Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)/Regional and Version Differences

This is a sub-page of Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)/Regional and Version Differences.

To do: Detailed analyis of differences in the code

General Differences

Title Screen

Japan/North America	Europe

Shindou	iQue

• The SUPER MARIO 64 logo was squashed a bit in the European version and it was completely changed in iQue.
• The "TM" texture has 3 different colors and a different font in Europe, Shindou and iQue (JP/US white, PAL orange, Shindou/iQue blue)
• The copyright info was also updated to reflect the European and Shindou releases, and iQue, in addition, that iQue has an extra copyright year (2003, the year that the iQue was released).

Mario's Head

US/JP	EU

Shindou	iQue

• The intro screen says PRESS START in the US and Japanese versions, but just START in the European version. The Shindou version has a unique graphic on the bottom right of the screen, used to indicate that a Rumble Pak can be used. The background was changed in the iQue version, just to let you know what version you're playing.

Game Over

International	iQue

• Speaking of background change above, this one from the "Game Over" screen was also changed in the iQue version.

File Select

US	EU

• In the European version, the options menu has three different languages, but the American and Japanese versions don't have a language selection, with the options menu containing only sound options and the language being locked into English or Japanese, respectively. Because of this, the European version has the "Sound" button changed to "Options".

JP	US/EU	iQue

• In the US/EU version, a Mario's head icon replaces the word "Mario" (マリオ) on the left of letter of which save file high scores belong to.
• The iQue version uses two pages to display score info due to the larger Chinese characters, thus you change between them with L and R, making this the only version of Super Mario 64 to give a function to the L button.

Hud Textures

Japan	Europe

• The unused "key" HUD icon was removed from the international versions. It appears as a garbled mess in the US version, and as a silver-blue Ü in the European version.

Ä (ae)	Ö (oe)	Ü (ue)

• In the European version, the "German Umlauts" (Ä, Ö and Ü) were added. However the Ü isn't used anywhere in the game.

• The V and Z alphabet tiles were re-added in the European version of Super Mario 64.

Peach's Letter

Japan	English Localization

Japan	Translation	English Localization
おしろへ あそびに きてください。 ケーキ を つくって まってます。 ーピーチよりー	Please come over to the castle. I made a cake, and I'm waiting for you. -From Peach	Dear Mario: Please come to the castle. I've baked a cake for you. Yours truly-- Princess Toadstool Peach

• In Peach's letter to Mario, the English version adds a personal greeting to the beginning and a "Peach" signature in pink ink to the end.

(Source: The Mushroom Kingdom)

Others

• The gameplay demo of Mario battling Bowser is missing in the Japanese version. The other gameplay demos are still present.

• To talk to NPCs or read signs, the player has to press the B button in the original Japanese version. Overseas and in Europe, either the A button or the B button can be used. The text was not changed to compensate for this and still mentions only the B button. The interaction radius has also been made a bit more lenient.

• The American version has code to detect a PAL TV and change its output accordingly, which is odd given there is a separate European version for PAL regions. The Japanese version doesn't have this code.

• In the Japanese version, coins could land on the void and stay there. Later versions despawn any coins that land on the void.

• In the Japanese version, MIPS has the same speed both times he spawns in the basement. In all other versions, MIPS is slightly slower the first time he spawns (at 15 stars). MIPS also has significantly less gravity in the Japanese version.

Voice Acting

Mario

Mario doesn't say a few lines in the Japanese version:

• "Hello!" when his disembodied head greets you.
• "Okey-dokey!" when you choose a save file.
• "Let's-a go!" when you choose a star.
• "Game over!" when you run out of lives.
• "Press START to play!" when you are watching the demo.
• "D'oh!" when you long jump or dive into a wall. He instead says "Uhn!" like when Mario hits a wall any other way.
• "Boing!" when you jump off a Spindrift.
• "Wha-ha!" or "Yipee!" when you Triple Jump. He instead only says "Yahoo!" which can also randomly happen in the international versions.
• "Ha ha!" when leaping out of the pipe in the intro. He still says it after a backflip.
• Mario doesn't say "Mamma mia!" when falling out of a non-painting course after he loses a life in the Japanese version. He does in the international versions.
• "So long, eh Bowser!" when you throw Bowser far away (since his name is "Koopa" in Japan). He instead still says "Here we go!" like when you're throwing him a short distance away.
• His "I'm-a tired!" and dreams about pasta while idling are missing.

(Source: The Mushroom Kingdom)

Peach

Princess Peach doesn't have any voice acting in the original Japanese release during the beginning and final cutscenes. This was added for all other versions.

Level Changes

Inside Castle

Peach Secret Slide Room

Japan	US

Hard to see at first, a wall texture was moved a bit in the American version.

Japan	US

There's a miscolored "red" wall on that corner in the Japanese version, this was corrected in the American Version.

