Trivia / Super Mario World

For trivia related to the 1991 cartoon, go to this page

---

General Trivia

• Blooper: The text from the cutscene after clearing a castle and after saving Peach only mentions Mario, even if the castle is cleared with Luigi. Super Mario Advance 2 corrects this by mentioning both Mario and Luigi.
• Creator Backlash: The game's character graphic designer, Shigefumi Hino, has admitted that he dislikes how Bowser looks in the game, stating that his green color palette was an oversight that he didn't catch at the time and that he feels bad that Bowser looks the way he does, given that he is a central character. This is why when it came time to develop Super Mario Maker a couple of decades later, Bowser's sprites would be redone from the ground up to be more accurate instead of using his pre-existing World sprites.
• Dueling Games: Everyone knows about the Mario-Sonic rivalry as the main front of the Nintendo-Sega Console Wars, but it was this game dueling with Sonic the Hedgehog that was the focus.
• Dummied Out: There are quite a few interesting unused bits leftover in the code:
  • A level consisting of a bunch of rotating blocks spelling out the word "TEST" and an arrow pointing into a Bottomless Pit. The only other thing it has is a hidden 1-Up, suggesting that the level was intended to test that mechanic in particular. Curiously, the vast majority of unused level slots point to this level.
  • A data flag for normal levels that would make them start with a "no Yoshi" sign, causing Mario to leave Yoshi outside much like he does with castles and ghost houses in the final game.
  • Some kind of flying cage thing intended for use in Auto Scrolling Levels.
  • Half-sized doors, both normal and hidden with P-switches, which can only be entered by Small Mario. ROM hacks, especially Kaizo-type hacks, would make much use of this one.
  • ? blocks containing stunned Koopas. These would eventually appear for real with the release of Super Mario Maker.
• First Appearance: Yoshi made his debut in this game, and so did enemies like Monty Moles, Chargin' Chucks and Wiggler.
• God Never Said That: The 2017 interview with Takashi Tezuka and Shigefumi Hino never confirmed that Mario is punching Yoshi in the head. It confirmed that this was the original intention, but also specifically confirmed that it was changed during development so that Mario is pointing instead. Unfortunately, misleading headlines reporting this interview resulted in Common Knowledge that Mario punching Yoshi was indeed always the case.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics:
  • The graphic style of the game has been used in at least seven games, each using the same sprite for Mario, but at the same time using different front facing graphics for Yoshi, and different sprites altogether for Bowser.
  • As of Super Mario Maker 2, Luigi has gotten a similar treatment, having seven sprite sets over the course of Super Mario World's style.
• Refitted for Sequel: Among the development files uncovered in the 2020 Gigaleak were tiles for a variant of Bullet Bill that takes up the entire screen. The idea would eventually be resurrected with the King Bill enemy in New Super Mario Bros. Wii nearly 20 years later.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Plenty regarding secret levels, usually involving the seemingly useless small island to the north of Donut Plains due to its closeness to the Top Secret Area.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game was originally planned to have a lot more in common with Super Mario Bros. 3. This included Toad Houses in the overworld◊ and items such as the Super Leaf◊. Additionally, most of the game's assets started off as redrawn versions of Super Mario Bros. 3 sprites before a desire to more greatly distinguish the game from its predecessor led to a major visual overhaul during development.
  • According to a 2017 interview with the game's developers, Mario would have punched Yoshi on the head to make his tongue go out or to breathe fire. Most of the team agreed that this would be too mean for Mario, so they changed it to him simply pointing instead◊. Many however, either by mistake or intentionally misinterpreted this as them confirming that Mario is in fact punching Yoshi in the final game.
  • On July 24, 2020, in what is known as the "Gigaleak", the source codes and prototypes of Nintendo's NES and SNES games were leaked to the public, including Super Mario World. These files, which stretch as far back as April 1989, include beta sprites for Yoshi, an elderly Yoshi who was supposed to be seen at Yoshi's House, sprites of Bowser outside of his Koopa Clown Car, sprites depicting what seems to be airships and submarines in the shape of Koopa Shells, and the mushroom-shaped beta overworld seen in pre-release material, among many others.

Random Trivia

• This is the first Shigeru Miyamoto's game when his name is credited as such, rather than using his Pen Name "Miyahon" he already used for years in order to keep his identity as a secret, once that his face was well-known starting the 1990s.

---