Did you know that a 2.5D Mario title was rumored
to be coming to the GBA near its launch? Or that there was supposedly going to be a
crossover between Mario and Kingdom Hearts? In this video we'll cover these rumors and
lots more, so make sure you stick around until the end. In 2019 we made a video that delved into the
history of Mario rumors, and at the time we thought the video was fairly comprehensive. But since then we’ve found even more rumors
from Mario’s past, and a few new rumors popped up since we made that initial video. So we’re back to complete our retrospective
on the history of Mario rumors, and we’re starting with a tall-tale from all the way
back in the early 90s. During the height of the Super Nintendo’s
success, Super Mario World was rumored to have a bonus Moon World, similar to the game’s
Special World. The rumor even seemed to stem from an official
source: an issue of Club Nintendo magazine in Australia. According to the magazine, not only were players
able to visit a Moon in Super Mario World, but they could also go to the moon in other
titles like Super Mario Land and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. In reality, up until this point, the only
Mario title with a moon-themed level was Super Mario Land 2. There’s obviously no Moon World in Super
Mario World, or any indication of one being planned in its gamedata. The rumor lived on though, and was prevalent
enough for several ROM hackers to create mods of the game featuring moon inspired levels. Another rumor from the 90s claimed that Bowser
has, or at one point, had a wife named “Clawdia Koopa”. According to the rumor, the character was
first revealed in an article from a UK version of Nintendo Power. A supposed image of Clawdia was even circulated
online, adding to the hearsay. However, this image comes from an issue of
the Nintendo Comic System, where a page from Bowser’s high school yearbook is shown. This unnamed character is never stated to
have any sort of relationship with Bowser, and was likely just a visual gag. An additional part of the rumor is easily
proven false, as there never was a magazine called Nintendo Power released in the UK. The country’s Nintendo-based magazine has
had several names such as Nintendo Official Magazine and Official Nintendo Magazine, but
never Nintendo Power. There’s even evidence that the idea of Bowser
having a wife named Clawdia came from a Mario fan-site. The creator of the site Lemmy's Land made
a character called Clawdia for their own fanfiction to act as Bowser’s wife. And as the Mario Wiki points out, the webmaster
has always openly stated that Clawdia was their original creation. So it seems that someone saw Lemmy’s writing,
and tried to make up a rumor about Bowser having a wife, then made it harder to fact
check by saying the information came from the UK. One magazine that was quick to report rumors
back in the day was Electronic Gaming Monthly. In their Gaming Gossip segment, EGM’s “Quartermann”
would report a handful of rumors in the industry in each issue. One of these rumors told of a brand new Mario
& Donkey Kong game coming to the SNES. Quartermann would go on to talk about how
the game was a 16-bit remake of the arcade version of Donkey Kong with new scenes and
better graphics. While no such game ever released, it’s interesting
to note that a reboot of the arcade Donkey Kong game came to the original GameBoy only
2 years later, which featured remade levels as well as a handful of new worlds to explore. It’s also possible that word somehow got
out about Donkey Kong Country, as the game’s intro has a homage to the original Donkey
Kong. Quartermann would follow up with another Mario
rumor two years later, this time about Nintendo’s Super Mario launch title for the Nintendo
64. They reported that the game would be filled
with action, flying sequences, and most notably, driving segments. Super Mario 64 would ultimately include some
action and flying sequences, but no driving mechanic was present in the final game. While Quartermann reported this all to be
in one game, it is once again interesting to note that Mario Kart 64 would come to the
system only six months after the N64’s launch in North America. As for this rumor, it seems possible that
someone at EGM or one of their informants may have seen footage of Mario Kart 64 without
context, and assumed it was a part of Mario 64. Or maybe we’re giving someone too much credit,
and it was just an outright lie from a rumormonger. One piece of hearsay from the early 2000s
came from a screenshot for a supposed new Yoshi game. The image, which features a purple Yoshi in
a vaguely Yoshi’s Safari styled environment, was apparently first seen in an old IGN Pocket
news article. IGN didn’t give much information about the
screenshot’s origins, simply stating they received the image from a Japanese correspondent
of theirs. A higher resolution version was posted onto
their forums, and rumors about it grew from there. The word going around was that the game may
be a sequel to Yoshi’s Safari for GBA, and that it had N64-level graphics. No additional images or footage of the game
has ever been found, and the image is thought to either be a legitimate Nintendo tech demo
shown behind the scenes, a mock-up made for Japanese magazines, or simply be a hoax. This was far from the only rumor posted in