(Source: ProjectRevoTPP, JoshDemon)

Jolly Roger Bay

JP	US/JP (Shindou)

In the Japanese version, the painting of Jolly Roger Bay is essentially water with some bubbles added in. It also was unique in that it did not have a gold frame (sported by almost every other painting in the game, excluding the Cool Cool Mountain and the Wet-Dry World paintings). In the American version, the painting has been changed and the frame was made golden. For some reason, all versions of Super Mario 64 DS use the Japanese picture.

Japan/Shindou	US

In the level itself, the Star on the stone pillar is out in the open in the Japanese version, but contained inside a ! box in the American version, probably to make the Star's position not too obvious. Again, all versions of the DS remake leave the star out like in the Japanese release.

Cool Cool Mountain

Japan	US

When you take the baby penguin to its mother, the Power Star is placed right above the mother in the Japanese version. This was probably a bit hard to collect, so the Star was moved next to the pool in the American version.

Big Boo's Haunt

When Mario stops touching the tilting platform on the second floor of Big Boo's Haunt, the platform immediately starts to return to its original position in the Japanese version. In the American version, it continues to tilt in the direction Mario was standing for about half a second.

(Source: [1])

Rainbow Ride

JP	US/EU/JP (Shindou)

In the original Japanese version, the pole located above one of the four rotating platforms has four small blue arrows around its top, similar to a rose compass. These arrows were removed in all other versions.

Glitches

Some glitches which were present in the Japanese version have been fixed for the American release.

1000 Coin Glitch

It's possible to collect more than 999 coins (for instance, grabbing the coins generated by Bowser's fire), at which point the coin counter gets forced back to 999. A bug in the Japanese version causes it to instead try to set the life counter to 999. Since the life counter is only 8 bits, this becomes -25, which is displayed as M25 in the game. (M is used in the place of a minus sign. This is also seen in the debug displays.) If you then try talking to Yoshi without entering a new course to reset the invisible coin counter, the game will lock up. He'll try to give you 100 total lives, but the game will continuously set Mario's life total to -25 each frame, and you'll be stuck on the roof with Yoshi while the "counting" sound effect continuously playing.

The lines of code relevant to this glitch were included in game.c in the July 2020 source code leak. While the glitch has been fixed, the relevant lines have a comment that reads "JPBUG."

if (marioWorks->nlifes > 100)  marioWorks->nlifes = 100;	/* for sefty	*/
if (marioWorks->ncoins > 999)  marioWorks->ncoins = 999;	/* for sefty	*/	/* JPBUG	*/
if (playerMeter.coin   > 999)  playerMeter.coin   = 999;	/* for sefty	*/	/* JPBUG	*/

Presumably the glitch came from copy-pasting the logic from the first line into the second and forgetting to change one of the variables:

if (marioWorks->ncoins > 999) marioWorks->nlifes = 999; /* OOPS! */

(Source: pannenkoek2012)

• In the Japanese version, when Bowser is defeated and leaves behind the key, run to where the key will land and press C-Up and look somewhere. Mario will keep looking that way during the key collection cutscene.
  • Further, the key collection cutscene shows a Star instead of a key; early footage (see right) of the first Bowser fight shows him leaving behind a Star upon defeat, suggesting that this is a very old leftover.

(Source: darkeye14)

• In both Bowser in the Sky and Shifting Sand Land's pyramid, it is possible to trigger a bug that causes the music to stop. Attempting to leave the course will cause the game to freeze.
• If you exit a level while on a falling bridge block, upon returning to the castle, Mario will clip through the first thing he stands on.
• An exploit was fixed where the game freezes all surroundings except for Mario himself when a text box is queued up, but doesn't actually check whether Mario can receive the text box (is standing on solid ground), thus allowing to move around in a frozen world where no objects update (collected stars don't disappear, doors don't open, etc.) as long as you stay in mid-air. Notable applications included the cap switches, the boos in Big Boo's Haunt Star 1, and Ukiki in Tall Tall Mountain.
• If you take a warp while racing Koopa the Quick in Course 1 (Bob-omb Battlefield), the race music will change back to the regular course music.
• On the first star of Big Boo's Haunt, there is one Boo in the room with the Mr. I where you get the Star "Eye to Eye in the Secret Room". In the Japanese version this Boo counts towards the five boos required to spawn the Big Boo; if this Boo is killed last, the text box won't show up and the jingle won't play due to the Big Boo downstairs being despawned. The later versions added a check so only the five boos on the lower floors count.
• In the Japanese version, Bowser's collision doesn't despawn when he is defeated at the end of Bowser in the Sky, so Mario will still be able to collide with him as if he were there.
• In the Japanese version, King Bob-omb's velocity is not set to zero when he despawns, i. e. by warping away from the battle. As a result, if you start the battle, warp away using the warp right below him, warp back and then talk to him, he will move away while the text box is up.
• The Japanese version has a camera glitch. If Mario grabs a Wing Cap and triple jumps to take off but dives or ground pounds after the camera moves close but before he actually starts flying, the camera will stay behind Mario as if he were still in flight.
• When Piranha Plants are killed and then despawn during the death animation due to being too far away, the Japanese version will simply interrupt the death animation and patiently wait for the player to return to finish the death animation. Trying to do this in later versions will reset the Piranha Plants.
• Mario takes damage from bumping into a sleeping Piranha Plant in the Japanese version only. In later versions he will not take damage from this action.
• Dying from fall damage while falling into the trigger for the Lakitu cutscene at the very beginning of the game causes a softlock in the Japanese version.

