According to Super Mario Bros. Wonder's art director Masanobu Sato, Shigeru Miyamoto reportedly explained during the development of the first Super Mario Bros. that the reason why Goombas damage Mario when walking into them is because they bite Mario on impact. Due to graphical and hardware limitations, this could not be shown at the time. However, while Super Mario Bros. Wonder is thought to be the first game in the mainline series that shows this detail in gameplay, it's not the first game in the overall franchise to show it, as Goombas had been seen biting in earlier spin-off games like Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.
The UK children's gaming TV show Bad Influence did major marketing work for Rise of the Robots, devoting a large chunk of its Christmas special to the game and designing a new opening sequence based on Rise. Ironically, when the game launched, Bad Influence gave the game an extremely low score, much like most other gaming publications that were hyping up the game.
A cat can be found in the game who has a distinct fur pattern resembling the series emblem on his face. This was not just an Easter egg snuck in by developers, but was based on a real cat. According to a Reddit comment supposedly from the father of the person who caused this Easter egg to happen, the cat was named Master Chief and he belonged to a girl named Rebecca, the roommate of his daughter Alanna Sas. After the cat's passing, Sas commented on a Ubisoft or Assassin's Creed-related Facebook post asking the company to include the cat in the game in his memory, and if so she said she would reward the developers who included him with free coffee and Timbits from Tim Hortons. Upon players discovering the cat in the game, a moderator for the Assassin's Creed subreddit shared a screenshot of the Facebook comment revealing its origins.
Despite Floigan Bros. being initially developed prior to the Dreamcast's release in 1999 (of which the main characters Moigle and Hoigle made cameos in the Dreamcast advertising campaign "It's Thinking"), and then-President of SEGA's American division Bernie Stolar saying that "Floigan will do for SEGA what Mario did for Nintendo", the game would go through developmental setbacks until finally releasing on July 30, 2001, months after SEGA ceased production on SEGA Dreamcast.
Because of this late release window, several pieces of monthly on-disc DLC for the game, as well as the concept of exchanging Moigles through the Dreamcast VMU, were left on the cutting room floor.
According to series producer Tetsuya Nomura, one reason that Mickey Mouse's role was limited in the original Kingdom Hearts was because around the same time as its release, Capcom owned the license to use Mickey Mouse for the game Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse. The developers persisted and were eventually given the go-ahead to add him into the game "as long as [they only had him in] one scene, from far away, as a silhouette, with him waving his hand or something". As such, Mickey only appears briefly and seen from behind near the end of the game, helping Sora and Riku seal Kingdom Hearts itself.
Mickey's perspective of this event also appears in Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A fragmentary passage. The reason that Mickey loses his shirt is to partially keep the continuity of the original Kingdom Hearts that showed Mickey in his classic shirtless look.
The original plan for the game was a PvP, online MMO game known as Fate/Apocrypha. However, these plans were cancelled early in development. The project was later revived as "Fate Online Project Reboot" on the behest of publisher Aniplex wanting to make a mobile game to promote the Fate IP. According to head writer Kinoko Nasu, he never owned a smartphone prior to the development of Fate/Grand Order, but got one and played various free-to-play mobile games for reference. Fate/Apocrypha itself would later be revived as a Light Novel series.
El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera was intended to be developed over a span of 12 months. However, due to the cartoon being abruptly cancelled, the game was developed over 2 months instead with a greatly reduced budget, and a planned Wii version being cancelled.
Action Girlz Racing claims on its box to be made "for girls, by girls". However, the credits of the game show that many of the developer names are simply female versions of the names of developers credited on other Data Design Interactive games, such as Karl White becoming "Karla White", Julien Alden-Salter becoming "Julia Alden-Salter", and Teoman Irmak becoming "Teowoman Hermark".
Dutch electronics company Philips planned to release a Donkey Kong game for the CD-i as part of the deal with Nintendo that led to the release of Hotel Mario, Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and Zelda's Adventure. The Donkey Kong game's existence was alluded to in two "Gaming Gossip" articles by Electronic Gaming Monthly as well as a trade ad which depicted Donkey Kong exiting a limousine alongside Mario, Link, and Zelda. However, more concrete evidence for the game's existence didn't emerge until former Riedel Software Productions employee Adrian Jackson-Jones included a post on his LinkedIn page stating that he programmed the engine for it (the LinkedIn post incorrectly cites Australian visual effects studio Rising Sun Pictures due to them sharing initials). This information was then brought to public attention in 2022 by the LostMediaWiki, a website which documents searches for lost or otherwise publicly unavailable works.
An investigation by Time Extension led to writer John Szczepaniak getting in contact with both Jackson-Jones and Riedel Software Productions owner Michael J. Riedel. Both parties have little memory of the Donkey Kong game due to the amount of time that passed and the company's habit of erasing their data for cancelled projects. Additionally, Jackson-Jones revealed that due to a memory disorder, he recalls little about the game other than his direct experiences programming it. Despite this, Jackson-Jones was able to confirm his involvement with the Donkey Kong game, stating that one of the biggest difficulties during development was the CD-i's memory limitations, which were circumvented by only loading in assets that would be visible on-screen, using the player's movement to determine what to put into memory.
