GAME · 1996 · JAPAN
Super Mario 64
- Developer
- Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Platforms
- Nintendo 64, Wii U
66 archived facts 6 topics 2 sources Last reviewed Nov 2026
66 Interesting Facts About Super Mario 64
Interesting Facts (53)
- #001
While the game was still new and popular, rumors persisted that Luigi and Wario were in the game. Although these characters later appeared in the port Super Mario 64 DS (2004), these rumors were long proven false. However, in 2020 someone found Luigi deep within the code. He is unused and inaccessible in the game, but he exists in the code.
- #002
The sound of Boo's giggle was the sound effect used, sped up, for Bowser's laugh. When the sound is played at normal speed, a group of people laughing can be heard.
- #003
Normally, when you collect eight red coins in a level, the camera changes to show you where the star appears. However, due to a glitch in the game, this does not happen in Big Boo's Haunt.
- #004
Every object in the game has a shadow, even objects that would not normally cast one. This was done to help players judge depth in a 3D space.
- #005
A system glitch allows the player to pass the notorious staircase that requires 70 stars. By continuously long jumping, Mario will fly backwards until he finally reaches the top.
- #006
A sequel was planned for the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD), but production was scrapped due to the poor sales of the 64DD and a lack of progress in development. A demo was created but was never shown to the public. It is known that Luigi would have been a playable character and that a multiplayer feature would also have been included.
- #007
In an interview, Shigeru Miyamoto said that Luigi was in fact planned to be in Super Mario 64 from the beginning. Super Mario 64 was even briefly planned to be a multiplayer game. In the first prototype, Mario and Luigi could enter Peach's castle at different times and meet in the corridor. In the final game there is an option to repair the camera; this is a remnant of an early experiment in which Mario and Luigi could move apart from each other and remain visible on screen. Very early in development, Mario and Luigi ran together in a flat area and everything worked fine, until the developers began creating more complex terrain. Due to the Nintendo 64's hardware limitations, they concluded that they could either use only simple terrain OR remove Luigi entirely. And in the end Luigi was scrapped.
- #008
The game was going to have a cooperative play feature, but the idea was not fully implemented. If a player plugs a controller into the second port, they can control the camera during the final cutscene and credits.
- #009
Dorrie, a dinosaur living in the waters of Hazy Maze Cave, returned in New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64 DS, but her appearance was changed with the addition of glasses, likely to prevent children from being scared of the character, since her original appearance frightened some children.
- #010
MIPS is the name of the rabbit you must catch to obtain two of the stars in the castle's basement. The name is an abbreviation of million instructions per second and is the type of CPU used by the Nintendo 64.
- #011
The music used in Wet-Dry World and Hazy Maze Cave (and in some indoor sections of other stages) is a reworked version of the World 1, stage 2 version from the original Super Mario Bros.
- #012
Klepto, the vulture that appears in Shifting Sand Land, is based on the vulture enemies Necky from Donkey Kong Country (1994).
- #013
Many children, including Shigeru Miyamoto's own son, were brought in to test the game.
- #014
This is the second game in which the princess is called Peach, the first being Yoshi's Safari (1993). In Japan she had always been called Peach, and here Nintendo decided to refer to her by the same name in both countries.
- #015
Development began before the design of the Nintendo 64 was completed, and therefore staff often worked with keyboards and with controllers that were ironically designed to be played on Sega consoles.
- #016
According to Yoji Inagaki, the average Nintendo 64 game carried about 500 sound effects, compared with 1,200 for Ocarina of Time and 2,000 for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
- #017
Developers were embarrassed to learn that Sega held patents for cameras that change the point of view in games, patents first optimized for Virtua Racing (1992). These patents were invalidated after Sony and Nintendo challenged them in court in 1997.
- #018
The music for Cool, Cool Mountain and Princess Peach's Slide are all variations of the Bomb-omb Battlefield music.
- #019
Mario alone has more polygons than the entire exterior of Princess Peach's Castle. Polygons are the 'shapes' that make up objects in games.
- #020
In Whomp's Fortress there is a section of the tower wall that you can punch and break. A 1-Up mushroom is hidden there. You can also find this in Super Mario 64 DS (2004).
- #021
This is one of the few Nintendo 64 games that uses a "blinds" transition effect when you press the RESET button instead of immediately turning the game to black.
