Super Mario Sunshine/Unused or Unseen Map Geometry

This is a sub-page of Super Mario Sunshine.

All levels in Super Mario Sunshine have some sort of view of the other areas or islands, but some of the level geometry can't be seen in normal play.

Main Menu

File Select Pier

In the scene used for the File Select menu, a rudimentary pier is hidden just offscreen. Oddly enough, it has collision, and thus can be walked on.

Delfino Airstrip

Duplicate Waiting Room

Delfino Airstrip has a duplicate, slightly different waiting room above the map. This is how the game handles separate interior areas in Delfino Plaza; by warping Mario from the main map to a room above the map. However, This particular room is unused with no warps to access it, with the used waiting room being part of the main map. This waiting room has more detail than the used version, as well as having different lighting. Some differences include papers and pencils, a passport stamp, more flowers, and various crafts.

First Delfino Airstrip Visit	Return to Delfino Airstrip

The duplicate waiting room can only be accessed using either rocket storage or turbo storage, and does not render in-game. If the room is accessed during the first Delfino Airstrip visit (either before or after obtaining F.L.U.D.D.), only two breakable doors sit inside. However, during second visit, the room contains a pair of doors, two coins, and a pair of Soarin' Stus that flutter back and forth on a rail. The doors in the duplicate room are linked with the doors in the accessable waiting room, so if one pair is destroyed by the Turbo Nozzle in either waiting rooms, the corresponding doors are also destroyed.

• It's possible to attempt to break the doors using the Turbo Nozzle during the first Delfino Airstrip visit, though the game crashes when breaking them.

Delfino Plaza

There are a few differences between the playable map of Delfino Plaza, and the scaled-down map of Delfino Plaza that's viewable from the Airstrip:

• All the normal palm trees were replaced with banana palm trees.
• The island with a pipe does not have a pipe.
• There are no pillars leading to the secret stage pipe, nor is there a secret stage pipe.

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Delfino Plaza

Darkened Crate Minigame Door

The "darkness" in the doorway that leads to the crate minigame is actually a door with very dark shading. It is even present in the space behind the regular door when the crate minigame is closed.

Slide's Secret Platform

In Delfino Plaza's secret slide stage, a platform is located under the left hole in the first row. For some odd reason, in the Japanese version, this platform was given slippery collision. On one side of the platform (left side in the image) there is an invisible wall that jitters Mario back and forth if he gets too close. This is possibly a leftover from an early level design.

(Source: sunn)

Delfino Plaza (Flooded)

Delfino Plaza's flood has some subtle, yet interesting changes.

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  Barred off Jail cell.

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  Unused manhole inside the Jail cell.

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  Early left Bell Tower door.

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  Breakable door inside the left Bell Tower.

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  100 Coin Shine.

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  Hidden Shine Sprite image beside umbrellas instead of the Lighthouse.

• Lots of geometry located around the water line (visible on the windows, around doors, and the cobblestone wall right of the Shine Gate) appears to have messed up UV mapping with visible texture glitches. As the blue coloring underwater is done by vertex colors on the level's model, one possibility is that a developer simply sliced the entire level in half and vertex-colored the entire lower half blue, which in turn introduced several texture errors that were left unfixed for the game's release.
• In the normal plaza, the base of the lighthouse (which is normally obscured by it) is white. In the flooded variant, the lighthouse base is no longer white, but even then, it has different texture mapping.
• The first pillar between the lighthouse and the cluster of pillars that make up the entrance to the Super Slide doesn't fully extend to the bottom of the seafloor.
• The striped poles that make up the fruit market stands have flat face normals, as opposed to the smooth faces they usually have.
• The improperly texture-mapped alcove that houses a blue coin on the back of the Police Station has both of its walls unshaded.
• A manhole is placed inside the jail cell which does not exist in the standard plaza. The jail cell's normal entrance does not connect to the jail cell and fades out to a black void instead, suggesting Mario originally had to traverse the sewers to enter the cell and grab the Blue Coin inside.
• The room with a Shine Sprite beneath the left Bell Tower by the docks does not exist, with its door being part of the map's geometry, as seen in pre-release material. The breakable door still exists hidden behind the wall.
• The palm tree in the center plaza closest to the fruit market is rotated at a slightly different angle.
• The 100-coin Shine is placed over the Bianco Square statue instead of above the raised wooden platform in the ocean.
• The hidden Shine Sprite image normally found close to the lighthouse is instead in front of the rightmost umbrellas on the opposite side of the beach.
  • Moreover, spraying the Shine image spawns a yellow coin instead of a Shine, likely placeholder behavior. This can only be witnessed in-game by using glitches to walk underwater.

