Super Mario 3D World’s Double Mario power was an accident

And other tidbits from the development team

The end of the recent Iwata Asks about Super Mario 3D World made it clear that more Super Mario Galaxy is a definite possibility, which was probably the biggest news of the piece — but there are other behind-the-scenes tidbits worth highlighting. Here are some of my favorites:

• Before the Cat Mario power-up was fully realized, characters would run around on all fours in their normal costumes. “I became really worried when I saw that,” said producer Yoshiaki Koizumi. “I couldn’t keep my eyes on Princess Peach! It was like a scene from a horror movie.”
• The Double Mario concept was a happy accident. The team had previously thought that controlling multiple characters at once would prove too challenging for players, but when “a staff member made a mistake with the placement tool and put in two player Marios,” the end result turned out to be surprisingly great.
• Talking about how cute Cat Toad is compared to his normal plain-looking self, Nintendo president Shigeru Iwata said “Yeah. It may be rude to his fans to say it like this, but Toad is a surprisingly popular character.” Poor Toad.
• We already knew that Super Mario Galaxy‘s Rosalina is an unlockable character, but apparently she can turn into a black cat using the cat power-up.
• The Luigi Bros. arcade game can be unlocked immediately for players with New Super Luigi U save data. Also, there are hidden pixel Luigis running around 3D World.
• There’s been a desire to have Mario and Luigi together in a 3D game like this since Super Mario 64. When we made the first prototype, Mario and Luigi were on a flat field,” explained Koizumi. “We ran it that way, but when we made the landforms, because of hardware limitations we had a choice between cutting Luigi or making more elaborate landforms. Then, in tears, we had to ask Luigi to leave.”

Above all else, I think director Kenta Motokura’s policy of “Let’s put everything in” best sums up why Super Mario 3D World looks like such a return to form. Only a week to go.

Iwata Asks [Nintendo]