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Super Mario All-Stars
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| Super Mario All-Stars |
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Also known as: Super Mario Collection (JP)
 This game has a notes page This game has a prerelease article |
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 mostly-unchanged ROM image was packaged with an officially-coded Virtual Console emulator and slapped on a Wii disc to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros. Furthermore, in 2020, to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario All-Stars was added to the collection of Super NES games playable with a paid Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
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Contents
Sub-Pages
| Prerelease Info |
| Notes |
General
Content not specific to any particular game.
Unused Nintendo Logo
This alternate version of the Nintendo logo can be found among the sprite graphics for Super Mario Bros. Unlike the final version, the racetrack surrounding the text is less round, and the logo isn't paired with a giant Mario coin.
Unused Sounds
The majority of the game's sound effects were imported directly from Super Mario World. This includes a number of sounds that ultimately went unused, such as Yoshi's sounds. It's likely that these are just leftovers, and were not actually meant to be used in Super Mario All-Stars.
Debug Mode
To activate debugging features for all four games, either use the code 008C1E01 or set SRAM address 700007 to 01 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 Goomba's Shoe.)
Placeholder Text
Some image banks in the ROM have placeholder text that marks where graphics will be loaded in-game.
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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).
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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.
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From the Super Mario Bros. 3 tileset, this text translates as "Mario, Luigi" and denotes the location of the player graphics.
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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.
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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, though this may be similar to how later Nintendo games (Wii era onwards, plus the game where the idea originated - EarthBound) would occasionally suggest you take a break.
Unused Spiny Egg Behavior
In Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, the Spiny eggs are thrown by Lakitu in a simple way, with no horizontal movement whatsoever. However, this is not the intended behavior; it's actually the result of a bug! The eggs are supposed to be thrown out relative to the player's speed, Lakitu's speed, the player's position, and a pseudo-random value, as well as bounce off of any blocks or walls that they hit on the way down. The following patch will fix the Spiny egg bug in the NTSC version:
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Download Spiny Egg Speed Patch
File: SMASSpinyFix.zip (861 B) (info)
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Anti-Piracy
| To do: The text is animated, rip the animation too |
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 $702000, then compares it with the value at $700000. 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 1180508F and choose Super Mario Bros. 2/Super Mario USA from the game menu.
Super Mario All-Stars (US)
Super Mario Collection (JP)
Super Mario All-Stars (EU)
Super Mario All-Stars + World (EU)
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. These graphics were used in Nintendo Power video previews and can be seen in screenshots on the back of the North American box.
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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, and a unique ground tile not found in the original game.
This unique brick block appears multiple times in the graphics bank, but it's not clear what they were made for.
Corner tiles for the castle bricks. Intended for optimization.
A copy of the end-of-level castle that is only loaded in underground areas. Of course, the end of the underground levels is always set in the overworld, so the game never uses these.
Sea coral in front of brown rocks. The palette that is used by the normal coral blocks also hold duplicates of the colors from the background rocks, logically intended for this sprite. The only place where it would make sense to be used is in the "level preview screen" for water levels.
An alternate sea coral. What makes it more interesting is that it's animated, unlike the coral block used in the final!
This star shows up among the tiles for both the Mario and Luigi bonus room backgrounds.
An unused piece for the underground background. It's a little pipe sticking out from the rocks.
This ground tile was meant to go on the very bottom of the underground background, at the same height as the level's foreground solid floor. It even appears in pre-release images!
This graphic appears among the tiles for the rocks/mountains background as seen in levels like World 2-1 in Super Mario Bros.. It also appears in between the tiles for World 8-3's background. It can be assumed that this graphic was used to lay a flat ground on the very bottom of the screen, and in fact, this can be seen in a pre-release image.
Curious to note is that the red palette used by the background trees in levels like World 4-1 from Super Mario Bros. is replaced by a brown palette in snow levels (see the "unused palettes" section below). Using the pre-release image linked above as basis, it can be theorized that the background trees shared their palette with this unused graphic, which would have a brown coloring in the snow variant of the rocks/mountains background.
The tiles highlighted here are never seen in any underwater level.
Unused Palettes
The mossy green palette used by objects like the grassy World x-3 platforms is replaced by white and gray in mushroom-themed levels such as World 4-3 in Super Mario Bros.. The player never sees this because these platforms, or any object that uses this palette, don't ever appear in that type of level.
If you change the game's data to load these platforms in mushroom levels, this is what they'll look like:
The palette used by the trees in levels like World 4-1 from Super Mario Bros. has its shades of red become brown in snow levels. This is never seen because this palette is not used by any piece of the background in snow levels.
