Unwinnable situations in the Super Mario Bros. series.
- In World 1-2, players are taught that jumping onto the ceiling and running past the exit takes them to a hidden Warp Zone. Any unfortunate player who attempts to take the ceiling route in a castle level will find that they cannot run past Bowser - the screen simply stops scrolling there, and the Ratchet Scrolling prevents them from going back.
- If Mario ends up inside a block (usually as a result of sliding, jumping, or swimming from a crouched position while Super), the game will push you to the right until you're outside the wall. Usually, this is enough to prevent you from getting trapped; however, if you do this at the end of one of the underwater stages (2-2, 7-2, or the optional underwater section of 6-2), you'll get pushed forward to the edge of the screen and be unable to escape. Later versions of the game (such as Vs. Super Mario Bros and the Super Mario All-Stars remake) usually add a block above the ending pipe to prevent this from happening.
- In World 3-3, it's possible to jump past the flagpole by raising one of the linked platforms as high as you can without breaking the cable and jumping off it over the flagpole (it requires precise timing but it can be done), but unlike in The Lost Levels where some levels have a Warp Zone past the castle, you will find nothing but endless castle walls and once again the Ratchet Scrolling will prevent you from going back.
- The Minus World, reachable by performing a glitch in World 1-2. It's Unwinnable because the stage loops back to the start whenever the alleged exit is reached, and utterly bonkers because turning the World 4 warp pipe into the World -1 warp pipe is almost impossible to do by accident. Averted in the Famicom Disk System version, whose Minus World has different levels. It's actually possible to complete the game this way in the Famicom Disk System version (and it takes less time than doing it the normal way).
- In some stages that have springboards, they may fail to load due to sprite limits. If this happens, touching the space where they should be will get the player stuck until time runs out.
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
- Jumping onto the ceiling in a castle level to try to sneak past Bowser that way will get you stuck, just as in the original game. It's also much easier to do in this game with Luigi and his high jumps.
- If you go to an underground bonus room in World 3-1, you'll come out of a pipe below some blocks that you must break to continue. Since only Super or Fire Mario (or Luigi) can break blocks, there's a hidden block with a power-up. However, if you pick up the power-up and then get hurt by the nearby Piranha Plant, you won't be able to get out.
- C-3 and D-2 both have massive jumps that can be cleared only when Mario jumps on a springboard. Sometimes, these springboards fail to spawn due to sprite limits.
- In the PRG0 version of the cartridge, if you get hit by one of Fryguy's pieces while throwing a mushroom block at another, that piece will be thrown off the screen rather than disappear, and the game will register it as still alive, so the exit door fails to appear. The only way out is to reset or use the suicide code (Up+A+B with the second controller on the pause screen).
- After Wart is defeated, scrolling gets disabled, so if you're too far to the left, you won't be able to enter the door under where Wart was standing. You can't die if this happens, forcing the suicide code to be used. Worse than that, this error was not fixed for the All-Stars version! It wasn't until Super Mario Advance that this was finally fixed.
- One level (World 2-2) features two pits, one of which becomes a trap, but only if you're patient enough to dig up all the dirt in it. And unlike most other games in the Super Mario Bros. series, there's no time limit to wait out, although there is a suicide code to restart the level at the cost of a life. This was fixed in the GBA Super Mario Advance remake, which added a vase at the bottom of the pit. Entering and leaving the vase causes the dirt blocks to reset, allowing you to escape if you manage to get yourself stuck.
- It's also possible in the boss room of 3-2 to go past Birdo, stack the mushroom blocks to the left in such a way that the only gap in them is surrounded by 2-block-tall walls, then jump down to the bottom of the area. Even the super jump won't get you back up. If you have 3 or more hearts, you can damage-boost by deliberately getting hit by one of Birdo's projectiles and using the extra height to get back up, but with 2 or fewer, your only escape is suicide by way of the code or getting hit by more projectiles.
