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Despite being developed by different studios, in all versions but the Game Boy Color version, during the final battle with Voldemort Spoiler:/Professor Quirrell, the player must use the Mirror of Erised in the middle of the room in order to strike and defeat him. This does not happen in either the book or movie version of the story. Spoiler:In those stories, Harry involuntarily "defeats" Lord Voldemort when the villain tries to touch him only for Lily Potter's protection spell that she put on Harry to disintegrate Quirrell and in turn Voldemort's physical vessel.

According to Eidos Senior Project Manager Kevin Gill, he stated that the game came about when he ordered tapings of backyard wrestling footage during a Christmas party:

While Nintendo's name is often translated as "leave luck to heaven," the veracity of this is dubious at best, owed in part to a lack of historical documentation and the wide range of possible readings for the name as written in Kanji. Among other things, "Nintendo" can also be interpreted as the more mundane "the temple of free hanafuda," referring to the company's initial purpose as a playing card manufacturer. Late president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was descended from company founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, admitted that he didn't know what "Nintendo" actually meant, and that "leave luck to heaven" was only accepted by the company because it seemed plausible.

Bowser and the Koopaling's hotels are all references to real-life and fictional hotels:
•Morton's WoodDoor-Hysteria = Waldorf Astoria
•Roy's HardBrick Hotel = "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley
•Larry's Chillton Hotel = Hilton
•Lemmy's High-ate Regency Hotel = Hyatt Regency
•Ludwig's Thump Castle Hotel = Trump's Castle
•Wendy's Blitz Snarlton Hotel = Ritz-Carlton
•Bowser's Seizures Palace Hotel = Caesars Palace

In 2018, on the Discord channel of the Japanese gaming blog Gamecast, an anonymous former Sega AM2 developer revealed a previously-unknown Easter egg where at the end of the quick-time event at the New Yokosuka Harbor, if you input Hado Hado + A within 3 frames, you will perform a Shin Shōryūken as used by Ryu in Street Fighter III two years prior to Shenmue's release (Note that "Hado Hado" (or 236 236) refers to performing the command for the Hadoken move from Street Fighter by moving the D-pad down, down-right, right in rapid succession, twice in a row).

The developers had originally planned to include this in the game as a tribute, but producer Yu Suzuki stepped in and disabled it from being useable in the final release. For the average player to make the move, it takes 6 frames to perform, but the game lowers the window to successfully perform it to 3 frames, making it impossible to perform under normal circumstances. However, the secret itself was not removed, and would later be discovered and executed by a modder in 2019.

When asked why the Easter egg was added in the first place, the developer added:

Homeworld's closing theme "Homeworld (The Ladder)" was composed by the British progressive rock band Yes for the game. It was originally released on the band's 1999 album "The Ladder" eight days before the release of Homeworld. The collaboration was spearheaded by lead singer Jon Anderson who wanted a piece of Yes' music to be worked into a video game, which resulted in the band discovering and becoming interested in Homeworld's plot and development, writing lyrics that fit with the themes of the game such as "thoughts that we're all trying to find our way home". Sierra Studios CEO Alex Garden commented that they tried to do as much as they could to tie the real world into their games to enhance the experience and provide a grounding in reality, and that the collaboration with Yes just came together with that philosophy.

The game's creators Marcus Smith and Drew Murray pitched the game to numerous companies, but all of these pitches broke down over Insomniac's condition that they own the IP for Sunset Overdrive. They ended up pitching the game directly to Microsoft several times, who were more open to Insomniac owning the IP, and they ended up publishing the game as an Xbox One exclusive. The "main pitch" that presented the core ideas of the game to several executives however was noted for being unconventional, with Murray arriving wearing his "lucky shoes", riddled with holes, which he had not changed in two weeks:

Nintendo Power held a Turok contest where the Grand Prize winner would have their likeness used in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Juan Gaspar won the contest and was also given a trip to Iguana Entertainment to have his image digitized and voice recorded for the game. His face can appear on the Life Force tokens by activating the "HEEERESJUAN" and "YOQUIEROJUAN" cheats on both the Nintendo 64 and PC versions.

When completing Arcade Mode as Bridget, one possible ending depicts her coming out as a transgender girl, having previously been depicted in earlier games as a cisgender boy who was raised as a girl. This plot development attracted rumors that it was a "bad ending" exclusive to the English localization and that Bridget was still a crossdressing boy in the Japanese release. Eventually, director Akira Katano and developer Daisuke Ishiwatari confirmed on their "Developer's Backyard" blog that Bridget was indeed intended to be a trans girl in the Japanese version and that the game's endings were not written under the pretense of them being "good" or "bad," stating that they simply showcase different, coexisting aspects of each character, indicating that Bridget's trans identity is in place across both of her Arcade Mode endings.

