Various pop culture references that were made in the original English release of Super Mario RPG were removed in the remake:

• Mallow no longer mentions Bruce Lee prior to him and Mario going to fight Bowyer.
• Punchinello no longer references James Bond or the Thing during his boss fight.
• Mini Goomba's Thought Peek no longer references Theodore Roosevelt's aphorism "Speak softly and carry a big stick. You will go far."
• Stinger's Thought Peek no longer references the 1990 Madonna song "Vogue".
• The password clues on the Sunken Ship are no longer written by famous explorers.

Some of these references, such as the Bruce Lee reference, may be due to licensing issues.

If the player tries to overwrite a different save file from the one they're currently using, the phrase "Not your last save. Save here anyway?" will pop up on the screen. If the player says no to this question 10 times and then say yes on the 11th attempt, Mario will hunch over on the save screen looking sad. Curiously if the player says no 11 times and says yes on the 12th attempt, Mario will instead have an angry appearance. Reportedly, whichever face is chosen based on if the number of times the player say no is even or odd before eventually saying yes.

On August 15, 2018, to promote the release of the upcoming film "Venom", the character designer of Super Mario RPG, Kazuyuki Kurashima, posted on Twitter a drawing of Venom alongside Belome, as both characters are known for having long tongues.

In the Pipe Vault, there is a Frog Coin hidden under a small opening that Mario cannot pass through. However, if you run at the opening and press Down immediately before entering it, when Mario crouches he will slide through the opening to the other side. This is the only time a slide like this can be performed in the game.

When using Mallow's Psychopath move on enemies, a brief blurb representing the target's thoughts will pop up. In the Japanese release, a large number of them are references to Japanese popular culture, nodding to works such as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Sailor Moon, Gundam, Fist of the North Star, Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc. In the English localization, most of these are either translated literally without accounting for the context, replaced with references to American popular culture (such as Madonna, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and president Theodore Roosevelt), or otherwise completely rewritten.

According to game's director Chihiro Fujioka in a 1995 Family Computer Magazine and Haou interview, he was asked if Nintendo shot down any of Square's ideas for the game, to which he responded:

According to game's director Chihiro Fujioka in a 1995 Family Computer Magazine and Haou interview, he was asked about how the development of the game started. He responded:


The interviewer followed up on this, asking if Square handled the basic ideas and development, with Nintendo checking on Fujioka's work progress. He responded:

In a 1995 Game-on! magazine interview, the game's composer Yoko Shimomura stated that she loved the music of Mario series, and that Super Mario Bros. was her first encounter of the series and video games in general. After she got the job to write the music for Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, she "let her imagination run wild" as she composed the game's music, trying to get the sounds that fit with "Mario walking around a town chatting people up, Mario sleeping, Mario just living his life…" and described the writing process as "SOOO fun!".

In the Japanese release, an enemy that looks strikingly similar to Donkey Kong named Guerilla in the English release is named ドソキーユング, or "Dosokī Yungu" when Romanized. This character's Japanese name is a joke based on the Katakana writing system, as Dosokī Yungu's Katakana is visually similar to Donkey Kong's Katakana ドンキーコング, but actually has two different, yet similar-looking characters that are swapped out to make Dosokī Yungu (the first ン is changed to ソ, and コ is changed to ユ). Just like how the enemy resembles Donkey Kong, but is not actually him, the name resembles "Donkey Kong", but is not actually read that way.

"Dosokī Yungu" itself could possibly be a reference to the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young, which was produced by the same creative team that made the 1933 film King Kong, one of the main influences for the creation of Donkey Kong.

There is an unused status ailment in game. When forced to appear, it behaves similarly to the "Berserk" status effect featured in many RPGs of the time; the victim of the status effect will be uncontrollable and attack random targets until it either wears off or they fall in battle.

There are 2 alternate scenes with Peach on the tower that can only be accessed through the debug menu.

Some of the music in the game is remixed from the older Mario games. The ones that are easy to tell are;
• Mario's Pad music is a mix of the classic level music from the first Super Mario Bros. and the overworld music to Grass Land in Super Mario Bros. 3.
• The music that plays when Gaz of Rose Town plays with his Geno doll is the classic Super Mario World Athletic theme
• The Starman theme is a remix from the classic Starman theme, albeit a bit harder to hear than the original.
• The underground music is remixed from the classic Super Mario Bros. underground music.

The ones that are harder to tell are:
• The music to the opening cutscene of Princess Toadstool in the garden is actually a slowed down and shortened remix of the overworld music in World 1 - Grass Land, from the game Super Mario Bros. 3.
• Parts of Bowser's Battle theme from the beginning of the game are remixed from the music of Bowser's Fight music in Super Mario Bros. 3.
• The music in Grate Guy's Casino is remixed from the Bonus Stage music in Super Mario Bros. 3.

In the English version of the game, "Bahamutt" is a reference to the summonable dragon Bahamut from Square Enix's Final Fantasy series.
In the Japanese version, he is called "ドッシー" ("Dosshī"), possibly as a pun of Yoshi.

For the English translation of the game, Punchinello was originally going to be called "James Bomb", parodying the fictional British spy James Bond. The idea was disapproved by management, but the character's self introduction parodying James Bond made it into the final product, just with a different name ("Bomb... James Bomb" to "Nello... PUNCHINELLO!").

In star hill there is a wish stating "I wanna be a great plumber like my brother Mario." This wish is presumably from Luigi.

Boshi's japanese name is Washi, which combined with his "bad boy" look and antagonistic nature, means that he is Yoshi's "warui" counterpart like Wario and Waluigi.

While going through Booster's Tower, a switch can be found to open a new area of Booster Pass. After beating Booster Tower and returning to explore Booster Pass' hidden area, there will be a number of enemies called Apprentice. If Mario loses to an Apprentice, a cutscene will play after the Game Over screen of the Apprentice happily cheering that it will become Snifit #4, the 4th bodyguard to Booster. Revisiting Booster Tower after this will reveal a 4th bodyguard (the Apprentice that beat Mario). This can be repeated 8 times, where the 8th victorious Apprentice will be relocated to Grate Guy's Casino as there is no room for an 8th Snifit and Apprentices will no longer spawn in Booster Pass.

Director Chihiro Fujioka and producer Shigeru Miyamoto originally considered having Mario battle using weapons and magic rather than his standard jump and hammers. They couldn't decide which style to use. They settled the matter by appearing at a special event and hearing fan responses when the two styles were announced. More fans applauded the jump and hammer option, so Fujioka chose it for the game.

If you perform a Timed-Hit with Geno's special move "Geno Whirl", 9999 damage is dealt to the enemy. This trick does not work on bosses exept for "Exor and Yaridovich clones".

There is a secret code in the Japanese version of the original game. Going into the menu screen and entering Down, Up, Right, Left, Select, Start, Select, Start, B, will cause Toad to appear on-screen and say:


This code would be included internationally for the first time in the game's 2023 remake.