- A glitch can cause the game to be unwinnable. In World 5, it is possible for the airship to land on the land-based portion of the map, displayed in miniature in the upper left corner of the sky map. When you then chase it down to ground level, it's nowhere to be found. This would be a good airship to use an anchor on if you've acquired any. Fortunately, it is also one of the easier airships, and the All-Stars version fixes the glitch entirely.
- If you're really unlucky, then you can trigger an N-Spade to appear on top of a Hammer Bro on the map, causing this
to happen. - An example thankfully restricted to one level - in World 7, one level has a Hammer Bros. Suit in it (other than this one, they're only available as world map items found in mushroom houses). If Mario is in statue form from the Tanooki Suit when he grabs it, he becomes a greyscale version of the usual Hammer Bros. Suit that can't use the pipe needed to continue the level. Fortunately, this only makes it impossible to clear that level on that lifenote . This was corrected in the SNES and GBA remakes.
- World 7-Fortress 1 requires you to obtain a Tanooki Suit (if you aren't already Raccoon Mario) from a secret room accessed by P-Switch. If you trigger the switch but for some reason let it time out before you reach the bottom of the room, it's unobtainable and you can't beat the level on that life. A similar situation can happen at the end of the World 8 fortress, where the boss door is triggered by the switch. In cases of really bad timing, you can get entombed in the blocks until time runs out.
- A mistake of Galoob rather than Nintendo: there was a set of Game Genie codes for the NES version that allowed Mario to be, and remain, in a certain suit. However, these codes overwrote additional data that was part of the door animation after the final fight with Bowser, causing the game to freeze if you did not enter the door immediately. The Game Genie code book warned the player to do so, or else they would be "caught in Bowser's Time Trap, and the game will pause forever!"
- In World 7-5, there's an area where you fall into a room where the way out is a one-square-high gap to slide through (if you're big) or walk through (if you're small). If you enter wearing a Frog Suit and don't keep one of the Bob-ombs to deliberately get hit and therefore get rid of the Frog Suit, you're stuck and have to wait for the timer to hit 0. While this is very unusual considering the Frog Suit's purpose and general rarity outside of it, 7-4 happens to be a water level and the room in 7-5 appears fairly early on, meaning it's not unlikely you'll forget to dispose of the Frog Suit before you enter.
- In the room before the Bowser fight, you can crouch and fly into the gap over the Bowser statue to slide through the wall, leading to different layouts of the boss fight. You can do this a couple more times before you are permanently stuck inside the blocks and you have to time out to continue.
- Several levels in Worlds 6 and 7 require ducking through a one-block-high hole to pass, something that can't be done if you're in the Frog suit. And in at least one of them, you can't even commit suicide by way of Bottomless Pit. Considering how difficult it is to maneuver on land with the Frog Suit, why would you use it from your inventory prior to entering a level with no water? (Or, for that matter, if you're good enough not to get hit once between the last water level and the first of these, why wouldn't you change your powerup during one of the dozens of intervening levels?) If there are no enemies nearby to run in to, you can commit a slower form of suicide by waiting for the timer to run out, thus avoiding the need to reset the game.
- It's possible to get stuck in the first fortress of World 7, which requires you to use a Raccoon or Tanooki powerup in order to fly up into the pipe that leads to Boom Boom. While the level is kind enough to provide you with a Tanooki Suit in a bonus room, if you hit the block containing the Tanooki Suit and immediately leave the room without collecting it, the suit will be lost; reentering the room will not respawn it. Should you do this and not already have a flight powerup, the level will be impossible to beat. The same applies if you collect the Tanooki suit and then collect the Fire Flower in the level. Your only options will be to either let the timer expire or commit suicide by jumping in the lava (there are no enemies in the level other than Boom Boom).
- It's impossible to do without cheats, but Kuribo's Shoe can be used in any level. However, using it in a water level causes you to sink to the bottom instantly. Since it can't duck, it will also get trapped in the same areas as the Frog Suit.
