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Super Mario World (SNES)/Unused Graphics & Objects

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This is a sub-page of Super Mario World (SNES).

A gigantic number of unused graphics and objects can be found hidden in the ROM. Even more stuff from earlier builds of Super Mario World can be found in the SNES Test Program and SNES Burn-In Test Cart.

Objects

Sprite-Based Objects

Classic Piranha Plant

Piranha Plant with Cheep Cheep filling.
Sprite ID: 1A

A classic Piranha Plant. If you've ever played a Mario game, you should know how this works. Its vine tile has been replaced in memory with one of the frames of Cheep Cheep flopping around on land, using the red palette instead of their normal yellow palette. Note that the upside-down variation of this is used in Vanilla Dome 3, but its stem has been made tileset-specific to the Cave object tileset, and since both Piranha Plants share their stem tilemaps, this explains why the stem of this has been moved.

An unused, yellow upward facing Piranha Plant variant was shown in a prerelease screenshot however.

There is in fact code in the game to make the stem use the same tiles as the upside-down variation, but due to a bug, it doesn't work properly. There is an Asar patch to correct this problem.

Floating Platform

A big ol' floating platform.
Sprite ID: 5E

This platform will move to the right constantly once Mario lands on it. If Sprite Buoyancy is enabled in the current level, this object will act like the smaller floating platforms found in levels such as Yoshi's Island 4.

Flying Coin

Flying red coin.
Sprite ID: 7E

A red coin that continuously moves to the right like a P-Balloon. Collecting it will give the player five coins. Funnily enough, they can be killed with the Fire Flower fireballs. Red coins would not make their official debut until Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, five years later.

Flying Mushroom

Of the gold persuasion!
Sprite ID: 7F

Similar to the above object, this floating "gold" (it actually uses the tan palette of the Monty Moles) mushroom gives the player an extra life.

Flying Cage

That's clearly a cage, there are bars and everything!
Sprite ID: 88

This graphically-glitched flying cage can be put into the game. Mario is automatically placed inside the cage when the level starts, and if used in conjunction with an autoscroll object will make the cage move across the level on a set path.

Interestingly, the tile numbers and proportions used to draw the wings match up with sprite graphics found in the SNES Test Program (at least for the larger tile), making this an old leftover.

Unused Chargin' Chuck

Sprite ID: 96

A duplicate of the normal Chargin' Chuck, used nowhere in the game.

Swooper Spawner

A good amount of blue Swoopers.
Sprite ID: E4

This object will spawn a bunch of Swoopers at whatever Y position it's placed, acting much like the Boo spawner found in Ghost Houses. These Swoopers cannot be defeated and will hurt Mario if he tries jumping on them. Note that one of their two flying frames has glitched graphics, hinting that Swoopers had a tilemap change at some point in development, and the fact that jumping on them deals damage hints that they may have once been something completely different.

It should be noted that the Swoopers spawned by this object have a completely different palette than the ones used in-game; a blue and red palette is used instead of the green and orange one used by the normal Swooper objects. Curiously, later games would use the alternate coloration for Swooper, meaning that this may have been the intended palette after all.

Dummy Floating Platforms

A monochrome sponge?

Sprite IDs: 56, 58

These platforms are like the checkerboard platforms, but their sizes are 3 × 2 pixels.

Eerie Generator

Sprite ID: CB

Like the other spawners, this one spawns Eeries. You probably already guessed that.

Flat Green Palace Switch

It's a flat (Pressed) green palace switch.

Floating Checkboard Platform

Same as brown floating platform, but the size is 5x1 pixel.

Sprite Commands

Layer 2 Fall

Sprite ID: ED

A sprite that causes Layer 2 to fall. It also disables horizontal scrolling. Intended for use in Vertical Layer 2 Level with Layer 2 interaction (Level Mode 08).

Layer 2 - Give Some

This command is slightly sinking when player stand on, rise back if player is not on the ledge.

Layer 2 Scroll - Smash Range 11

Variation of Layer 2 Smash, but this uses Layer 2 Scroll - Range 06 (at Y=1).

Medium/Fast Auto-scroll

May causes BUG, and the scroll is endless.

Other Autoscroll Specials

Only Special 1 (Donut Plains 2), 1-A (Wings Level) & 4 (Butter Bridge 1) are used.

Special 1 & 3 affects layer 2.
Special 2, 2-A & 4 only affects layer 1.

Foreground Objects

Vertical Pipe Double Ended

This is double ended vertical pipe object, never used in the original game.

Blue Coin

A coin that is blue.
FG Object ID: 16

This acts just like a normal coin, but it's all...blue. Blue coins made their official debut several years later, in Super Mario 64.

A block that is magenta.

Hitting a P-Switch will turn these blue coins into magenta blocks. They can still be collected like coins, since the code that makes regular coins solid does not apply to this particular object.

Global Rope

Apparently known about for so long that people forgot it is unused.
FG Object ID: 17

A horizontal rope platform resembling those found in the mountain tileset, only this one isn't tileset specific. This shares its object ID with the 16x16 cloud platform.

