Luigi’s Mansion was once planned as a 3D game

Luigi’s Mansion getting a long-overdue sequel on the 3DS was quite a surprise, but the reasoning for it caused an even bigger shock. The sequel came about after original Luigi’s Mansion stages were rebuilt on the handheld to test out the 3D. Why was that game chosen to test the new feature? Because the GameCube was originally intended to have optional 3D visuals and Luigi’s Mansion was developed with those capabilities in mind. The functional 3D version never left testing, but now Luigi can reach his full graphical potential in the sequel. bowser plush toy

Mario was once a bad guy

In Mario’s second ever gaming appearance, Donkey Kong Junior, the mustachioed star did something he’s never done since: played the bad guy. As punishment for his crimes in the first came, Donkey Kong has been imprisoned by the whip-wielding Mario. DK’s son tries his best to free him in spite of Mario’s deadly traps and utter disregard for Junior’s life. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has said he did this to show shades of grey in both Mario and DK, with neither being all bad or good.

Nintendo trademarked “It’s on like Donkey Kong”

Popularized by one-time gangsta rapper Ice Cube, “It’s on like Donkey Kong,” has now entered the popular lexicon. Back in 2010, in part to popularize the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns, Nintendo formally announced plans to register a trademark for the phrase. It now joins the ranks of “Let’s get ready to rumble!” (wait, can we be sued for writing that?). bowser plush toy

Nintendo cancelled a Mario volleyball game

Next Level Games has become one of Nintendos closest third party developers of late, creating Punch-Out!! for Wii and the upcoming Luigis Mansion sequel. The dev also created two of Marios sports games: the intense soccer titles Super Mario Strikers and Mario Strikers Charged. In 2011, it was revealed the team had worked on a volley ball game as well; unfortunately, it wasnt released. A short demo video is all thats left to prove it existed. bowser plush toy princess peach action figure

Bowser’s original name was King Koopa

The first Super Mario Bros introduced so much of Mario mythology, though some of it has been retroactively abandoned. For instance, arch nemesis Bowser was known as King Koopa, a fairly accurate translation of his Japanese name. He’s since become known as Bowser, though we suppose his title would remain King of the Koopas.

New Super Mario Bros Wii originally had a Chicken power-up

As seen in these official images leaked onto the web, Nintendo once played with the idea of a chicken suit transformation for the NSMB characters. Eventually Nintendo decided to use penguins instead, which we have to say is a little more dignified. bowser plush toy

“Yoshi” isn’t Yoshi’s full name

There are a lot of things we just sort of accept about Yoshi. For one, the fact that he hatches fully-formed out of the egg, complete with a built-in saddle. That, and we just sort of pretend every dinosaur that comes out of a polka-dotted egg is named “Yoshi,” even if that was the name of the guy that got dumped in a bottomless pit two levels back. We can ignore these existential questions because hey, it’s a video game. bowser plush toy

No one was really asking what Yoshi’s full name was, but apparently someone at Nintendo thought that was a more important issue to address than a dinosaur being born with shoes. An internal character guide unearthed by Blake Harris revealed something startling about Yoshi. bowser action figure

So, Yoshi’s full name is… “T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas.” The T. is left ambiguous, though we could guess it stands for “Transportation” or “Tyrannosaurus” or “Travis.”

This has never been referenced by any official Nintendo game, but the fact of the matter is it’s still on an official Nintendo document. Of course, if everything here is true, that would also mean that Mario really is a member of the species “homo nintendonus,” in which case we’d have a lot more questions. bowser plush toy

The levels in Super Mario Bros. Â were designed by hand on graph paper.

The tiny team of designers responsible for the creation of Super Mario Bros. on the NES, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, drew the levels on “huge pieces” of graph paper to deliver to the programming team.

1) When Mario gets a regular moon, he uses one of three hand gestures that reference previous Mario games. He’ll either throw a peace sign from Mario 64, an open palm from Mario Sunshine, or a closed fist from Mario Galaxy. bowser plush toy

12) Almost every outfit Mario wears is a reference to something in Mario’s past, whether it’s really old Super Game Boy commercials, games Mario has once appeared in, or even wacky 3DS ads.

13) Every time Mario Takes part in a mini-game such as jump roping or volleyball, a tiny picture of Mr. Game and Watch accompanies it, representing that challenge.

14) New Donk City includes countless references to the Donkey Kong games, such as stores being named after Diddy Kong, or the fact that every street name is the character from the series. Even cooler is that the cars all have Donkey Kong’s original release printed on them. bowser plush toy

15) If Mario does something out of the ordinary, NPCs will occasionally reward you with special text boxes. These stem from acts like jumping on a sphinx’s head, breaking this poor man’s RC car, or even ignoring boss fights.

16) Mario can ground pound into tubes to enter them faster. It even plays a sped-up tube entrance jingle when you do this. bowser plush toy