Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels, Issue 1, Week 36/2018

Welcome, Supper Players, Broth Siblings and Supperstars, to the first issue of the Patreon-exclusive Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels feature! Thank you so much for your support! I hope you will enjoy the facts and findings I will detail in this issue. 

Before I begin, a few remarks on the format of the article series:

• Unlike on the main blog and Twitter, I will not specifically denote the source of images if that source is myself, as due to the large amount of images this would result in many redundant "Source: Supper Mario Broth" attributions. If no source is indicated within or directly below an image, and if the image is not simply a zoomed-in or cropped version of another image earlier in the article, I have created it myself.  
• If you have questions about how exactly I have created an image (e.g. emulators and editing programs used) simply leave a comment on this post with your question. I will reply to all comments on Patreon posts as promptly as possible. Your feedback is very important to me.
• If you have any comments or criticisms on the content or presentation of this feature, I would love to hear them. I will read and reply to all comments and incorporate the suggestions within them into my work. Please remember: if something is in need of improvement, telling me will result in me improving it! 

Now, let us enter a realm of Mario facts pushing the limits of obscurity.
This is Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels.

Poison Fogg and His Mistranslated Demo Friends

Between 2001 and 2006, Nintendo released a series of 35 Gamecube discs intended to be used for demo kiosks, known collectively as the Interactive Multi Game Demo Disc series. One of these, the October 1st, 2004 "Interactive Multi Game Demo Disc v18", contained a demo of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door that, unlike many other demos present in this series, was not truncated from the game's finished release, but built from a prototype version.

The internal date in the demo is June 21st 2004, which is almost exactly one month before the Japanese release on July 22nd of that year, so the prototype is very close to the release version. However, there are differences, especially with the localization. One of the big differences in regards to story that was made in the finished localization was to remove almost all references to "Goomelda", who in the demo is stated to be Goombella's hero.

The only reference left is in Grifty's tales, where he mentions "a wise Goomba" as one of the four legendary heroes. Goomelda was almost certainly supposed to be that character, and judging by the prominence of the description, had a more important role in the story.

Normally, the demo is very limited, only allowing access to Petal Meadows (called "Star Crystal Field" and "Petal Plains" at different points in the demo), Hooktail Castle, and the Great Boggly Tree. Attempting to exit any of the areas results in the screen fading out and Mario simply walking back in. As such, the enemies that can be fought are few in number. 

Still, even with the enemies on display, some of the translations do not match up with the final version.

The Dull Bones and Red Bones enemies are called "Koopa Skeleton" and "Red Koopa Skeleton", respectively, despite the Dry Bones name going back as far as Super Mario Bros. 3, which should have made it familiar to the localization team. 

The X-Nauts are named Boomer Ganger. This appears to be some play on words with "boomerang", which is peculiar as X-Nauts are not associated with them. You may assume this might simply be a case of direct translation from Japanese, but the Japanese name for them simply translates to "foot soldier".

As luck would have it, it is possible to use Action Replay codes that unlock all entries in the Tattle Log in the finished game on the demo, as well, presumably due to the relevant code being unchanged before release.

I have used those codes and viewed the normally entirely inaccessible Tattle Log entries for enemies not encounterable in the demo. Most of them are left untranslated, for obvious reasons, however, one of them that should logically have been untouched was translated.

The Poison Puff, an enemy exclusive to the Pit of 100 Trials and absent from the demo, is translated as "Poison Fogg". Without the lucky coincidence of the cheat code still working, the Poison Fogg would have been forever hidden.

The Curious Case of Luigi's Two Passports

The 1993 educational game Mario is Missing has had a large amount of advertising in the United States, appearing not only in Nintendo-focused magazines, but in all manner of gaming publications. As I compared the different ads, I have noticed one detail. Even though what appears to be the same prop of Luigi's passport is reused in two separate ads, it is actually either two different props, or one prop edited to look like two.

The passports appear, at the first glance, to be identical. However, look closely at Luigi's photo. In the left ad, it is glued to the passport to cover the black border; in the right, is it within the border. But the most important thing here are the signatures. For an unknown reason, the advertisers decided to use different signatures for the two ads.

Note the shape of the "g" which differs the most between the two. The passport seems identical otherwise, so either there were two different photo cards that were swapped between making the ads or two different photo cards were edited into two slightly different photos of the same prop in post-production. Either way, I have failed to find a logical explanation behind this decision.  

