Super Mario All-Stars (SNES)/Unused Graphics
This is a sub-page of Super Mario All-Stars (SNES).
Interestingly, unlike most SNES games, all of the graphics data is uncompressed, making unused graphics pretty easy to find.
Contents
General
Content not specific to any particular game.
Unused Nintendo Logo
This alternate version of the Nintendo logo can be found among the sprite graphics for Super Mario Bros. Unlike the final version, the racetrack surrounding the text is less round, and the logo isn't paired with a giant Mario coin.
Placeholder Text
Some image banks in the ROM have placeholder text that marks where graphics will be loaded in-game.
| Before | After |
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The black text box is プレイヤー, translated as "Player", marking where the Player graphics are stored in VRAM. The three orange tiles are パワ床 (POW Block), スイショウ (Crystal), and フラスコ (Flask), which matches the graphics loaded here, but in the wrong order.
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Taken from the Battle Mode tile bank. Again, the black box is プレイヤー (Player), marking where Mario and Luigi's graphics are stored.
| Before | After |
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From the Super Mario Bros. 3 tileset, this text translates as "Mario, Luigi" and denotes the location of the player graphics.
| Before | After |
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This text block appears in both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. ＢＧカキカエ エリア translates as "BG Transfer Area", and is used to indicate the location of animated background tiles in VRAM.
| Before | After |
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Hopefully this doesn't need translating. "PLAYER" marks the slot for player graphics in the Super Mario Bros. and Lost Levels ending sequence.
Unused Pause Screen Option
Found in all versions of All-Stars, this text is located with the rest of the pause menu graphics. またもうやめ translates as "Take a Break". What this would actually do is unknown, though this may be similar to how later Nintendo games (Wii era onwards, plus the game where the idea originated - EarthBound) would occasionally suggest you take a break.
Super Mario Bros.
Yes, even this port has unused graphics.
Large Text
Ending text graphics which appear after the Princess Toadstool sprites. This is supposed to be for...well, The End. Given the different sizes, it was probably supposed to be animated.
This is what it would look like.
A "PAUSE" graphic which might have been used before the save menu was implemented.
Mario
This page appears to have been used as a "scratch pad" for testing multiple variations of some common Mario poses. None of these graphics are used by the game itself. The red and blue sections of the palette are swapped compared to the final version. This color scheme was used in Nintendo Power video previews and can be seen in screenshots on the back of the North American box.
Other Characters
| Early | Final |
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An early Mushroom Retainer, found in the main enemy graphics bank. This was likely used before the unique "castle clear" cutscenes were implemented. Only the top half of the second frame was cleaned up and reused in the final game.
An early Princess Toadstool. She's quite short here, much like her original Super Mario Bros. counterpart.
Misc.
16-bit renditions of the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros. tiles, and a unique ground tile not found in the original game.
A copy of the end-of-level castle that is only loaded in underground areas. Of course, the end of the underground levels is always set in the overworld, so the game never uses these. And even if it did, it would be unnoticeable because these tiles are identical to the regular castle graphics.
This unique brick block appears multiple times in the graphics bank, but it's not clear what it was made for.
Corner tiles for the castle bricks.
Sea coral mixed with brown rocks. The palette row that is used by the normal coral blocks also hold duplicates of the colors used by the background rocks, logically intended for this sprite. It's not easy to point out where it would go, and it's unlikely that it would be part of the background layer.
An alternate sea coral. What makes it more interesting is that it's animated, unlike the coral block used in the final!
Backgrounds
This star shows up in the tiles for both the Mario and Luigi bonus room backgrounds.
This graphic appears among the tiles for the rocks/mountains background like the one seen in World 2-1 in Super Mario Bros.. It also appears in between the tiles for World 8-3's background. This graphic was used to create a horizontal strip of dirt at the very bottom of the screen, which can be seen in a pre-release image.
This tile was made with the same intention as the one above, but for underground levels. Likewise, it did also appear in pre-release material.
The second unused piece of the underground background is a little pipe sticking out from the rocks.
A wall of partially destroyed bricks for the underwater portion of Bowser's castle.
The tiles highlighted here are never seen in any underwater level.
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
The Super Mario Bros. graphic set contains tiles for an early Super Mario Bros. 2 logo that is much closer to the original FDS style than the final All-Stars one: the letters are taller, the "FOR SUPER PLAYERS" subtitle is missing, and the star (indicating how many times you've beaten World 8-4) is present.
A mockup of what the logo would look like with the above tiles.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Full sprite sheets for the four playable characters in an earlier state exist in the game. The greatest difference is that the small forms retain their big heads and all forms retain the 2-frame walk cycle, both from the NES version.