the early 2000s. In the E3 Demo for Luigi’s Mansion, the
UI included a clock that was always visible on the GameBoy Horror, with the player being
booted out of the game when the clock hit 1:30 AM. This timer led players to believe that Luigi’s
Mansion was originally planned to be a timed mission, with rumors circulating that Luigi
would vanish alongside Mario if he wasn’t saved in time. This simply wasn’t the case however, and
the timer was just a way to keep E3 attendants from playing the demo for too long. Another rumor involving Luigi’s Mansion
also said that more Portrait Ghosts could be found in the game’s Safari Room. The rumor comes from an official copy of Nintendo
Power claiming that if Luigi met the ghost of a hunter, he’d want to add Luigi to his
collection. Since then many have tried to find the ghost,
but to no avail, and the blurb in Nintendo Power is believed to have been a joke. In July 2002, a trailer emerged for a title
called “Super Mario’s Universe”, which would apparently be coming to the GBA. The game was said to be taking Mario back
to his 2D roots, but opted for a very different visual style compared to the rest of the series. It showed various Mario characters in a cel-shaded
world that utilized 3D graphics on a 2D plane. The trailer presented a few of the game’s
levels, as well as a boss fight with Bowser similar to the ones seen in Super Mario 64. Though very impressive for the time, the game
was clearly fake. The visuals in the trailer were far too elaborate
for GBA, and it’s biggest downfall, the fact the trailer was edited with an audience
watching it live. Several sleuths found that this audio was
taken directly from a different game reveal at Spaceworld 2001, demonstrating that at
least the audio was a forgery. It was eventually revealed that the leak was
made by Pablo Belmonte, who would go on to make the Super Mario Galaxy DS trailer hoax
we talked about in our last Mario rumors video. Many Mario rumors involving the GameCube stemmed
from Nintendo’s “Super Mario 128” tech demo. One hoax attempted by “BlazeHedgehog”
showed off a fake picture taken at an E3 convention floor. The image showed a single frame of Mario in
a basic 3D World. The leak was immediately debunked, as Mario’s
model is the exact same model from Super Smash Bros. Melee. Blaze admits to making the hoax, and explains
that the background was actually made using DOOM map creation tools. BlazeHedgehog also went on to make an April
Fool’s hoax for New Super Mario Bros 2. The screenshot this time around shows Mario
in an environment similar to the original Super Mario Bros 2, with Shy Guys being a
common enemy, and doors and plants being rooted to the floor. Blaze would go on to say that this hoax was
more for fun, and that they were done making hoaxes that were truly meant to fool people. Though most rumors were about core Mario titles,
Mario’s spin-offs got a handful of rumors as well. One rumor started out as a tip submitted to
the fan driven website, nsidr, by reader Jason Blake. Blake reportedly emailed Harmonix Music, creators
of DanceDanceRevolution and other “Revolution” games, about the possibility of Karaoke Revolution
getting a “Mario Mix” title in the same vein as DanceDanceRevolution: Mario Mix. According to Blake, Harmonix responded with
“We're delighted to hear that you enjoyed the games. If there were a GameCube version in the works,
we wouldn't be able to talk about it until it was officially announced by our publisher,
Konami. Such announcements are common at the E3 convention
in May. ;-)” The email was interpreted by some as
a tease that Harmonix would have something to show at that upcoming E3. However, to this day no follow up has been
made to the “Revolution with Mario” series. Mario rumors obviously hit the Wii as well. In 2007, EGM once again reported on a new
crossover for Mario, this time with SquareEnix’s Kingdom Hearts series. The game, titled Mushroom Kingdom Hearts,
would apparently take Sora, Mickey, and many others from the first two Kingdom Hearts games
into the Mushroom Kingdom. The game would also introduce not just Mario
characters, but over 41 Nintendo characters as a whole. Despite this emphasis on Nintendo content,
the game was apparently set to be both developed and published by Square Enix. But if the photoshopped Super Mario Sunshine
art didn’t give away the fact this announcement was bogus, the fact it was published in EGM’s
April issue should have. However, this didn’t stop many fans from
thinking it was real, and taking to online message boards only to be told it’s a hoax
by their peers. Another unique Mario crossover was rumored
for the plumber, but this time with Norton AntiVirus. In November 2008, Kotaku reported that Norton
would be releasing a “Gaming Edition” of it’s antivirus software, which would’ve
been used to help optimize a user’s PC for gaming. The image Kotaku published in the article
featured a Norton AntiVirus box with Dr. Mario and various assets from the sub-series featured
front and center. Interestingly, Kotaku never mentions Dr. Mario
in their article at all, or even Nintendo. Despite this, other websites reposted the
image believing it to be an official Dr. Mario and Norton crossover. But of course this wasn’t the case, and
