TOP 10 MARIO EASTER EGGS
With a series as quintessential and extensive as Mario, you’re bound to end up with some
enjoyable and flat out impressive easter eggs along the way.
Whether they’re direct allusions, intentional jokes popped in by developers or just straight
up flukes, the Mario games are chalk full of them, big and small.
So today, we’re counting down some of our favourites in our top 10 mario easter eggs.
Let’s jump in!
10 Cool Cool Mountain Race Once you collect all 120 stars and retry the
big penguin race in Cool Cool Mountain, there’s a small change this time around.
Or rather, an enormous one.
The penguin you go head to head with has grown significantly in size, due to being out of
shape.
Unfortunately for you, that doesn’t change much about his speed.
9 Secret Train Super Mario Galaxy seems to be chalk full
of easter eggs.
But more on that later.
One of the bigger ones though in the game is the Secret Train.
In the Toy Train Galaxy, beneath a platform, there’s a secret toy train tucked underneath.
It doesn’t do anything side from just, well, exist, but it’s a cool find regardless.
8 L Is Real 2401 What was once the topic of hot debate, this
easter egg had fans worked up over what this cryptic writing meant for Luigi.
In Super Mario 64, a game in which Luigi is absent from, there’s a statue of a giant
star in the Castle Courtyard, where the Boos will later reside.
The inscription on it is quite blurry but it appears to be L is Real 2401.
This led to speculation of L meaning luigi, and that 2401 correlated with a way to make
him playable in the game.
But eventually fans assumed it meant that Luigi was a character in paper mario, which
was released a day off from the number included on the statue - feb 5 2001.
7 I am Error This is a reference to the infamous line said
in Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, a line that is spoken by a villager in the town of
Ruto.
Although considered by many to be one of the biggest mistranslations in early NES games,
according to translator Clyde Mandelin, the Japanese version of the game had a similar
line.
Anyway, this has spawned references to this line in many other games including Super Paper
Mario.
When taking on the boss Fracktail, a giant robotic dragon, it’s hacked for a moment
and spouts gibberish.
It will eventually say “I am Error, press any key to restart.”
6 Planets There’s some big ol references to other
Nintendo games in Super Mario Galaxy via some of the planets featured in the game.
Specifically to Pokemon and Pikmin 2.
There’s a Pokeball shaped planets in the Buoy Base Galaxy, and in the Space Junk Galaxy,
a replica of Olimar’s spaceship in Pikmin 2 can be spotted, along with another sighting
in the ghostly galaxy.
5 Mario 64 - Mips the Rabbit Mips is a rabbit you can find in the basement
of Peach’s castle after you’ve acquired 15 power stars in the game.
Then again after you’ve collected 50.
Catch him and you’ll be rewarded with another power star.
So aside from the general usefulness of catching Mips, Mips was actually the first character
created by developers - aside from Mario - for the game, and was used in early simulations
of the game.
He’s named after the MIPS, microprocessor without interlocked pipeline stages.
It’s the type of processor used in the N64 console.
Plus, his dialogue is a reference to the white rabbit in alice in wonderland.
4 Hell Valley Sky Trees One of the more unsettling easter eggs on
our list is the Strange Alien creatures you can spot on the horizon in Super Mario Galaxy
2, otherwise known as the Hell Valley Sky Trees.
In the Shiverburn Galaxy, there’s a spot where you can go into first person and see
several figures chilling on top of the cliffs - you can’t reach them because they’ve
been rendered at a fixed distance and are out of bounds in terms of where you can move.
But these became a big hit on the Creepypasta Wiki, becoming known at Beyond Hell Valley,
and it’s also been noted they look a lot like the kodama spirits on Japanese folklore.
3 Minus World (Super Mario Bros) What would this list be without mentioning
one of the oldest Mario easter eggs in the franchise?
From the original NES game, theres a way to glitch your way through the Warp Zone - you
know, the place that exists at the end of World 1-2?
Anyway, through some maneuvering, you’ll eventually float over to the first open pipe
on the right and end up in Minus World.
It looks just like World 7-2 and is essentially an endless underwater stage- when you end
up going through the end pipe, you’re just brought back to the beginning of the stage.
2 Cameos Super Mario RPG aka Legend of the Seven Stars
was the first roleplaying game in the Mario franchise, and throughout Mario’s quest
to eliminate Smithy, the games antagonist, players run into a few familiar faces.
Or rather familiar slumbering ones.
There’s Link, who appears asleep in a bed next to yours in the Rosa Inn, and later,
Samus in the guest room in the Mushroom Kingdom castle.
The first doesn’t react when you try to wake him, but rather ends up cuing a melody
from the Zelda games.
And Samus?
“….I’m resting up for Mother Brain.”
Also, note, that you’ll only be able to see Samus after defeating Yaridovich, but
before going to Land’s End.
1 Shinning Reference in Super Mario Sunshine In Stephen King’s novel The Shinning, there’s
a moment when Dick Halloran, Wendy and Danny are all fleeing from the hotel when it’s
on fire.
During this, Dick spots, I quote, “a ghostly manta shape, floating away over the hotel.
It was paper thin, like a shadow, and then broke into smaller forms before turning into
smoke and drifting away.”
And turns out that scene from the book is re-created in Super Mario Sunshine when, Mario
on Sirena Beach during The Manta Storm, must fight what appears to be a shadowy manta,
and by defeating it, splits it into pieces.
The Pianta you speak to even describes it in a very similar way to the prose in the
novel.
Alright guys!
There we have it!
Whats your favourite easter egg in the franchise?
Which ones should have made our list?
Let us know in those comments below!
And make sure you hit those like and subscribe buttons if you dug this list!
but for now, I’ve been Kelly Paoli, this has been top 10 gaming and I will catch you
all in the next one.