Super Mario All-Stars

Super Mario All-Stars is a collection of the four main NES/Famicom Super Mario Bros. titles, upgraded to take advantage of the SNES' improved hardware. Unlike most SNES games, all of the graphics data is uncompressed. There's a lot of unused stuff here, some of which suggests that All-Stars may have originally been developed as a more straightforward port of the games.

In 2010, a completely-unchanged port was slapped on a Wii disc for the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros.

General
Content not specific to any particular game.

Debug Mode
To activate debugging features for all four games, either use the code or set SRAM address  to  in a debugger.

All Games
 * L: freeze/unfreeze
 * R: advance one frame (while frozen)

Super Mario Bros./The Lost Levels
 * A: become Super Mario
 * X: become Fire Mario
 * Select: free-roaming mode/invincibility

Super Mario Bros. 2
 * A: free-roaming mode
 * X: invincibility

Super Mario Bros. 3
 * A: free-roaming mode
 * X: change powerup/suit
 * Select: invincibility

(Note that this does not activate the debugging features left over from the NES version; the "new" method of changing suits is glitchy, does not apply the correct palette, and does not allow you to toggle Kuribo's Shoe.)

Placeholder Text
Some image banks in the ROM have placeholder text that marks where graphics will be loaded in-game.

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).

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.

From the Super Mario Bros. 3 tileset, this text translates as "Mario, Luigi" and denotes the location of the player graphics.

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.

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 Super Mario 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.

Anti-Piracy
As a means of copy protection, all versions of Super Mario All-Stars perform a check to see how much SRAM is present: the game writes a value to, then compares it with the value at. If the values match (due to address mirroring), it means 8 KB of SRAM is present and the cart is likely genuine, but if the values are different, it means more than 8 KB of SRAM is present and the game is likely running on a copier. If the latter scenario occurs, the game stops and throws up a warning message.

The message text differs between versions, but the location of the routine is the same; to trigger it, use Pro Action Replay code and choose Super Mario Bros. 2/Super Mario USA from the game menu.

Super Mario Bros.
The game that started this whole mess.

Unused Graphics
Yes, even this port has unused graphics.



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.



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.

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.



16-bit renditions of the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros. tiles.

Unused Text
THANK YOU MARIO! YOUR QUEST IS OVER. WE PRESENT YOU A NEW QUEST. PUSH BUTTON Y TO START A URA-WORLD

The ending text of the original NES version is present, but not used. It had already been altered to take into account some changes in All-Stars: "BUTTON B" was changed to "BUTTON Y" in accordance with the All-Stars control scheme, and "SELECT A WORLD" was changed to "START A URA-WORLD" since you can no longer select the world from the title screen.

Unused Graphics


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 longer, the "FOR SUPER PLAYERS" subtitle is missing, and the star is still present (indicating how many times you've beaten 8-4).



A mockup of what the logo would look like with the above tiles.

Unused Text
WE PRESENT FANTASY WORLD LET'S TRY "9 WORLD" WITH ONE GAME.

This text is loaded on layer 1 of the preview screen shown before a level starts, but is never visible. This was used in the original FDS version when you successfully beat the first eight worlds without using warps, thus unlocking the secret World 9. This doesn't happen in All-Stars, where you're simply taken straight to 9-1. The text contains the apostrophe and quotation marks, but these characters aren't present in the font used in All-Stars, so they will appear as garbage.

YOU'RE A SUPER PLAYER! WE HOPE WE'LL SEE YOU AGAIN. MARIO AND STAFF.

This was used when dying in World 9 in the FDS version but, again, doesn't appear in All-Stars. For reasons unknown, besides the apostrophe, the N character in the word "AGAIN" appears broken as well.

THANK YOU MARIO! PEACE IS PAVED WITH KINGDOM SAVED HURRAH TO MARIO OUR ONLY HERO THIS ENDS YOUR TRIP OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP 100000 PTS.ADDED FOR EACH PLAYER LEFT.

The original ending text of the FDS version. Interestingly, the last two lines' palette settings cause it to be outlined in a pinkish color unused by anything else in the game. It should be noted that the All-Stars version does not have the 100,000-point bonus for each extra life remaining.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (US)
Also known as Super Mario USA and "Doki Doki Panic Romhack".

Unused Graphics


These slot graphics are based off of the NES version, but the 7 is brand new! These were discarded for the larger slot icons.



A tomato that should have 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.



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 the remake...though evidently not completely replaced.

Unused Music
A fanfare not present in the NES version. Possibly an alternate win cue for the slot machine?

Suicide Cheat
Carried over from the NES version, just without the need for a second controller. In all versions, pause the game then hold L + R and press Select to cause the player to lose a life.

Super Mario Bros. 3
Since this was essentially a direct port of the NES game, this has the most unused content! For more information, see the Super Mario Bros. 3 article.

Old Debug Mode


While a new debug mode was put into the game, the old NES debug mode can still be accessed with the code ...although this unfortunately doesn't seem to activate the level select.

Press Select to cycle through Mario's forms. Press Select + A/B/X/Y to toggle Kuribo's Shoe.