to this day the origin of the image is unknown. One Mario rumor was actually started by Nintendo
by complete accident. In 2011, Nintendo announced that anybody who
purchased the 3DS before it’s famous price drop were eligible to redeem free NES and
GBA games for their system, as long as they logged into the eShop before August 12th and
updated their device. This promotion was known as the 3DS Ambassador
Program, and was meant to reward early adopters of the 3DS. In an attempt to remind players to redeem
the games, Nintendo shared a screenshot of Super Mario Bros. 3’s “TIME UP” screen
on their Facebook page as a reminder to users who hadn’t applied yet. Although most people saw this for what it
was, a simple humorous reminder, many saw it as a teaser, believing Mario 3 would be
part of the Ambassador Program. But the game never came to the program, with
the only NES Mario title given away being the original Super Mario Bros. And this wasn’t the only piece of Mario
3DS hear-say. In January 2011, GameFAQs user “FunkyKong84”
noticed that IGN-UK listed Rosalina as a part of Mario Sports Mix’s roster, and described
how to unlock her. According to the post, Rosalina would be unlocked
after players beat every minigame in Basketball, Volleyball, Hockey, and Dodgeball in that
order. The fact that you had to complete the challenge
in a specific order seemed unusual to many, as Mario games very rarely expect players
to accomplish strings of specific tasks to unlock content. As it turns out, the information was an inaccurate
fan submission, and IGN-UK would later update their website to remove the Rosalina listing--
but not before many would actually try to unlock her. Another sports game Rosalina was reported
to be in was Mario Tennis Open on 3DS. In an issue of the Japanese Nintendo magazine
Nindori, a segment dedicated to Mario Tennis Open provided readers with a QR code that
would allow them to unlock a black colored Yoshi. An image of this page appeared online with
Rosalina’s head pasted over the code. Rosalina’s head over the QR code, as well
as many other Super Mario Galaxy elements in the game, led many Western players to believe
Rosalina could be unlocked in the game, or may be added in a future update. This was idle speculation, and was simply
untrue. But there was some truth under the surface
of it all. In an interview with the game’s producer
Shugo Takahashi, Shugo revealed that Rosalina was actually intended to be a part of the
game to represent Mario Galaxy, but couldn’t be properly implemented. As a concession, Luma was added to the game
instead. There wasn’t the only handheld Mario hearsay. Super Mario 64 DS was said to have an unused
minigame, and there were apparently hidden data to support this claim. In the game’s data for the minigames, files
named “wrecking_crew” were said to exist, but went unused. This naturally led a few data miners to believe
a Wrecking Crew based minigame had been planned at some point. This speculation would then spread onto a
few Mario message boards. Upon further inspection however, TheCuttingRoomFloor
user “Rusty” found that “wrecking_crew” was nothing more than the internal name for
the Coincentration minigame, putting an end to the rumors. In 2015, a video of what appeared to be a
3DS remake of the Thousand Year Door circulated online. The video showed a 3DS loading the game, and
a title screen that added “3D” to Thousand Year Door’s logo. The video was only a few seconds long, and
despite being well made, the dubious nature of its appearance and the low video quality
had many users suspicious from the get-go. Despite this, many believed it, and the video
gained a fair amount of traction. It wasn’t until about a week later that
the user who uploaded the original video, Fawfulthegreat64, took down the video and
released a confession about the leak being fake. In the video, Fawful explained that they didn’t
expect the leak to get nearly as much attention as it did, which is usually what most hoaxsters
expect. When Super Mario Maker 2 was shown off in
May 2019, it was revealed that the option for making a level in the “Super Mario 3D
World” theme was put in its own category labeled “Additional Themes”. It didn’t take long for players to speculate
about more themes being added to this category, with one popular theory being a theme for
Super Mario Bros 2. This seemed to be a logical assumption, seeing
as Mario 1, 3, and World all had themes of their own. This was followed by former editor for Game
Informer, Imran Khan, tweeting out that he‘d heard about Nintendo making a Mario 2 theme
before the COVID-19 pandemic, with the theory going around that the theme was never finished
because of issues adjusting to lockdowns. Items from Mario 2 were added to Mario Maker
2 in the game’s final update, but a Mario 2 theme never came. Whether Nintendo actually planned for a Mario
2 theme to be added will continue to remain a mystery, that is unless they choose to spill
the beans. In October 2020, a supposed anti-piracy screen
was found for Mario Party DS. The screen was first shown off by YouTube
user Joey Perleoni, and showcased one of the title’s mini-games being interrupted by
the anti-piracy screen. It displayed the message “Piracy is no party!”