Mario
The big Mario sprites are nearly identical to what is seen in-game, albeit somewhat incomplete. While some have a blue outline in a few spots, one of them has Mario's shoes in one shade of red, revealing that the new sprites were painted over the NES originals. The darkest shade of blue also matches with the NES sprite.
Luigi
Like Mario, Luigi looks very similar to his final design.
Princess Toadstool
The Princess suffered the most changes from the bunch. Here she looks much closer to how she did in the original game, and curiously her small sprite also looks similar to her unused sprite from Super Mario Bros. (see above).
Toad
Toad had some little changes here and there. His sprite for the Player Select screen has his pants colored red and his shoes blue for some reason.
Enemies
The bug that affected all animated graphics in the NES version still plagues the Albatoss in All-Stars, leaving its last frame unseen.
Misc.
These slot graphics are based on the NES version, but the 7 is new! These were discarded for the larger slot icons.
A tomato that should've appeared in Wart's boss chamber, as it does in the NES version. Instead, it's replaced by the cabbage-looking thing from World 2.
A fire sprite very similar to the NES version. The final game has an animated spinning fireball instead.
Graphics ported directly from the NES version, unmodified.
The mountain/cavern tiles from the NES version, revamped for All-Stars, but left unused in favor of a new and more detailed design.
This was the block that composed the icebergs in the NES version. It suffered the same treatment as the cavern tiles above.
This graphic vaguely resembles the wooden tiles from the "inside tree" sections of World 5 in the original game.
A somewhat crudely-drawn block.
This could be an early version of the brick pattern seen in tower sections, based more closely on the design from the NES version.
A static whale tail.
An alternate design of the shell, looking very close to the sprite from the NES version.
Backgrounds
The green leaves from regular overworld levels, but with no plantlife on top.
Wart's Room Tiles
Via the Debug Mode, it's possible to see a wall of otherwise-unused colored bricks placed to the right of Wart's chamber. These are styled after the bricks used in the NES version, and were replaced with a completely different design in All-Stars - though evidently not completely replaced.
Super Mario Bros. 3
Most of these are leftovers or updated versions of unused graphics from the NES version.
Large Text
Unused "PAUSE" text that was likely used before the save menu was implemented. While the P and U are used for the "TIME UP" message, the A, S, and duplicate E are not used anywhere.
Earlier versions of the "TIME UP" and "PAUSE" messages, which appear to be simply reshaded from the NES version. The palette used in the final doesn't appear to fit these older graphics too well.
Mario & Luigi
The unused animations of Mario walking left/right and up on the map were updated for All-Stars. Again, the first frame from each is used during the game over sequence, but the final frames aren't.
Updated Luigi versions of the unused map sprites. Unlike Mario, neither of the frames for either direction are used, due to recoloured Mario sprites still being used when Luigi gets sent back to the START space during a Game Over.
The unused alternate version of the small Mario sprite used for the mini-game intros was curiously updated here.
Just as in the original game, this graphic of Hammer Mario sliding can only be seen in one place: the bonus room of World 6-10. If you're sliding while grabbing the Hammer Suit power-up, you'll continue sliding as Hammer Mario.
Princess Toadstool
Graphics for Princess Toadstool that are slightly different to the ones used in-game: the shape of her arms, torso, and hair; the color of her crown being pure white; and the walking animation which has her hair swaying and her arms moving.
Enemies
This Super Mario World-styled Koopa Troopa appears after the 2-player mini-game graphics, but it isn't a straight port! The shading is more detailed in this sprite compared to the World version, and the arms have been redrawn.
| Super Mario Bros. 3 | Super Mario All-Stars |
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The original Spiny Cheep-Cheep graphics are still in the ROM. It was later changed to a blue color and then redrawn in All-Stars.
A second frame for the Fire Snake's tail. While the equivalent frame was used in the NES version, All-Stars only uses the first frame, horizontally flipping it to "animate" it.
| Unused | Used |
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An unused alternate head graphic for the Fire Snake, found alongside the graphics for the Fire Chomp and Parabeetle. Compared to the used graphic, the unused one is more faithful to the original NES sprite.
Misc.
This Hammer Bros. Suit sprite - noticeably orangier than either the (used) in-level or chest prize/map inventory variants - is stored in the graphics bank with the rest of the items that Princess Peach can give the player as a gift for beating a world. However, she only gives Jugem's Clouds, Music Boxes, and P-Wings, so this graphic is never actually seen.
The chest you get after beating the Hammer Bros., but it's differently shaded than the one used in-game.
A very simple and flat version of the spade card icon in the world map.
The other unused map sprites from the NES version have been removed. The map tileset was definitely cleaned up the most.
A donut block. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 would later utilize them in some World-e levels.
A revamped version of the Toad House walls from the NES version. An extremely similar block actually is used as part of the 2-Player Battle Mode, with only a minimal difference in its shading.