Additional investigations by DidYouKnowGaming further revealed that the Donkey Kong CD-i game was intended to be a side-scrolling title similar to the later Donkey Kong Country series. According to an anonymous Riedel Software Productions employee who served as a lead animator for the game, development quickly stalled before June 1993, never making it past initial storyboards due to the CD-i's technical limitations and Philips' inexperience with the video game industry (contrary to Electronic Gaming Monthly's claims that it would be a sequel to the original arcade game and that it would be ready by 1994).
In the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", Mario and Luigi's family are prominently featured. This includes:
• Their Father, voiced by Charles Martinet (and bears a resemblance to Talon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) • Their Mother, who previously appeared in "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" and is voiced here by Jessica DiCicco • Uncle Arthur, voiced by John DiMaggio • Uncle Tony, voiced by Rino Romano (and was coincidentally mentioned in live-action segment "Glasnuts" from the TV series "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!") • Aunt Marie, who's presumably married to Uncle Arthur • An unnamed niece, who's most likely Marie and Arthur's daughter, being a first cousin once removed that's referred to as a "(second) niece" • An unnamed grandfather, who's implied by the co-director Aaron Horvath to previously have been a boxer and wears an outfit similar to Luigi in the 1983 commercial for the Atari ports of Mario Bros.
Interestingly, all of the credited voice actors for the family are all of Italian descent to stay true to the family's Italian heritage.
According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the design of the family were based on character design sheets that former Nintendo illustrator Yoichi Kotabe drew decades before the film began production.
The idea of having a game told from the perspective of an immigrant mother came about because, as noted by lead developer Abhi, most media related to immigrant stories focused on second-generation children, rather than their parents. Abhi felt that it was the parents who had "a cooler story to tell, because they up and leave their country at the age of 40 or 50, and they move to a brand new place."
An early concept for Crash Bandicoot, back when he was originally known as Willy the Wombat, was to have the Cortex Vortex be a surplus of television sets used to brainwash the evolved animals into doing the bidding of Dr. Cortex. After being subjected to the Vortex's media barrage for 7 days and nights, Willy would've been given a tendency to speak and act in a series of bizarre nonsequiters that referenced classic literature, pop culture, or from radio, TV or movies. Some examples would've included "Loose lips, sink ships!", "But brushing with Best Toothpaste gives white, white, white teeth!", and "Don't fire boys, until you see the whites of their eyes!" His demeanor was similar to other hyperactive pop-culture referencing comedy characters from the late 80s and 90s, where he could be quoting from Rambo one moment before switching to Fred Astaire, to John Wayne, and then to Fred Flintstone.
Because the developers were still experimenting with Double Battles where the player teams up with an NPC ally to fight two NPC opponents, this led to a glaring oversight during the battle where the player joins with Steven Stone to battle Maxi and Tabitha where, during the battle, Steven's Level 42 Metang can actually gain a substantial amount of EXP simultaneously with the player's own Pokémon. This essentially means that, with careful manipulation, the player can have the ally Metang get enough EXP to grow to Level 43. This so far is the only instance in the entire Pokémon main series where, in a non-scripted battle, an NPC's Pokémon can gain EXP and level up.
In an interview featured in the 149th issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the game's director Hideki Kamiya confirmed that Dante's personality was inspired by Cobra from the manga series Space Adventure Cobra, and Joseph Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, while also saying that no movies in particular inspired the game. He stated:
"There are lots of different kinds of media that influenced this creation. As for the main character Dante, I was strongly influenced by a Japanese comic-book character named Cobra. Cobra is a character who has no fear and talks with lots of irony and provoking looks, even as he faces immense trouble. I always loved this character and his comic. I also referred to a character in another Japanese comic Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure [also a Capcom fighting game]. His name is Joseph Joestar and he's the main hero of the comic's second chapter. He has a very similar personality to Cobra. There are no specific movies that I referred to for DMC."
In an interview conducted by Nintendo to promote the release of the Super NES Classic Edition, Kirby Super Star director Masahiro Sakurai revealed that celebrity copywriter and EarthBound series creator Shigesato Itoi came up with the game's Japanese title, Kirby of the Stars Super Deluxe. Itoi also came up with the idea for the Japanese box art, which is designed after Paulownia wood boxes traditionally used to package luxury alcohol and tableware in Japan. Itoi believed that both the title and the artwork would "convey how rich [the game] is in content."
During the game's roster reveal in 2022, an image for WWE Superstar Elias featured him in an outfit that he had never been seen in. At the time, Elias had not been seen in WWE for 9 months as they had planned to re-package him in a new gimmick, but the new gimmick was deemed, "too Macho Man" and was scrapped. The render was likely made during this time, and shows what his outfit would have atleast looked like.