RoboCop's Unauthorized Mario Reference

In 1988, RoboCop for the Game Boy was released by Ocean Software. Here is a print ad for it.

I first encountered this ad in an Ocean Software print catalog, but it was too low-resolution to make out the picture within the Game Boy's screen. After searching other magazines and finding a full-page copy in an issue of GamePro, my suspicions were confirmed.

It was Mario. Why Ocean Software decided to put a tiny, hard-to-see picture of Mario within an ad for a game based on an ostensibly more mature franchise such as RoboCop is unclear. Even more unclear is why they would risk being sued by Nintendo, as the company was never licensed to use Mario's likeness in advertising.

The Rules Governing Super Mario Bros. Brick Blocks

Have you ever noticed that Brick Blocks are arranged differently in aboveground levels in Super Mario Bros. than in underground levels?

Note how in aboveground levels, Brick Blocks appear adjacent to Question Blocks, and how they are never stacked on top of each other, instead only building horizontal rows.

Conversely, in underground levels, Brick Blocks are very often stacked on top of each other, building entire walls, but never appear adjacent to Question Blocks. Instead, Question Blocks only touch other Question Blocks.

This rule is not broken in any of the game's levels. You may verify this yourself using the maps on vgmaps.com. Of course, pointing out that there is a rule is only half of a discovery. The other half is understanding why the rule is there to begin with. It all falls into place when we reach the near-end of the game: Level 8-3. Please take a close look:

Do you see the short bright line across the background above Mario? That's a Brick Block against a brick background. The central point that needs to be understood is that Brick Blocks in aboveground stages use a tile that has a line of bright pixels on top, while Brick Blocks in underground stages use a recolored version of the brick background, without a bright line. Scroll upward to look at the screenshots again and you will see what I mean.

Now we can recognize why the Brick Blocks behave differently. If they were stacked in aboveground areas, the bright tops would result in unappealing horizontal lines running through the structures. Question Blocks are designed to appear flush with aboveground Brick Blocks, but stick out one pixel less when placed next to underground ones, which is why they appear isolated in underground levels.

Gender-Flipping Celestial Bodies

In Mario Party 6, the game is hosted by Brighton, a personification of the Sun, and Twila, a personification of the Moon. As their names already suggest, and as is quickly found out in dialogue, Brighton is male while Twila is female.

However, this is not true in every version of the game. Below are screenshots of the German version.

Before I explain what is going on, I would like to inform those readers who are not yet aware that I am a native speaker of German. I do not often refer to my own expertise on something, as I prefer to offer easily verified proofs instead, but this time, I can say that I am definitely qualified to talk about the German language. If you doubt my claims, simply find a German native speaker you trust and that person will be able to corroborate my information.

In the German version, Twila is male while Brighton is female. The reason for this swap lies with a linguistic concept called "grammatical gender". While English and Japanese do not have it, many other languages in the world, including French, Spanish, Russian and German, do. Grammatical gender decides what pronouns inanimate objects receive. In English, all inanimate objects are referred to as "it". In languages with grammatical gender, objects can be "he", "she" or "it" depending on the specific noun.

The grammatical gender of the word "sun" in German, "Sonne", is female, while that of "moon", "Mond", is male. The German localization team had decided to make the characters' genders match the objects they represent. Thus, Brighton is called Sonnja and is female, while Twila is called Raimond and is male.

In the screenshots above, you can see them referring to themselves with gendered articles. "Der", the masculine gendered article, is used by Twila, while "die", the feminine gendered article, is used by Brighton.

A Comprehensive Guide to Chocolate Island 2

The Chocolate Island 2 level in Super Mario World is one of the most unique levels in any Mario 2D platformer due to the way its branches split based on multiple factors such as coins and Dragon Coins collected and time remaining. If you ever wanted to know the specifics of what room Mario warps to under which conditions, this guide is for you.

It all starts with a three-way fork based on how many coins are collected in the first area. Note that Dino Torches swallowed by Yoshi count as coins, and it is very difficult to get the amount of coins required to get to the Flying Area without utilizing this and eating Dino Torches.

After going through the first pipe, the next fork is determined by your speed. Also note that the Red Paratroopa area does not contain a Dragon Coin, so entering it locks you out of accessing the Final Dragon Coin area at the third fork.