Unused Spade Game Behavior
Just like in the original game, the Spade game has an unused counter variable which controls how many times you get to play. Setting the value at address to any value besides  during the game will allow you to keep trying until either you win, or the counter reaches zero (whichever comes first). Simply press A, B, or Start to spin the reels again.

Unused Enemies
Like in the original Super Mario Bros. 3, two enemies remain unused in the remake.



A gold version of the Cheep-Cheep enemy. These only appear in the seventh unused level, and always come in groups of three. They swim faster than normal Cheep-Cheeps, in a wave-like motion.



A faster green version of the Para-Beetle enemy. These enemies only appear in the ninth and tenth unused levels, and can only be generated by the otherwise unused Para-Beetle spawner.

Unused Text
Present near the Super Mario Bros. 3 graphics. Probably development text that was left in the ROM.

Title Screen
In Japan, Super Mario All-Stars was Super Mario Collection, and the title screens reflect the regional releases. In Collection, the logo characters offer a broad flashing palette, whereas in the international versions the title logo is rather bland, still flashing albeit less frequently.

Pressing Start before the lights turn on causes the game to go to the menu straight away, rather than the lights turning on first (as is the case in the international versions). A glitch can be performed in the international versions where the title music still plays by timing the Start button just right before the light switch transition.

Oddly, the "in the dark" chatter is also different between the Japanese and international versions:

Main Menu
The Japanese version, as you may expect, uses their original box art for the main menu. The US and PAL versions use those regions' respective box art (the PAL version specifically using the "NES Version" releases of the games), but the scans are pixel-for-pixel identical in the areas that do not differ between regions, suggesting only one set was actually scanned (most likely the US ones) and the other set edited from it.

The shadows were also made larger in the English version, the arrow's border changed to white, and the colors of the text and backdrop were made brighter.

In the case of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, which was unreleased elsewhere, Nintendo simply took the Famicom Disk System box and edited it to say Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (with part of the original black text being moved down below the logo) while removing FDS mascot Diskun. The European version doesn't list a year.

Further, the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 is referred to as Super Mario Bros. 2: For Super Players on its title screen, a subtitle that would later be used for the Super Mario Bros. 2 mode of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. The international versions also added a TM icon.

The American Super Mario Bros. 2 is referred to as Super Mario USA in the Japanese version, with both the original 1988 and later 1992 release dates; its title screen uses both of these and the 1993 release date which was appended to all four games.

The level cards were also changed, although interestingly the international logo looks far more like the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 logo!

The Super Mario Bros. 3 date was also changed (1988 for Japan, 1990 for America).

The file select for each game uses pink text for the "FILE" icons, which were made red elsewhere. As you may expect, the American version uses the purple and lavender colors of the US SNES buttons.

Revisional Differences
In December 1994 (1995 for Europe), Super Mario All-Stars was reissued as Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World. As this edition was not released in Japan, Super Mario World is based on its American release featuring slight changes.

Title Screen
Aside from the addition of "+ Super Mario World", the title screen's background was changed to orange, "All-Stars" to blue, the floor to pink, and the copyright info to light red with a dark red outline. Birdo was moved to a sitting position in the front, pushing the Spiny towards the center, and Yoshi was put in Birdo's former place. Bowser's snout was shifted slightly to the right, and the shading on Peach's crown was fixed.

Main Menu
The menu was of course updated to add the Super Mario World box and info. As a result, the other four games were positioned closer together, and the shadows underneath the boxes were reverted back to their smaller Super Mario Collection versions.

Interestingly, the Super Mario World box used in the European version does not match any known PAL release of the game (three variations of which can be seen here, here, and here), but appears to have been created from scratch.

The NES boxes were rescanned and resized. Once again, Nintendo scanned only one set of these boxes for the US and PAL versions, but this time they opted to to use the European "NES Version" boxes as the source, editing them in the US version to replace the European-style round seal with a US-style oval one (but neglecting to remove the telltale extra "NES Version" text).

Oddly, the Lost Levels box replaced the black text below the logo with a much larger "stamp" graphic, which clarified that it had not been released in America (Europe in the PAL version). The "1986" graphic was also removed.

When selecting Super Mario World, the controller settings at the lower-left corner is replaced by a picture of Yoshi with "YOSHI!" below it, as World uses its own distinct control system. Pressing Select to change controls plays the same error sound heard when trying to change worlds in a new file. Selecting a file causes Yoshi to wink, while deleting one causes him to lick his lips.

Super Mario Bros. 2
Pausing and exiting the in-game menu takes one second longer, for some reason.

Super Mario World
Super Mario World itself was altered a bit, most notably to give Luigi a set of unique sprites based on his distinct Super Mario Bros. 2 appearance (although certain sprites, such as ducking on Yoshi or running sideways using a triangle ramp, weren't altered). In addition, a fourth save file was added, the unique "96 exits" completion marking was removed, and the player can return to the All-Stars menu by pressing Select on the map screen and selecting the option.

Unlike the other All-Stars games, there is no uniform pause menu and 1-Player/2-Player modes are not "locked" into the save files.