(Source: Super Mario Wiki)

Sound Effect Changes

To do: Upload and compare these sounds (ripped not recorded because of US and Japanese console pitch differences).

Japanese to US

• The Chain Chomp makes a totally different barking sound in the Japanese version.
• When collecting Red Coins, the Japanese version uses a different sound that doesn't increase in pitch with each successive coin. This also applies to secrets (for the stars that require finding five "secrets" on the course) and the water rings in Dire Dire Docks.
• Finding the secret shortcut on the slide of Cool Cool Mountain does not play a jingle in the Japanese version. The object that plays this jingle is missing entirely.
• Hitting a cap switch does not play a jingle in the Japanese version.
• The Big Boo in the merry-go-round of Big Boo's Haunt plays the sound effect normally used for opening the chests in Jolly Roger's Bay when he spawns, this was changed to the standard jingle in later versions.
• In all versions other than the Japanese version, coins stop playing a sound for every consecutive bounce after the 5th.
• The Japanese version is missing certain sound effects in the game's opening, specifically the "whoosh" when Lakitu is flying, the "click" when the camera goes into his point of view, and the "boing" when Mario jumps out of the pipe.
• The warping sound effect heard when exiting a course without getting a Star is absent in the Japanese version, and the star sound effect doesn't play when entering certain "mini-courses" like the Tower of the Wing Cap.
• An audio cue titled "Lakitu's Message" was added when Lakitu flies up to Mario to introduce himself and explain the camera controls. Thus, it isn't in the official soundtrack.
• Money Bags don't make a sound when they turn back into a coin in the Japanese version.
• The flying ship on Rainbow Ride is silent in the Japanese version.
• The buzz when trying to zoom out the camera while the camera is already zoomed out is missing in the Japanese version.

(Source: The Mushroom Kingdom)

US to European

• In the intro, when Mario jumps out of the pipe and the pipe goes back into the ground, a variation of the classic Mario "pipe sound" is heard in the US version. This sound has been made a lot quieter in the European version, almost down to where you can't hear it.
• Bowser's doors have completely different sounds for opening and closing in the US version. In the European version, they sound pretty much the same.
• The yellow coin collecting sound is slightly slowed down in the European version.
• When letting go of Mario's face when playing around with it, the European version's sound is in a lower pitch.

Shindou Pak Taiou Version

A Japanese re-release that could be primarily considered an "International Edition", as it includes nearly all the changes to the international version.

It fixes the "backwards long jump" glitch, adds Rumble Pak support, and makes Mario face the screen after grabbing a tree.

The only other difference was Mario's taunt when swinging Bowser far away ("Buh-bye!", rather than "So long, eh Bowser!", or just "Here we go!" in the original Japanese release), as Bowser is named Koopa in Japanese. The "Buh-bye!" clip is slowed down compared to the sound clip in the DS version and the first and second jump sounds are higher in pitch from their international counterparts.

First Jump

Second Jump

"Buh-bye!"

The "Buh-bye!" clip was sped up and reused for Sleep Mode in Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros., and once again when throwing Bowser far away in the former game.

(Source: Super Mario 64 - Tree Grab differences between versions w/ comparison)

New Feature

A neat Easter egg was added to the "Press Start" screen: pressing Z makes the background get filled out with images of Mario's face. This is taken from the frame buffer, so the faces move alongside the modeled Mario face. This is still present in the iQue Player version.

Text Differences

The Shindou version insists you can use A as an alternative to B for interacting with things. Non-Japanese scripts are based on the original Japanese version. The localized English version is also present to complete the comparison.

