You probably haven’t seen this Super Mario Bros. 3 animation

An unexpected contextual slide frame

For each episode of The Simpsons I can recite from memory, I can still watch that show and stumble upon a dusty, hitherto undiscovered or unappreciated (by me) gag. Even if it’s just a sign in the background. That show was real good for a long time.

And while I obnoxiously profess the greatness of Resident Evil 4, I recently learned that I have played that game a million times without ever activating one of the contextual melee attacks, the suplex (kneecap a fool, then run up to them).

So I’ll let “Super Mario variety blog” Supper Mario Broth explain this rarely used animation: “In Super Mario Bros. 3, Hammer Mario can’t slide down slopes, since he retreats into his shell when you duck. However, a sliding sprite for Hammer Mario still exists in the code and can be seen in this bonus room in level 6-10. If Mario is already sliding when he touches the Hammer Suit, he will display Hammer Mario’s sliding animation.”

Also from Supper Mario Broth, a few cheat-y ways Nintendo does things. For example, hiding a signpost, the default readable, interactable object, behind a door as if you’re getting that message from the door. Or the Super Mario 64 DS mirror “reflection” just being a full, mirrored version of the character (hence Yoshi’s tongue shooting through the wall). Good blog, that.

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Steven Hansen
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