The easiest way to access the area with the secret exit is to bring Yoshi into the level, run as fast as possible through the first area, enter the Red Paratroopa area, and jump across the platforms while utilizing the invincibility frames given by Yoshi if you hit a Paratroopa in midair. This should result in enough speed to reach the second pipe in time. Finally, the third fork is decided by counting your Dragon Coins. It is only possible to collect four Dragon Coins if the Red Paratroopa area is not entered.

Both the Regular Exit area and the Final Dragon Coin area contain Goal Tapes that open up a path to Chocolate Island 3, while the secret exit opens up a path to Chocolate Secret. I hope this guide can be helpful.

The Twitchy, Glitchy Sky Station Propeller

In Super Mario Galaxy 2, if you go to Sky Station Galaxy's second mission, Storming the Sky Fleet, and play through it until you land on this green platform - 

- then turn around in the direction Mario came flying in from and go into first-person view, you will see a giant propeller. However, if you look closely, you will notice that its animation is glitched.

Instead of rotating smoothly around the center, the center experiences a sudden jerk every time there is a full rotation. If you think this is merely the GIF looping in an unfortunate way, please watch the HUD elements on the left. They loop once for every two times the jerking motion happens, so you can be sure that motion is in fact visible in the game.  

A Mysterious Credit in Mario Party 4

Mario Party 4 contains a 1-on-3 minigame called Candlelight Flight. This is what the playing field looks like:

Note the mosaic with the moon in the top center. Extracting the texture for this mosaic shows that there is a portion that we do not see in-game, containing an attribution of some kind:

"Datacraft Co. Ltd." does not appear to be a company that has any public ties with Nintendo. Neither does it appear anywhere within Mario Party 4's credits. Here is information about the company found in a business register:

It could be that Datacraft Co., Ltd. was commissioned by Nintendo to create graphics without being openly credited. Of note is that the company's logo is a moon, which is exactly what is featured in the graphic containing the attribution. Unfortunately, my investigation had to end here, as I do not speak Japanese. If any patron reading this speaks Japanese and would like to help me investigate this matter further, please contact me over Patreon, Twitter or Tumblr.

An Attempt at Mapping Out the Sand Bird 

The Sand Bird is an important part of the story of Gelato Beach in Super Mario Sunshine. Three of the level's eight Shine Sprites relate directly to it. Despite this, the Sand Bird does not have official art.

I have decided to take it upon myself to try to recreate the Sand Bird as accurately as possible in pixel art, to create a image that could be used in lieu of official art.

I am offering this artwork into the public domain. If you wish to use it in your projects, you may do so without crediting me. I hope that it is accurate enough to serve as a replacement of official artwork.

What Supper Mario Broth's Carrot Could Have Been

In a patron-exclusive article published earlier this week, I talked about the story behind choosing the Supper Mario Broth logo. However, while a carrot is a very good representation of the concept of "supper" and "broth", the nature of the blog as a collection of obscure content raises the question of whether there are other carrots in the Mario franchise that are more obscure than the widely-known Carrot power-up from Super Mario Land 2.

These carrots are likely to not have been seen by many people playing Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, especially if they are good at the game. The only way to see them is to fail the Giga Carrot eating minigame event during the story, whereupon the Wiggler will force Bowser to eat a pile of small carrots instead. 

There are also these good and evil carrots from the Rockin' Raceway minigame in Mario Party 3 (left) and its remake in Mario Party: The Top 100 (right).

The Carrot from Super Mario Land 2 also reappears in a redesigned form in the Japanese-only Mario Kart Arcade GP DX. 

However, in the end I am still glad I have stuck with the original colorized Carrot through all these years. I have built up a sentimental attachment to it.

This concludes this week's Supper Mario Broth: The Lost Levels. Thank you again for your support, without which I would not have had the time and the Internet connection needed to research all these topics. Please consider leaving feedback - I am doing it for you, and only you know what I should add, remove or modify to make this article series the best it can be!

Please join me next week for Issue 2, featuring such topics as:

• What is Big Yoshi's Real Name?
• Luigi's Country-Dependent, Color-Changing Hat
• Two topics revolving around 3D model reuse across games suggested by Supperstar patron Kit Sovereign

Thank you very much for reading.