- #022
The game has a total of three Bowser fights.
- #023
Due to hardware limitations, Nintendo could not implement a separate world map for each mission as in the 2D Mario games. Instead, it had 15 large maps with multiple missions each, a tradition that has continued in nearly every 3D Mario game to this day.
- #024
Before Charles Martinet was cast to voice Mario, Mario had a high-pitched voice in the game's first prototype version, originally provided by an unknown voice actor.
- #025
It is the last original Super Mario video game released in the 20th century.
- #026
Because this was one of the first 3D platform video games, Nintendo had to experiment extensively and essentially invent the genre. One example is that they initially tried applying angled shadows cast to the sides of objects, but Nintendo found that players had difficulty determining exactly where they would land while jumping, so they made the shadows fall directly beneath the player to show exactly where they were above the ground while in the air. This is now a basic rule followed by nearly all 3D video games.
- #027
One of the game's greatest mysteries is the inscription on the star statue in the castle courtyard (World 5, near the entrance to Big Boo's Haunt; the same plaque also appears in Dodongo's Cavern in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time). The inscription reads "L is Real 2401" with "Eternal Star" below it. "Eternal Star" was the final board of Mario Party (1998). On July 25, 2020, the "L is Real 2401" mystery was solved: when the game's source code leaked online, it was discovered that a character model and sound file for Luigi were stored among the game's assets. The source code had leaked 24 years and 1 month after the game's release.
- #028
After you fall into the first Bowser level, he calls you "pal." This is a reference to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (1996), in which Bowser is Mario's ally.
- #029
Development began before the design of the Nintendo 64 was completed, and for this reason the team often worked with keyboards and, ironically, controllers designed for Sega consoles.
- #030
The developers were horrified when they learned that Sega held patents for cameras that change perspective in games; these patents had first been optimized for V.R.: Virtua Racing (1992). These patents were invalidated when Sony and Nintendo challenged them in court in 1997.
- #031
When the player collects 120 stars, they can access the cannon in the castle courtyard, which launches Mario onto the castle roof. There, a small cameo appearance by the dinosaur Yoshi is found; it is his first appearance in polygonal 3D. When spoken to, Yoshi congratulates Mario for rescuing the princess, delivers a short thank-you message from the developers, and grants the player 99 lives and an enhanced triple jump before disappearing into a waterfall. Yoshi also comments on how much time has passed since Mario's last adventure, a subtle nod to the previous Mario platform game "Super Mario World".
- #032
The music for Cool, Cool Mountain and Princess Peach's Slide are variations of the Bomb-omb Battlefield music.
- #033
Mario's total polygon count alone is greater than the entire exterior of Peach's Castle. Polygons are the 'shapes' that make up objects in games.
- #034
In Whomp's Fortress, there is a section of the tower wall that you can punch and break. A 1-Up mushroom is hidden there. You can also find this in Super Mario 64 DS (2004).
- #035
This is one of the few Nintendo 64 games that uses a 'shutter' transition effect when the RESET button is pressed, rather than cutting to black immediately to restart the game.
- #036
Due to hardware limitations, Nintendo could not implement a separate world map for each mission as in the 2D Mario games. So they made 15 large maps, each containing multiple missions; this is a tradition that has continued in nearly all 3D Mario games to this day.
- #037
Before Charles Martinet was brought in to voice Mario, in the game's early prototype version Mario had a high-pitched voice provided by an unknown voice actor.
- #038
Because this was one of the first 3D platform video games, Nintendo had to experiment a great deal and essentially invent the genre. One example of this is that they initially tried applying angled shadows that fell to the side of objects, but Nintendo realized this made it difficult for players to determine exactly where they would land when jumping; so they made the shadows fall directly beneath the player, showing exactly what they were above while in the air. This is now a fundamental rule that nearly all 3D video games follow.
- #039
The sound of the Boos in the game is actually Bowser's laugh sped up to a much higher pitch so that it sounds more ghostly and mischievous.
- #040
In the Shifting Sand Land level, the four pillars around the pyramid are a clever programming trick that uses the same texture as the pyramid itself to save memory.
- #041
Charles Martinet, Mario's iconic voice, improvised the line "It's-a me, Mario!" during the audition, and it became the standard for the character for decades.