Small Door

Want to make a hack harder? Force the player to use half-doors!
FG Object ID: 10 (Extended object)

Half-sized doors that can only be entered by Small Mario. Both normal and P-Switch versions are coded in the game.

Question Mark Block with Shell

That ? Block had a shell in it!
FG Object ID: 37, 38 (Extended object)

Question Mark Blocks that contain Koopa shells are fully coded in the game! Well, not just a Koopa shell. The actual Koopa is still inside, and it will get back up if you wait too long. Unlike a normal shell, fireballs have no effect on it. This is because items from blocks or the reserve box are immune to fireballs in order to prevent the player from frying them. These blocks can be seen by using the block duplication glitch. Shells (and by extension, Koopa as well as other enemies) can later be officially put in blocks in the Super Mario Maker series.

Empty Turn Block

FG Object ID: 2E (Extended object)

Acts like a Turn Block with an item inside, but doesn't actually contain anything.

Bounce Block

A rude awakening for Mario.
FG Object ID: 39 (Feather - Extended object)
Block with "Nothing" not defined as an object but is in Map16 at 12B

These blocks aren't activated by Koopa shells or jumping, but by running into them from the side. They are finished, but the object part of this block uses the wrong graphics (hinting that something else other than the P-Switch and Springboard was here). This graphical error can be fixed by changing the two 0x03 bytes at PC address $0729A to 0x00. Two versions of this block are coded: one with nothing in it, and one with a Cape Feather, the latter turning into the former when hit. Similar blocks appeared in Super Mario Bros. 3.

Seaweed

That's a wacky weed.
FG Object ID: 81 (Extended object)

An object-ified version of the seaweed commonly seen in underwater backgrounds. This is only found in the Ghost House tileset, and was likely intended to appear in the Sunken Ghost Ship.

Grass

The grass object, inserted via Lunar Magic.
FG Object ID: 3F X5 where X is the object length (Plains tileset only)

In the tileset-specific object set, Bushes 4 and 5 are considered unused, although Bush 5 is finished and works fine. The graphics for it are also finished, available in the forest tileset.

Conveyor Ropes

...carnage? A bit more carnageous
FG Object ID: 36 X_ (Flat), 37 SS (Diagonal) (Mountain tileset only)

These are completely functional conveyor belts using special animated rope tiles. They can go either left or right, and the diagonal ones can face either direction, giving a total of six different unused ropes.

Note Block (All Sides)

FG Object ID: 27 (Extended object)

A Note Block that will bounce Mario away from all sides, not just the top, similar to the pink Note Blocks in Super Mario Bros. 3.

Log Objects

*from Blammo!
FG Object ID: 3E (Horizontal), 3F (Vertical) (Mountain tileset only)

These logs are bright yellow, and can be both horizontal and vertical.

Side Cloud Fringes

FG Object ID: 3E (Plains tileset only)

Side cloud fringes. Used nowhere in original game.

Top Cloud Fringe on white

FG Object ID: 3D X1 (Plains tileset only)

Cloud fringe inside the white tile.

Cloud Fringe edges

FG Object ID: 68-6F (Extended object)

Cloud Fringe edge tiles.

Semisolid Forest Tiles

These tiles are never used in the original game.

Unbreakable Turn Block

Map16 Tile ID: 140

Self-explanatory.

Overworld Sprites

Lakitu

Don't worry, he won't throw Spinies.

This Lakitu will follow Mario around on the main overworld map, but he won't appear on any submaps (e.g., Vanilla Dome). Lakitu can be activated by hex editing a save state and changing address 19FB from 00 to 01.

This was most probably meant to appear on levels with Lakitus in them, but it was never coded to do such. Besides that, the only Lakitus in the game appear in submaps.

Blue Jay

Something like this?

Map bird

This odd-looking bird also follows Mario around on the overworld map, but it will also appear on submaps (except Vanilla Dome). Like the Lakitu, it can be activated by changing address 19FC in a savestate to 02.

It has been suggested that the bird was used around levels that contained the flying cage, since the mysterious winged objects holding up the cage use a blue palette.

Piranha Plant

Chomp-chomp-chomp!

The Classic Piranha Plant really got shafted in this game. This is a sprite meant to go on the overworld as decoration, but it's never used.

Koopaling

Hmmm...
To do:
Compare their positions to early maps found in the gigaleak.
Only three kids. Huh.

Koopalings.

Three Koopalings are actually present on the overworld map, but are never visible; the path tiles that were originally supposed to make them appear were changed into oddball corner tiles and used in the Star World. Unlike the rest of the overworld sprites, these actually had a purpose – they were to drag you into levels, much like the hands in World 8 of Super Mario Bros. 3.

The positions of the sprites (visible in Lunar Magic's overworld editor) suggest a vastly different overworld layout at the time of their "removal" than what was seen in the final.

Other Unused Graphics

Hmmm...
To do:
Some graphics are incorrectly displayed, such as Wendy's bow

Old P-Switch

SMW Unused Beta Switch.png
A graphic from a old version of the P-Switch, when this sprite was a object. This idea was scrapped, but the complete graphics were recovered from the gigaleak here.