Alternate water graphics. The animated water tide can only be seen in one place: Unused Level 8, making it technically unused.
Most of the graphics from the cut bonus games are still in the ROM, unchanged, though the Koopa Troopa and Hammer Bro hosts are not present.
Several graphics that were unused in the NES version still linger in All-Stars, unchanged and unused here too.
That also includes four of the six end-of-level outlines. The Plains and Clouds outlines have been overwritten with other graphics.
Backgrounds
This is found among the tiles for the underwater background. Looks like sand, could've been used on the bottommost part of the background, like some other unused background parts.
These 8×8 tiles are supposed to go on the bottom part of the Fortress background, but the pillars reach down to the lowest part of the screen, leaving no room for it to be seen in-game. It can be seen in promotional footage, though.
These appear right after the graphics for the dark mountains background used for the tank/battleship levels in World 8. The tiles on the left seem to depict parts of the cap and stem of a giant mushroom, while the tiles on the right are likely a sky gradient.
Plains
This starts a trend that shows up in the other tilesets: the removal of foreground scenery. The big clouds seen in the NES version have been totally removed from the Plains levels, but they've been updated with new shading!
Bizarrely, the double-layered bushes, unused in the NES version, were updated for All-Stars! Whoever was in charge of redrawing the graphics must have thought these tiles were used in-game.
The original large bushes from the NES version have also been revamped for All-Stars, but lost their place in the game to a more plastic design with stripes instead of a checkered pattern.
Grasslands
The small and large clouds still appear in the tileset, updated but unused.
Slopes on water surface.
These two 8x8 tiles seem to be the only remnants of an updated design that resembled the NES version more closely.
The corner pieces that weren't used in the NES version are still in the tileset. They haven't been updated at all, and still use a 4-color palette!
Higher Plains
The neat spiral clouds of the NES version were updated for All-Stars, along with the unused cloud platforms. The original hills were changed to a different design, but the original tiles were updated and are still in the tileset.
Two frames for an animated cloud platform. The first frame is identical to the other regular static cloud platforms.
Small versions of the wooden platforms, revamped from the NES version. Unused there, unused here as well.
These tiles belong to two of the existing scenery bush designs. One can judge that they were made to create smooth divisions, but only one works for that purpose. See how it looks when applied:
| Unused | Used |
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Caves
No more small clouds for the cave levels.
Unused slopes for underwater caves, and one gentle slope made for "outside" portions, like in World 1-5. You'd think these would be used somewhere, but none of the existing levels give them the opportunity.
A whole chunk of cave tiles are arranged in the same exact way as they were in the graphics bank of the original Super Mario Bros. 3, likely because they were ported over directly. While the design seen in-game is much more detailed in texture, this one odd 8x8 tile is the only remnant of the checkered design from the NES version.
Desert
The foreground pyramid has been redrawn. Doesn't mean it's used, but there it is.
Ice
A big cloud. Think it appears in the SNES version? Please check previous sections for answer.
Sky
The cloud corner tiles of Unused Level 15 remain in the tileset, and remain used in the All-Stars version of the level, although they're glitchy because they still have a 4-color palette.
Castle
This mysterious unused border/frame was never deleted when the tileset was ported over. Odd.
Airship
The crossbeams in airship levels have graphics to allow for a greater variety of shapes, but half of them are left unused.
World 5
The tower map icon for World 5. This unused graphic has the grass texture around it and probably is what you were meant to see, but the tower graphic that appears in-game has its empty space completely... well, empty. This oversight was carried over to Super Mario Advance 4 as well!
| Unused | Used |
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World 8
The "air force" on the map should have fire coming out of its back.
The skulls that decorate the World 8 map, only slightly altered from the NES version.
Bowser's Castle in the world map, but with different shading and lacking the terrain texture behind it. It also uses different colors for the tower roofs, making them look miscolored when the castle's regular palette is applied.
These graphics are the walls and towers that surround Bowser's Castle, except here they look closer to their NES version. None of the existing palettes seem to suit this version. The graphics got a general touch-up for the final release.
The unused wheel, spikes, and propeller were updated as well.
An early version of the murky water seen in the battleship level, directly based off of the NES version. The final game uses a completely new graphic instead.
This particular ? Block was originally used in World 8 of the NES version for the tank/battleship levels. Due to the restructuring of graphics in VRAM, it goes unused in All-Stars. Note the kinder, gentler look the updated block received.
Title Screen
A spiral cloud, found in the graphics for the title screen. It's different from the used cloud graphic in that this one has outlines and no shadow behind.
Tiles for shadows cast by the decorational bushes, like in the NES version. Below is a mockup of how it would look in-game:
| Unused | Used |
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They were used at one point in development, as seen in a magazine picture.