Although the lack of Final Fantasy characters in later Kingdom Hearts titles (such as the base game of Kingdom Hearts III) was met with backlash from some KH fans, Nomura found this to be quite bizarre as he always viewed the series as not at all being the "Disney and Final Fantasy crossover" that it is commonly seen as.

According to Tetsuya Nomura, he said that he did not expect the side characters from 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep (i.e. Roxas, Xion, Axel, Saix, Terra, Ventus, Aqua, etc.) to be incredibly popular among fans, especially compared to the main reoccurring cast.

"I really didn't think that the characters from these two titles would become this popular. I had thought that players wanted to see more of characters like Sora or Riku. It was kind of unexpected that the characters from these two titles were so well received. [...] So, if possible, it would be great to include more of them or continue to share more of their story in future opportunities."

The North American box art appears to feature a less-detailed replica of Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California.

Tetsuya Nomura, one of the creators of Kingdom Hearts and the series' recurring director and lead writer, admitted in an interview with Game Informer that it was actually him, not Disney, that was almost hesitant for his character Sora to get in Smash.

"Obviously, I was very happy that we were able to have Sora make an appearance in Smash Bros. Ultimate. Most of the feedback when Sora was [announced] for Smash Bros. Ultimate was, ‘I can’t believe Disney okayed for him to be in this game.’ Behind the scenes, I was actually the one being very picky about his appearance in Smash Bros. Disney was the one that was like, ‘Go ahead! This is a great opportunity.’ I thought it would be tough to pull off because it might clash with the established lore in Kingdom Hearts and the Disney worlds, so it was an opportunity I had to consider very carefully. After seeing how happy everybody was in welcoming Sora to Smash Bros., I feel like the end result was really great."

In the game's Backer Credits, backer Mighty No. 5040 is listed with the name "Kamiya was right". This is in reference to comments made by Capcom alumn Hideki Kamiya on Twitter slamming Mighty No. 9 the year before its release, calling it a copy of Mega Man and "an insult to their old home".

According to Masahiro Sakurai in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel, the game started out as a requested NES adaptation of Kirby's Dream Land, but Sakurai and HAL Laboratory successfully negotiated with Nintendo to make a new game in the series for the home console instead, which became this game. Sakurai also said he and his team wanted this game to be on the SNES, but they simply didn't have the money or resources at the time as HAL was also on the verge of bankruptcy.

The game contains a lot of debug text, starting at offset 0xC6370 and mixing with the rest of the game's text. Of note, two dates appear in the debug text that may be the dates the game finished development in North America and Europe:

North America: Jun 6 1997.21:45:51
Europe: Nov 17 1997.20:23:27

The rest of this submission contains a few examples of the debug text scattered throughout the ROM. Most of it is routine stuff, but there are some interesting gems in there. The developers were certainly not in a good mood or this was "kinda" a joke from them. Note that "tell dave" likely refers to David Pridie, one of the programmers:

In 1993, a Japanese strategy guide was released for the game entitled "Star Fox: Mission File Printout", containing backstory for the game's universe that would be retconned with the release of Star Fox 64, as well as developer profiles of both producer Shigeru Miyamoto's Japanese team and the British developers from Argonaut Software. These interviews were translated for the first time in 2013 and document some of the most troublesome moments during Star Fox's development, and what the developers wanted players to see from the game in their own words, as well as their birthdates and blood types.

The most common issue cited by Miyamoto's team that arose during development were communication issues with Argonaut. Since Star Fox was being developed as a co-production between Japanese and British developers, a first for Nintendo, language barriers were encountered early in development as they initially required the use of a translator, and according to composer Koji Kondo, he had to write down things he would normally explain verbally on paper and "pass the message along in English" during meetings with Argonaut. Programmer Katsuya Eguchi claimed that his family "sometimes heard [him] speaking English in [his] sleep." After about 2 months, the teams were able to talk directly to and understand each other even with the Japanese-flavored English spoken by Miyamoto's staff, allowing development to go more smoothly. Programmer Yoichi Yamada also expressed issues in balancing "the amusement that comes from carefully aiming and firing at enemies and defeating things in succession, the careful depiction of enemy animations, the tempo as the game unfolded, the feel of avoiding obstacles, and the enjoyable sense created by the game's quick scrolling." He wanted players to take note of the sense of distance between 3D polygonal objects, how lively the animations were, and to have fun flying around in the 3D world.