Japan	Translation	English Localization	Shindou Pak Taiou Version	Translation
おおっと、ここはキケンな せんじょうの どまんなか。 『え』のなかのせかいには クッパが ぬすんだ パワースターがある。 まずは、あかいボムへいに はなしかけてみるといい！ Bボタンではなしができる。 きっと、ちからになって くれるはずだ。 カンバンを よむときも たちどまって Bボタン！ AかBボタンですすめる！ まえにたつだけで はなし かける、どうぶつもいます。	Uh-oh, looks like you've landed smack dab in the middle of a dangerous battlefield. The worlds inside the paintings contain the Power Stars that were stolen by Koopa. First off, try talking with the red Bomb Trooper! Strike up a conversation with B. They're sure to help you out. To read signs, stand in front of them and press B. Use A or B to scroll through text! There are also creatures who will talk to you if you stand in front of them.	Wow! You're smack in the middle of the battlefield. You'll find the Power Stars that Bowser stole inside the painting worlds. First, talk to the Bob-omb Buddy. (Press B to talk.) He'll certainly help you out, and so will his comrades in other areas. To read signs, stop, face them and press B. Press A or B to scroll ahead. You can talk to some other characters by facing them and pressing B.	おおっと、ここはキケンな せんじょうの どまんなか。 『え』のなかのせかいには クッパが ぬすんだ パワースターがある。 まずは、あかいボムへいに はなしかけてみるといい！ Bボタンではなしができる。 きっと、ちからになって くれるはずだ。 カンバンは まえにたって AかBボタンでよめます。 まえにたつだけで はなし かけてくれる どうぶつも います。	Uh-oh, looks like you've landed smack dab in the middle of a dangerous battlefield. The worlds inside the paintings contain the Power Stars that were stolen by Koopa. First off, try talking with the red Bomb Trooper! Strike up a conversation with B. They're sure to help you out. You can read signs by standing in front of them and pressing A or B. Use A or B to scroll through text! There are also creatures who will talk to you if you stand in front of them.
このように カンバンの まえで Bボタンをおすと よむことができます。 ノコノコや どうぶつたち と はなすときは、まえに たちどまってください。 このコースにあるクッパに ぬすまれたパワースターを とりかえしてください。	You can read a sign by standing in front of it like this and pressing the B button. To talk to Nokonokos and other creatures, stand in front of them. Please recover the Power Stars stolen by Koopa that are hidden in this course.	To read a sign, stand in front of it and press B, like you did just now. When you want to talk to a Koopa Troopa or other animal, stand right in front of it. Please recover the Stars that are stolen by Bowser in this course.	このように カンバンの まえでAかBボタンをおし よむことができます。 ノコノコや どうぶつたち と はなすときは、まえに たちどまってください。 このコースにあるクッパに ぬすまれたパワースターを とりかえしてください。	You can read a sign by standing in front of it like this and pressing the A or B button. To talk to Nokonoko and other creatures, stand in front of them. Please recover the Power Stars stolen by Koopa that are hidden in this course.
『ピーチの おしろ』 すぐそこ Aボタン『ジャンプ』 Zボタン『しゃがむ』 Bボタン『カンバンよむ』 『パンチ』 『ものをもつ』 もういちどおす『なげる』	Peach's Castle Dead Ahead A Button - Jump Z Button - Crouch B Button - Read Signs - Punch - Grab - Press Twice to Throw	Princess Toadstool's castle is just ahead. Press A to jump, Z to crouch, and B to punch, read a sign, or grab something. Press B again to throw something you're holding.	『ピーチの おしろ』 すぐそこ Aボタン『ジャンプ』 『カンバンよむ』 Zボタン『しゃがむ』 Bボタン『パンチ』 『カンバンよむ』 『ものをもつ』 もういちどおすと 『なげる』	Peach's Castle Dead Ahead A Button - Jump - Read Signs Z Button - Crouch B Button - Punch - Read Signs - Grab - Press Twice to Throw

Virtual Console version

The Wii Virtual Console version of Super Mario 64 contains a floating-point rounding error as a result of an emulation inaccuracy. This results in the platforms in Bowser in the Fire Sea very slowly moving up with every cycle.

This glitch would be later exploited in an online speedrunning category titled the "A Button Challenge", where Super Mario 64 is beaten with the most minimal A presses possible.

Because the platform slowly moves up, this allows for a strategy that takes up to THREE DAYS to be performed involving waiting for the platform to rise at the right height and using a glitch that launches Mario up to the elevator without reaching the pole (which in the context of this challenge requires one A press).

This bug was fixed with all later Nintendo 64 games released via Virtual Console, as well as the Wii U VC version of Super Mario 64.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars

To do: Add some screenshots/ripped textures for comparison? Some text was changed in the rerelease to reference the Switch controller. Look for other text differences.

The version included in Super Mario 3D All-Stars is based on the Shindou Pak Taiou version, with some textures being redrawn in a higher resolution (most notably the HUD and Mario's textures). Certain textures that were based on pre-existing artwork, like the Bowser puzzle, use higher resolution prints of said artwork, and most other textures, like the Hazy Maze Cave map, were upscaled using AI. For languages other than Japanese, the text is translated accordingly. These changes are actually patched in on-the-fly as the game runs, and as a result ripping and playing the ROM on an emulator gives you the standard, no-nonsense Shindou Mario 64 experience.