
    • A sidepath which requires rescuing Red Toad from the Boilerworks requires you to take a new long way around because a Hammer fell asleep in front of a door directly to the elevator. If you try to use the instant Lab teleporter from the Virtual Boo, E. Gadd tells Luigi that it, rather inconveniently, just stopped working. He even lampshades the situation.
    • After every Toad rescue, you have to take the Toad to the elevator, and during the time between saving him and sending him to the Lab, you can fire him from your Poltergust to hit and break objects you couldn't interact with otherwise. Most of the time, there's just money you can only obtain with the Toad, making it a bonus with a set window for claiming it. However, on 9F, there are gems and an achievement, completion rewards, that are obtained by launching things from the Poltergust to break objects. In this case, however, the bones from the broken dinosaur skeletons remain on the floor as projectiles in case you missed your chance to use the rescued Toad, keeping those rewards obtainable.

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