Hills Background Star

Star light, star bright, star pulsating in the night
An animated star tile found in the hilly and Ghost House background tilesets. It's not used in either. In the final game, a different tileset is used for starry nights.

Early Yoshi Berry

Yum!

This rounder, shinier, non-animated version of the Yoshi berry is loaded into VRAM at the beginning of each level, but is immediately overwritten with the animated version, which looks much different. In fact, three different versions of the berry graphic exist in the ROM, as shown below:

Mario Flying Without His Cape

Imma don't need-a the cape!

An interesting sprite of Mario flying, except without his cape. The sprite appears to be identical to his second frame of his flying animation. The rest of the sprites were found in the July 24, 2020 gigaleak.

Small Musical Note

*doot*

A small musical note sprite, that bears a resemblance to the one on Note Blocks. In later games such as Super Mario 3D Land, notes like these pop out of Note Blocks when you jump on them, so maybe the same was planned for this game.

Fire-Spitting Dino Rhino

That's a spicy meatball! Urp

Dino Rhino was supposed to have an actual attack! These frames and a vertical version of Yoshi's fireball appear in the Dino Rhino tileset. In the actual game, Dino Rhino just walks back and forth; only the smaller Dino Torch actually attacks.

May I ingest you?

Interestingly, one of the transformed kings in the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 3 uses a scaled-down, differently-colored variant of the horizontal frame with a crown tacked on top.

Chain Chomp's Chain

It almost looks like a metal doughnut.

In the graphics set for the forest enemies is Chain Chomp's chain. It was revealed that the Chain Chomp and Hammer Bros. were intended for the forest enemy group during the July 24, 2020 gigaleak. The chain was likely forgotten after Chain Chomp was overwritten with the Fishing Lakitu, while the Hammer Bros. were completely overwritten with dummy tiles. Chain Chomps would later use something similar to this in the Super Mario World style in the Super Mario Maker series.

Yoshi

Yoshi!

Several unused Yoshi parts intended for the ending.

Yoshi Dust

Yoshi Dusted!

This dust is supposed to appear when Mario hops on Yoshi, but it's unused in the final game. Game Genie code 8B68-AFDC will enable this feature.

Iggy's Hair

In the game, Iggy and Larry both have the same hairstyle.

Slick.Also slick.

However, in Super Mario Bros. 3, Iggy had a significantly different hairstyle. Graphics for this hairstyle do exist in Super Mario World, but are unused:

Disembodied hair! Run for your lives!

If used, it would look like this:

Not rainbow, but 100% spikey!The spikes know all.

This seems to have been a mere oversight, as Iggy has his proper hair style during the ending. The tilemaps used during the ending are separate from the in-game ones, hence the discrepancies.

Correct hair in exchange for some incorrect palettes.

Morton and Roy's Attack

BLAARGHH BWEEAAAGGHHH

It seems that Morton and Roy were intended to have a secondary attack! This makes sense, since both of them have the same appropriate frames as Ludwig, who has a fireball attack.

Early Koopa Clown Car Teardrop

Somebody made the clown sad.

A tile version of the teardrop that appears when damaging the Koopa Clown Car. In the final game, it is a sprite that animates slightly and uses a blue palette, so this static tile version ends up unused.

Placeholder Block Graphics

Before After
Off! On!

These placeholder graphics for the on/off and spinning blocks are loaded before the animated versions are. "ブロック転送" means "Block transfer".

Early Brick Graphics

Early Final
SMW-Bricks-Early.png SMW-Bricks-Final.png

An earlier version of the bricks seen in the boss fights. Compared to the final version, the early one is poorly shaded.

Old Mario Palette Leftovers

The SNES Test Program used a slightly different Mario palette scheme compared to the one used in Super Mario World, though Nintendo forgot to fix the palettes for some frames: the pink colors on some of the frames were originally for the colors for Mario's clothes, however those were later replaced for Peach's dress. The reason that color is being used for Mario's clothes instead is that Mario's shoes had shading earlier in development, and thus it appears in the Test Program.

Early Mario:

It's-a early me!

Final Mario/Luigi:

It's-a me!

As you can see, Mario's shoes lost their shading by the final.

Flying Birds

If birds evolved from dinosaurs, why are there still dinosaurs?

Why does Luigi have so many of those creepy Mario masks anyway?

The birds found atop Yoshi's House have two unused flying frames. While these were left unused in the original game, the tiles found a purpose in the Game Boy Advance remake during the 96 exits cutscene, and as part of the reward for completing the coin-collecting challenge in Donut Plains 1.

5-Up

Two less than seven!

Graphics for a 5-Up bonus, which can only be seen via a glitch.

Older Title Screen Graphics

Super Mario Bros. 4

4 is one more than 3!

These graphics appeared in an early version of the U.S. title screen, and are still present in the ROM. Strangely enough, they are not present in the Japanese ROM, even though the official Japanese label art did have the subtitle of "SUPER MARIO BROS. 4".

AND

And...what?

Just the word "AND", which was meant to be used for the international title screen.