- YouTuber nathanisbored demonstrates several ways to trap yourself in his Let's Glitch Super Mario World series. For example, you can perform an elaborate series of glitches to complete the "secret exit" of a level that doesn't actually have a secret exit, which will erroneously set the "this path is already open and doesn't need to be opened again" flag for a vital path, without actually opening that path, thereby locking you out of the rest of the game. This video demonstrates two ways to make individual levels unwinnable, and the Ghost Ship episode demonstrates another.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
- It is possible to trap yourself in level 4-1: GO! GO! MARIO!! At one point there is a Super Star trapped behind some dirt, which you are supposed to break by shooting it with an egg from below. If you manage to bounce off of a Shy Guy, you can pass up through a semi-solid platform to where the Star is. However, if you somehow have no eggs or green watermelons on hand or in your inventory, then you'll have no way of breaking through the dirt and will be stuck. If you have not yet cleared the level, then you will not have the option to pause and quit the level and will need to reset the game.
- In 2-1, there's a (very well-hidden) bonus room in the final section of the level, immediately after dropping from the top of the third room back down to ground level. At the start of the room, there's a section with slow vertical auto-scrolling and a bunch of falling blocks. If you enter and exit the bonus room, then go back up to the top of the room where the falling blocks were, the blocks will all spawn at once (which looks silly and overloads the sprite count). The unwinnable part comes in if you then let the blocks fall while standing on them; depending on how they load and where the player stands, it's possible for them to fall in such a way that Yoshi ends up at the bottom of a pit that's too tall to jump out of.
- Mario 64 has all the fights against Bowser requiring you to throw him into bombs to hurt him. It's possible to run into the bombs yourself via long jumping, and doing this to every bomb in the arena makes the fight unwinnable. Note that hitting three bombs will do more damage than Mario can survive, requiring the player to collect coins from the aftermath of Bowser's flames to have enough health to destroy all five. The remake for the DS fixed this by always having a bomb respawn in another, random location if the last one was detonated.
- In Super Mario Galaxy 2, the second mission of Slimy Spring Galaxy requires you to do a point challenge that starts with a very steep one-way slide, but you get warped back to before it after the time for the challenge runs out. However, you can get yourself stuck if you jump back down the slide AFTER the Star appears.
- In the River Survival co-op mode, during the "Kamek's Curse" route, one of the primary hazards on the course is turbo ramps which launch the boat very far, forcing the players to reroute themselves to keep themselves on the river. If the players manage to launch themselves/inadvertently get launched at a precise angle, and then continue paddling in the direction which they are flying, they can actually fly so far off course that they will reach the cliffs overlooking the river, which have no collision with the boat. This results in the players falling out of the map and becoming trapped in a white void, where they are forced to wait until time runs out.
- Being a level-creating game, getting Mario stuck with no way out is prone to happen in Super Mario Maker. Hence, there is an option to pause the game and start over. (If you're playing someone else's course, Mario loses a life, then returns to the start. However, you can't exit a course if Mario isn't on the ground, which can force the player to wait several minutes for the time limit to run out before restarting.)
- The only way to kill a Boo in the game is to jump on it after paying for the full game. Why the requirement to have bought the full game was added is unusual, considering the first proper level with any Boo in it is past the levels you can play for free. The Toad Rally prevents this from being an issue by only allowing you to play in areas that you've beaten, but the Remix 10 mode doesn't have this filter, meaning if you haven't bought the full game yet and the interior area of world 5-3 "Boohind Lock and Key" is chosen as one of the 10 stages, you're stuck since there's no way to kill the Boo holding the key to open the door. If you were going for a 35-medal run, too bad.
- When you hammer Luigi into a slot on the beach or on the Oho Jee and Oho Jee mini-game islands, Luigi becomes a surfboard for Mario to ride. However, if you slide onto the beach and an enemy runs into you, just as Mario jumps off Luigi for Luigi to become normal again, both will be frozen in that position once the battle finishes and you have no choice but to reset due to the glitch.