According to Miyamoto, it took two years to develop the Super FX chip and one year to develop Star Fox itself. Miyamoto thought the audience perspective of Star Fox fit somewhere between a stage play like his past games (where the audience is stationary and viewing everything from a fixed angle) and a movie (where the camera angle changes freely and constantly while the audience is stationary), commenting: "If you consider the fact that you can control the camera yourself, you can experience the world of the game in a less detached manner than you would if you were watching a movie." Eguchi wanted players to to observe the game's world from "an insider's point of view", and also wanted players to find themselves unconsciously moving their bodies along with the controller as they played the game.

Another notable anecdote comes from character designer Tsuyoshi Watanabe, who commented on the early limitations working with 3D polygons on the SNES that forced him to make very simple shapes, and also forcing him to wonder how much personality and detail he should put into each thing he created. To help answer this, he would do additional research when creating creatures, like the stingrays and whales that appear in Sector Y, by watching videos or looking them up in the encyclopedia. This eventually resulted in a fight that broke out amongst the staff over whether or not stingrays' tails bend. Graphic designer Takaya Imamura further commented on working with Watanabe to decide what should be created with polygons, and how color balancing them with each stage's differing color schemes proved difficult through trial and error.

Composer Koji Kondo was responsible for all of the sound programming in the game, while composer Hajime Hirasawa was responsible for collecting samples for the music and sound effects and giving them to Kondo. Since Star Fox was a 3D game, Kondo took the sounds of passing objects, explosions, and the atmosphere around the ship affecting how the engine sounded (i.e. the ship flying in space, or over a planet), into consideration while writing the soundtrack, and wanted the players to get a sense of levity and presence from this. Hirasawa commented that four of the SNES's 8 sound channels were used on sound effects, making it difficult to "pack [the remaining four channels] full of orchestral sounds, especially during gameplay." Hirasawa also commented on his difficulty in finding a splashing sound effect for the water that appears on Fortuna in Level 3, getting to the point where he was considering making Imamura hold a microphone to record the sound of him diving into a pool.

Argonaut's developers did not have as much to comment on as the Japanese team, with their cited troubles coming from animating certain enemies like the Hop Bots and Andross, and most commonly trying to get the 3D graphics from the Super FX chip to run as smoothly as possible and respond quickly to controller inputs without crashing the game. Super FX chip designer Peter Warnes wanted players to notice the glittering of each planet changing in real-time depending on the position of the comets on the Map screen, something that was made possible with the chip. Programmer Krister Wombell commented that the week or two before the game's release was an extremely busy time as they were making the final push to complete the game. Additionally, graphic animators Giles Goddard and Dylan Cuthbert's blood types were listed as "ABC" and "Green" respectively.

In 1984, Namco's sound team released Video Game Music, a compilation album produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra bandleader Haruomi Hosono that gathered together various songs from Namco's arcade games. While not the first album to incorporate video game music (being predated by Yellow Magic Orchestra's self-titled debut in 1978), it was the first to consist entirely of it. In turn, Namco composers Shinji Hosoe, Nobuyoshi Sano, Takayuki Aihara, and Hiroto Sasaki would later form Oriental Magnetic Yellow, a parody group based on Yellow Magic Orchestra.

In an article for the September 2000 issue of Nintendo Power, Jason Leung, the writer for the game's English-language script, claimed that the South Clock Town Business Scrub's allusion to his work keeping him away from his wife is a nod to the tribulations that the developers at Nintendo of Japan were going through while working on the game.

Previews for new fighters being added to the game showed that one of Jenny's intended pre-battle quotes was "You wouldn't like my brain! It's all circuity and metallic!" This was removed from the final game due to it being associated with a pornographic My Life as a Teenage Robot parody animation, which edited the line to replace "brain" with "body."

Thaddeus Crews, a member of the development team, initially expressed disgust in a now-deleted tweet (the tweet he replied to also having been deleted) that the line was in the game and announced its immediate removal. He later explained that the line was likely added due to a lack of awareness about the parody, the end result of the team being "spread out and not on the same page", while adding that "Most likely someone on the team did know what they were doing by adding it", despite Crews himself being previously aware of and publicly associating the original line with the porn parody prior to its removal from the game.