At ROM addresses 235E3 (Super Mario Bros.) and 73447 (The Lost Levels) in the North American version, the palette above can be found, which isn't loaded anywhere. It is a perfect fit for Bowser's sprites:
In the original Famicom Disk System version of The Lost Levels, the first Bowsers encountered in Worlds 8-4 and D-4, as well as the one encountered in 9-4, used an alternate bluish palette with darker skin, resembling this palette. This palette swap is often referred to as Bowser's brother in official material. However, all Bowsers in Super Mario All-Stars use his standard green palette.
In the North American version, using Game Genie codes 4DC0-6727 and D5C9-6DF7 simultaneously will make this palette load instead of Bowser's standard palette in all levels of SMB1.
Level Type Oddities
| To do:
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The All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. has many unique combinations of different foreground and background designs across its levels, and they're all defined in 33 "level type" IDs.
- Level type ID 00 creates a two screens long underwater background. It's never used in any underwater level in the game.
- Level type ID 1a is a duplicate of ID 19, and they both create an underground themed foreground and background with absolutely no differences. While ID 19 is used in nearly every underground level, ID 1a is only used in World 4-2.
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.
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
Also known as Super Mario Bros. 2. Super Mario All-Stars was the first time players outside Japan got to play this entry.
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 taller, the "FOR SUPER PLAYERS" subtitle is missing, and the star (indicating how many times you've beaten 8-4) is present.
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 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. As with the FDS game's message, the last two lines' palette settings are different than the rest, though in this case it's a pinkish color not used 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, likely because the game's save function includes your current life count (capped at 128, which can easily be accumulated at the structure just into World 1-1) and goes level-by-level, which would make it rather easy to get an absurdly-high score.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Also known as Super Mario USA and "Doki Doki Panic Romhack".
Unused Graphics
Full sprite sheets for the four playable characters in an earlier state exist in the game. The greatest difference in them is that they retain the original design when they're in the "small" state, with the big head from the NES Super Mario Bros. 2, alongside featuring a 2-frame walk cycle as opposed to a 3-frame one, again, just like the NES version.
The "big" Mario sprites are nearly identical to what is seen in-game, albeit somewhat incomplete; While some have a blue outline in a few spots, one of them has Mario's shoes in one shade of red, revealing that the new sprites were painted over the NES originals. The darkest shade of blue also matches with the NES sprite.
Like Mario, Luigi looks very similar to his final design.
Princess Toadstool suffered the most changes from the bunch. Here she looks much closer to how she did in the original game, and curiously her "small" sprite also looks similar to the unused Princess sprite from Super Mario Bros. (see above).
Toad had some little changes here and there. His sprite for the "player select" screen has his pants colored red and his shoes blue for some reason.
These slot graphics are based on the NES version, but the 7 is brand new! These were discarded for the larger slot icons.
A tomato that should've 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.
An unused fire sprite very similar to the original NES version. The final game has an animated spinning fireball instead.
Graphics ported directly from the NES version, unmodified.
The mountain/cavern tiles from the NES version, revamped for All-Stars, but left unused in favor of new and better terrain design.
This was the block that composed the icy terrain in ice levels in the NES version. It suffered the same treatment as the cavern tiles above.
The dark lines in this tile match the wood tiles from the "inside tree" sections of World 5 in the original game, which means this could be a revamp of said tiles, though it doesn't look anything like wood.
A somewhat crudely drawn block.
This could be an early version of the bricks pattern seen in tower sections, based more closely on the original design from the NES version.
A static whale tail.
The green rocks from regular overworld levels, but with no plantlife on top.
The bug with 8 frames long animations from the original Super Mario Bros. 2 still plagues the Albatoss in All-Stars, leaving his last frame unseen.
An alternate design of the shell, looking very close to the original sprite from the NES version.
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? This fanfare would later be used in Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 for when you win the picture slots minigame.
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.
Sub-Pages
 | Unused Levels They're still in the game! |
 | Unused Graphics Some new, some updated, some unchanged. |
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 7E016080...although this unfortunately doesn't seem to activate the level select. Press Select to cycle through Mario's forms, or Select + A/B/X/Y to toggle Goomba's Shoe.
Due to a programming oversight, the old debug mode has a tendency to randomly enable itself on real SNES consoles. See the Notes page for the technical details.
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 0x7E1019 to any value besides 00 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 yellow 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 also-unused Green Para-Beetle spawner.
Unused Text
Present near the Super Mario Bros. 3 graphics. Probably development text that was left in the ROM.
NAK1989 S-CG-CADVer1.23 9b0 26
Regional Differences
| To do: European version info. And other stuff. |
Title Screen
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In Japanese, Super Mario All-Stars is called 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.
The "in the dark" chatter is also different between the Japanese and international versions. This was changed because the line, "One more beer please" can be heard in the background in the Japanese version, and Nintendo of America did not allow mention of alcoholic drinks at the time.
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Main Menu
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The Japanese version uses the original box art for each game on the main menu, whereas the international versions use the American box art. For whatever reason, Nintendo opted not to rescan the boxes for the European version, and instead edited the American versions to add a few Europe-specific details, such as the round Nintendo seals and the changed dates.