This render would eventually be changed in the final game, with him still using his musician gimmick. Elias would later return to WWE as "Ezekiel" (the younger brother of Elias) with a clean shaven face, shorter hair, and the same outfit seen in this early render.
Sonic Team was surprised by the excitement towards the return of obscure characters Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel in Sonic Mania Plus, leading them to decide to bring back another obscure character for Sonic Superstars. They ultimately went with Fang the Hunter (then known as Nack the Weasel or Fang the Sniper), one of the main antagonists of Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble.
According to Kane Carter, characters from titles released as part of The Fazbear Fanverse Initiative (such as Candy the Cat from Five Nights at Candy's and Popgoes the Weasel from POPGOES Evergreen) were eligible for inclusion in the game, as a manager from Illumix mentioned in a livestream that they were considered part of Scott Cawthon's official roster. However, this never happened as the game was shut down in March 2024 without any characters from these projects being added.
During the game's development, Lucas - the protagonist of Mother 3 - was briefly considered as a replacement for Ness by the development team. However, due to the delays surrounding Mother 3's original Nintendo 64 release (and that game's eventual cancellation), Ness returned instead as they originally planned.
Both Ness and Lucas would go on to be playable in this game's sequel, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, though Lucas' appearance would be based on Mother 3's eventual Game Boy Advance release as opposed to what is now commonly referred to in the fan community as "EarthBound 64".
The Venom Brigade, the game's antagonists, were originally moles as opposed to snakes. In addition to this, the fourth mole was yellow as opposed to Handy's blue coloration. The change from moles to snakes was done because Cruise Elroy wanted more distinction between the human Annalynn and the game's enemies.
A cat can be found in the game who has a distinct fur pattern resembling the series emblem on his face. This was not just an Easter egg snuck in by developers, but was based on a real cat. According to a Reddit comment supposedly from the father of the person who caused this Easter egg to happen, the cat was named Master Chief and he belonged to a girl named Rebecca, the roommate of his daughter Alanna Sas. After the cat's passing, Sas commented on a Ubisoft or Assassin's Creed-related Facebook post asking the company to include the cat in the game in his memory, and if so she said she would reward the developers who included him with free coffee and Timbits from Tim Hortons. Upon players discovering the cat in the game, a moderator for the Assassin's Creed subreddit shared a screenshot of the Facebook comment revealing its origins.
Dutch electronics company Philips planned to release a Donkey Kong game for the CD-i as part of the deal with Nintendo that led to the release of Hotel Mario, Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and Zelda's Adventure. The Donkey Kong game's existence was alluded to in two "Gaming Gossip" articles by Electronic Gaming Monthly as well as a trade ad which depicted Donkey Kong exiting a limousine alongside Mario, Link, and Zelda. However, more concrete evidence for the game's existence didn't emerge until former Riedel Software Productions employee Adrian Jackson-Jones included a post on his LinkedIn page stating that he programmed the engine for it (the LinkedIn post incorrectly cites Australian visual effects studio Rising Sun Pictures due to them sharing initials). This information was then brought to public attention in 2022 by the LostMediaWiki, a website which documents searches for lost or otherwise publicly unavailable works.
In the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", Mario and Luigi's family are prominently featured. This includes:
An early concept for Crash Bandicoot, back when he was originally known as Willy the Wombat, was to have the Cortex Vortex be a surplus of television sets used to brainwash the evolved animals into doing the bidding of Dr. Cortex. After being subjected to the Vortex's media barrage for 7 days and nights, Willy would've been given a tendency to speak and act in a series of bizarre nonsequiters that referenced classic literature, pop culture, or from radio, TV or movies. Some examples would've included "Loose lips, sink ships!", "But brushing with Best Toothpaste gives white, white, white teeth!", and "Don't fire boys, until you see the whites of their eyes!" His demeanor was similar to other hyperactive pop-culture referencing comedy characters from the late 80s and 90s, where he could be quoting from Rambo one moment before switching to Fred Astaire, to John Wayne, and then to Fred Flintstone.
In an interview conducted by Nintendo to promote the release of the Super NES Classic Edition, Kirby Super Star director Masahiro Sakurai revealed that celebrity copywriter and EarthBound series creator Shigesato Itoi came up with the game's Japanese title, Kirby of the Stars Super Deluxe. Itoi also came up with the idea for the Japanese box art, which is designed after Paulownia wood boxes traditionally used to package luxury alcohol and tableware in Japan. Itoi believed that both the title and the artwork would "convey how rich [the game] is in content."
During the game's roster reveal in 2022, an image for WWE Superstar Elias featured him in an outfit that he had never been seen in. At the time, Elias had not been seen in WWE for 9 months as they had planned to re-package him in a new gimmick, but the new gimmick was deemed, "too Macho Man" and was scrapped. The render was likely made during this time, and shows what his outfit would have atleast looked like.