- #042
The "L is Real 2401" mystery involving a blurry statue in the castle courtyard kept fans occupied for 24 years until a source code leak in 2020 confirmed that Luigi really was considered for the game.
- #043
The terrifying Piano in Big Boo's Haunt was inspired by a real incident at Nintendo in which an assistant director was startled by a loud sound while working late.
- #044
The sound of Mario burning his bottom on lava is the same effect as Bowser's falling-into-lava sound played at a different frequency.
- #045
Mario's movements and animations were refined for months before any level was built; a simple orange block was used to test his jumps and somersaults.
- #046
The chain chomp in Bob-omb Battlefield can actually break free from its post if it lunges three times while Mario is standing nearby.
- #047
In the Japanese version of the game, the Princess's voice is different at the end and she does not say "Thank you so much for saving me!" as in the English version.
- #048
The "Dire, Dire Docks" level contains a submarine belonging to Bowser; this submarine permanently disappears from the level once you complete the second Bowser mission.
- #049
"Maw-Ray" (the giant eel in Jolly Roger Bay) was one of the first 3D models created for the game, to test how large objects would move underwater.
- #050
If you wait on the title screen without pressing anything, Mario eventually falls asleep and starts talking in his sleep about pasta and pizza.
- #051
"The Impossible Coin" is a single coin accidentally placed inside a mountain on Tiny-Huge Island by the developers, and it was first collected by a player 18 years after the game's initial release.
- #052
The textures of the paintings Mario jumps into were created using photographs of real-life carpets and marble tiles, then heavily pixelated.
- #053
In the final Bowser level, there is a "Mysterious Goomba" that appears so far outside the map that killing or even seeing it is impossible without using specialized hacking tools.
Production Story (8)
- #054
Miyamoto considered building a Super NES title called Super Mario FX around the Super FX chip, with gameplay based on an entire world in miniature, like miniature trains. According to Star Fox engineer Dylan Cuthbert, Super Mario FX was not a game but the codename of the Super FX chip.
- #055
Miyamoto reworked the idea for the Nintendo 64, choosing that platform not for its greater power but because its controller offered more buttons for gameplay.
- #056
Takumi Kawagoe programmed the camera for Super Mario 64, applying what he had learned from working on the camera and cutscenes in Star Fox 2.
- #057
Before any levels existed for Super Mario 64, the development team tested and refined Mario's animations on a simple grid, prioritizing his movement.
- #058
Super Mario 64 was first run on an SGI Onyx emulator that emulated only the console's application programming interface, not its hardware.
- #059
Super Mario 64 was developed at the same time as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and because Ocarina of Time arrived more than two years later, some puzzles were taken from Super Mario 64 for Ocarina of Time.
- #060
Yoji Inagaki handled sound design for Super Mario 64, producing hundreds of sound effects, and both he and Koji Kondo considered music and sound effects equally important.
- #061
Nintendo brought in Software Creations to handle audio programming for Super Mario 64 using the N64 Sound Tools sound system, which became the standard sound driver for the Nintendo 64.
Behind the Scenes (1)
- #062
To help players judge depth, the Super Mario 64 team placed a faux shadow directly beneath each object regardless of the area's lighting; Yoshiaki Koizumi called this an "iron-clad necessity" that "might not be realistic, but it's much easier to play".
Characters & Cast (1)
- #063
Leslie Swan, then senior editor of Nintendo Power and English localizer for Super Mario 64, provided the voice of Princess Peach in the game.
Easter Eggs & References (2)
- #064
At the January 1993 Consumer Electronics Show, where Star Fox debuted, Nintendo's booth showed a talking 3D polygon animation of Mario's head.
- #065
After collecting 120 stars, the player can reach the cannon in the castle courtyard, which lets Mario get onto the castle roof. There the player can find a small cameo marking the first polygonal 3D appearance of the dinosaur Yoshi. When spoken to, Yoshi congratulates Mario on rescuing the princess, delivers a short thank-you message from the developers, and gives the player 99 1-Ups and an enhanced triple jump before disappearing into the waterfall. Yoshi also comments on how much time has passed since his last adventure with Mario, a subtle nod to the previous Mario platform game, "Super Mario World."
Deeper Meaning (1)
- #066
Big Boo's Haunt is the only level that does not share its music theme with another stage.
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Sources & editorial notes
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Super Mario 64 — Wikipedia
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