The international versions also received a few other minor touchups, including larger shadows, a white arrow border, and brighter colors.
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For 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 Diskun, the FDS mascot. The European version doesn't list a year.
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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 trademark icon.
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The American/European 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. Also, the logo for Super Mario USA uses a brighter shade of blue than the Super Mario Bros. 2 one.
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The level cards were also changed, although interestingly the international logo looks far more like the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 logo.
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The Super Mario Bros. 3 date was also changed (1988 for Japan, 1990 for America).
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The "FILE" text in the file select menus is pink in the Japanese version, and red everywhere else. The controller button colors in the American version were changed to purple and lavender, and the Y and X buttons were made concave. The European version retains the original button colors, but removes the glossy look for some reason.
Revisional Differences
| To do: There is bound to be additional differences between the Japanese 1.0 and 1.1 releases. If so, find and document them. |
In December 1994 (1995 for Europe), Super Mario All-Stars was reissued as Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World, and was released solely as a pack-in title in America. As this edition was not released in Japan, Super Mario World is based on its American release featuring slight changes.
Title Screen
| All-Stars (North America) | All-Stars + World (North America) | All-Stars + World (Europe) |
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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 white 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. The European version added a 1991 copyright (despite Super Mario World not being released in Europe until 1992).
Main Menu
| All-Stars (North America) | All-Stars + World (North America) | All-Stars + World (Europe) |
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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 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.
| All-Stars (North America) | All-Stars + World (North America) |
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| All-Stars (Europe) | All-Stars + World (Europe) |
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The NES boxes were rescanned and resized. Once again, Nintendo scanned only one set of these boxes for the US and European versions. Previously, the North American "REV-A" boxes were used and, in the PAL release, edited accordingly. This time, however, they opted 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, albeit neglecting to remove the telltale extra "NES Version" text as well as to re-add the barely-readable "REV-A" text.
| All-Stars (North America) | All-Stars + World (North America) | All-Stars + World (Europe) |
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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 European version). The "1986" graphic was also removed. A small error where a black space can be seen between the H and E in the word 'THE' was also fixed, changing that black space to match the color of the greater portion of the drop shadow.
| All-Stars (North America) | All-Stars + World (North America) |
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| All-Stars (Europe) | All-Stars + World (Europe) |
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On the screen where the player selects the file they wish to load when starting a particular game, the "FILE" text changed from scarlet(ish) to pink (although not the same pink as the Japanese version, Super Mario Collection). The icon that identifies which action is applied to the B button also gets a contrast boost in both regions.
| All-Stars (On The Lost Levels) | All-Stars + World (On World) |
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When selecting Super Mario World in the All-Stars + World releases, 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 has a short delay that, for some reason, slowly diminishes the longer the game remains paused to the point that pressing the Start button after long enough will unpause the game instantly. This interesting behavior only occurs in the Japanese Super Mario Collection 1.1 and the American Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World. In both European versions, on the other hand, the delay when unpausing the game is always one second with the sound effect playing as soon as the Start button is pressed to unpause the game.
Super Mario World
| Super Mario World (Original) | Super Mario World (All-Stars) |
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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 climbing a vine, weren't altered). In addition, a fourth save file was added and the unique "96 exits" completion marking was redone to match the font used on the game selection menu.
| Super Mario World (Original) | Super Mario World (All-Stars) |
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| In the original versions of SuperMario World, nothing happensupon pressing Select while onthe overworld map. Because ofthis, no image can be providedwithin this square in the table. | 
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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. Additionally, the pause menu can be brought up (only) on the map by pressing the Select button, something that was not present originally. This pause menu allows the player to either continue without saving or quit and return to the All-Stars title screen without saving.
Version Differences
Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition
- Found in the folder content5 in the Wii disc image is a file called Opera.arc which contains more files such as filter.ini, input.ini, opera.ini, and vcmv_skin.zip.
- The flashing background colors found in the Super Mario All-Stars versions of Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 were made transparent and toned down to minimize the risk of epileptic seizures. The same changes are present in the Nintendo Switch Online version.
- Games developed by Nintendo EAD
- Games published by Nintendo
- SNES games
- Games released in 1993
- Games with unused areas
- Games with hidden development-related text
- Games with unused enemies
- Games with unused graphics
- Games with unused items
- Games with unused text
- Games with debugging functions
- Games with regional differences
- Games with revisional differences
- Games with anti-piracy methods
- To do
- Mario series
Cleanup > To do
Games > Games by content > Games with anti-piracy methods
Games > Games by content > Games with debugging functions
Games > Games by content > Games with hidden development-related text
Games > Games by content > Games with regional differences
Games > Games by content > Games with revisional differences
Games > Games by content > Games with unused areas
Games > Games by content > Games with unused enemies
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