- Happens in many, many ScareScraper games, mostly because a necessary key fails to spawn due to a well known glitch and the ghosts you need to defeat are on the other side of the door.
- Sometimes, a player with the key will leave during a game, making the level unwinnable for the other players.
- Also seemingly happened to some poor soul who saved and quit between the Tough Possessor and King Boo battles. The game counted the former as complete, but not the latter, meaning that whatever he did, the game would never progress to the final boss. Hear about this tale of woe here.
- Paper Mario is a buggy game, especially compared to its relatively polished successor. As such, there are a lot of ways to cause this, as demonstrated by this video. The methods outlined are:
- Playing through the game until Chapter 7, then going back to Mt. Lavalava. Normally the area is blocked off after it is finished, but by using a glitch it is possible to return and go through it all again. This brings up a save prompt, then the game tries to load a Chapter 8 Peach cutscene. Since one doesn't exist, the game is stuck on the establishing shot of Peach's and Bowser's castles floating in the air forever. If the player used that save prompt, the file is now useless; it will lead straight to this shot and never leave, to creepy effect.
- Shiver Mountain contains pillars holding an item. Taking them causes a wall to block Mario's path, and the wall can only be raised by placing another item in the pillar. If the player takes an item to lower a wall and then uses the above glitch to trigger the Chapter 7 Peach cutscene, they get warped to the front door of the Crystal Palace... which is on the other side of the wall.
- There's two springs and a Save Block in Mt. Lavalava. If the player jumps on the second spring, then does a well-spaced spin jump to hit the block, they can bring up the save prompt and control Mario at the same time. If the player has 1 HP and saves just as they are about to fall on a Spike Top, Mario will spawn, fall on the Spike Top, and die, causing an infinite death loop.
- Goompa is meant to be a Guest-Star Party Member, but it's possible to skip the scene where he leaves, causing him to stay in the party. However, he can only be changed while in a battle, as doing so outside will crash the game. In Chapter 7, Mario is trapped in Shiver City after he's accused of murdering the mayor. At this point, Mario needs to retrieve a warehouse key by swimming underwater with Sushie. Since there isn't any way to switch to another partner, the player is trapped.
- It's also possible to skip having Goompa as a temporary partner, leaving Mario with no one as a party member. The game... doesn't take this well, as it crashes within seconds whenever you attempt to enter the Toad Town Tunnels with no partner.
- Additionally, through careful management of Star Points, it's possible to hit the level cap early... but turns out that bosses still give out Star Points. If the player does it so that the next boss causes them to level up, the game effectiely becomes unwinnable as it's impossible to get past the stat screen, given that you can't increase a maxed stat (and all 3 are at that point).
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
- During Chapter 2, Mario and his party must escape from the Great Tree before a bomb goes off. Letting the timing run out will result in a Non-Standard Game Over. If you save the game with only a few seconds left, you'll end up trapped in a situation where the game over is impossible to avoid, as the timer will run out during a cutscene. If this happens, you'll need to start a new file.
- When Kamek enters a normal battle and messes around with your inventory, some of the effects he causes include removing all but six cards from your deck or changing every card you have into a certain attack until the end of the battle. The problem is that the game does not check to see if the cards you get are capable of beating the battle. So, for example, you might end up fighting flying enemies with only hammer cards. Since running and the ability to get new cards in battle are disabled, the only things you can do are either use up all your cards or reset the game.
- A softlock could happen late in the game due to a Game-Breaking Bug found in Shangri Spa, though this has since been fixed with an update. To proceed with the story, the player must bathe in four spas and stamp a stamp card for each spa to earn a VIP ticket. If a player receives the ticket, enters the area that requires it, and leaves, the ticket will be removed from their inventory. The game will now think that the player still needs to stamp their stamp card, even though they don't have the card either, and with no way to regain the VIP ticket or stamp card, there's no way to move forward. If you've saved after that, then there's no choice but to delete your file and start from the beginning.
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