(Source: Catley)

Bianco Hills

Bianco Hills' stage geometry shows off a lot of the other levels in the distance. Interestingly, this is one of the only times where a stage has a near complete model of Delfino Island. The creek in the village also goes on for some way beyond the boards.

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When viewing Ricco Harbor from the start of the stage, the helipad is replaced by girders in a square layout which is how the stage layout was in pre-release material.

Ricco Harbor

Gelato Beach

Gelato Beach can partially be seen from Ricco Harbor, however the Sandbird Tower has columns around the walkway which are not in the final game, however they could be seen in pre-release footage.

Delfino Plaza's Island

Delfino Plaza can also be seen from Ricco Harbor, but a key difference is that the fruit basket island has a pipe modeled on it. When in Delfino Plaza, this island has a fruit basket and Pianta instead, with the island bearing a pipe on the other side of the Plaza.

Blooper Surfing Safari

While you never see a sky in the Blooper Surfing Safari, it uses the train track sky box used in secret stages.

Gelato Beach

Isle Delfino is mostly dolphin shaped, and only the southern area of Delfino Plaza, and the top floor of Hotel Delfino from Sirena Beach are visible in-game. Oddly, Pinna Park's beach is modeled, despite it not being viewable at all.

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Pinna Park

At Pinna Beach, the back of the Ferris wheel is fully modeled, but because of invisible boundaries preventing one from swimming far enough, only part of the backside can be seen.

Sirena Beach

Isle Delfino is once again shaped a bit like a dolphin in-game. The island's model is similar to the one in Bianco Hills.

Noki Bay

Delfino Island

Unlike other levels, Noki Bay isn't on a dolphin-shaped island at all- likely due to the stage being rushed as it was the final stage added before release. Interestingly, Corona Mountain is fully modeled, including the inside of the geyser. Other stages cut Corona Mountain's model somewhere around the base, making this is the only stage with the entirety of Corona Mountain being modeled.

Unseen Map Geometry

The waterfall crevasse, and the interior of the wall jumping section below the alcove with the Ice Block are fully textured, neither being entirely visible in-game.

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  Waterfall's hole.

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  Inside the chute.

The Hidden Book

There's an infamous hidden book behind a door which can not be retrieved in Episode 3: Red Coins in a Bottle. The models are part of the level geometry, not separate objects.

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  The models in question.

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  Outside the hidden door.

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  Using F.L.U.D.D. to clip through for a better look.

(Source: TI2ophy)

Shell's Carved-Out Room

In Episode 6: The Shell's Secret, behind the first block with a brazier there's a hollowed-out area with a platform. It's unknown if this was intentionally left in, or leftover from an early stage design, but since most players are heading towards the Shine and not normally moving the camera around this area, this is unseen.

(Source: sunn)

Pianta Village

Pianta Village is shown to be in a circular abyss that takes up a large portion of this weird, barely dolphin-shaped island. Additionally, Noki Bay appears as the upper cliffs, with the pond at the top of the Tricky Ruins being modeled, but only a glimpse of this section can be seen in-game.

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Secret Stages

Located far underneath the map floor in secret courses made up exclusively of objects is a single flat white square facing downwards, which is impossible to view in-game. A map model is required to prevent the game from crashing, so this is likely a simple placeholder map model... though the game doesn't crash when using a blank map model, so it's unknown why this square exists.

(Source: Inkstar)

Corona Mountain

As with Ricco Harbor's Blooper Surfing Safari- Corona Mountain also uses the train track skybox.

Corona Mountain Crater

Despite Corona Mountain being the highest point on the island, most of the level models have the inside of the crater modeled out. It reveals that the crater has a rather interesting structure, which makes sense given the structure of the Corona Mountain level.