and advised the player to power off their system and report the stolen software, with
Mario and friends locked behind bars on the bottom screen with the text “POWER OFF NOW”. The video was so convincing that it was taken
at face value, and some even added it to The Cutting Room Floor page on the game. It wasn’t long before an administrator for
the website, Kaito Sinclair, updated the page with the note that stated the Mario Party
DS page would be protected due to “excessive vandalism”. As you likely expected, the screen was entirely
fake. Joey would go on to create more videos about
fake anti-piracy measures in Mario party DS, and somewhat set a trend for the creation
of fake anti-piracy screens for many Nintendo games from then on. One common way games are leaked these days
is in the form of online shop listings. In April 2020, Amazon France listed that Super
Mario Odyssey would be coming to both the Switch and PC, with listings for SEGA and
PlayStation titles alongside it. The leak included no info on the game, and
a complete lack of images. This leak would later go on to be debunked
by many other companies, such as SEGA and Sony, who confirmed that their games wouldn’t
be coming to the platform, which in turn deconfirmed Mario Odyssey’s coming to the PC. That said, a Sony title would be announced
for the PC that same year, with Horizon Zero Dawn's Complete Edition being announced for
PC just a few months later. The Mario Odyssey leaks didn’t stop here. Another alleged leak hit Twitter, complete
with screenshots of what appeared to be a development build of an upcoming sequel. One image showed Mario in a very early version
of an unknown Kingdom, with one more showing him using a canoe to go down a river. The screens also showed off a UI similar to
Mario Odyssey’s, as well as a debug menu. The screenshots had originally begun to circulate
after being posted on 4chan. The first screenshot was soon debunked by
the twitter account Forest of Illusion, who revealed the images to be a fake. They were first shared on a Discord server,
then later posted on to 4chan by one of the server’s members. The second image however has no known origin,
with some claiming that it was first shared around 2018. Another interesting detail is that both the
second screenshot and Mario Odyssey share the exact same debug menu, which was seen
during E3 2018, but the leaked screenshot shows even more options. Regardless, no news has surfaced on a Mario
Odyssey sequel since, and the images are almost certainly both fake. One rumor hit Twitter after Jeff Grubb, who’s
associated with leaking gaming news early. Jeff simply tweeted “Super Mario RPG”,
but this seems to be the end of his association with the rumor. Some thought Jeff was hinting at some sort
of news leak, but then another twitter user named Sharito724 replied, adding fuel to the
flames. Sharito said they had information about a
sequel to the Mario RPG games, and that the game would be revealed soon alongside the
release of the original Super Mario RPG one Nintendo’s Switch Online app, which has
NES and SNES games to play. We can’t say why exactly Jeff Grubb originally
tweeted “Super Mario RPG”, but it’s fairly obvious that Sharito’s reply was
entirely fabricated, either by them or someone who gave them false info. In late April 2021, the twitter account Cut
and Obscure Video Game Content tweeted that New Super Mario Bros had unused gamedata for
a ghost enemy with the file name scripulous_fingore. The account also claimed that when asked about
Fingore in an interview, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto completely disregarded the question,
appearing visibly upset. The tweet gained over five-thousand retweets
and had several other users chiming in stating that Fingore was also cut form many other
Mario games, including Super Mario 64 DS where the character was planned to be a boss. Thankfully, most people quickly realized this
was a joke, and the twitter account in question was a parody account. That said, many took the tweets at face value,
believing Fingore was an actual cut enemy from the series. Another enemy who was caught up in confusion
was Bowser himself, specifically his appearance in Super Mario 3D World’s bonus add-on Bowser’s
Fury. A rumor started up with Twitter accounts stating
that Fury Bowser’s official name in Japan was actually “God Slayer Bowser”. The rumor seems to have multiple origins,
but it all starts on Twitter, with the name being spread by retweets and word of mouth. Again, many twitter users took these tweets
as gospel. The rumor was fairly easily debunked however,
as checking Nintendo’s official Japanese website for the game officially lists the
new form as “Fury Bowser”. And many Nintendo focused websites corrected
the viral tweets, putting the record straight. Over recent years, there’s been many rumblings
of a new Mario Kart title in the works, with several rumors specifically mentioning a Mario
Kart 9. During January of 2021, a 4chan user posted
about a brand new karting title coming from Nintendo, but that it wasn’t specifically
“Mario Kart”. The leak was later posted to Reddit, and was
said to be a new Smash Bros style crossover with many Nintendo franchises joining the
race. They also shared that characters like Mario,
the Ice Climbers, and Breath of the Wild’s Zelda would be in the game, and that a new
“Tackle” mechanic would be added. Only a few weeks later, another leak hit 4chan,
this time with a handful of Nintendo titles. The post mentioned games like Skyward Sword
HD, a new 2D Metroid game from Mercury Steam, and of course, Mario Kart 9, with no details
for the game other than the fact that it could be a possible early 2022 release. While Skyward Sword HD and Metroid Dread were
both revealed during Nintendo Directs in 2021, giving the leak some credibility, Skyward
Sword HD and a new 2D Metroid game have been rumored long before this post. The post ultimately fell apart after it attempted
to leak inaccurate reveals such as Ryu Hiyabusa from Ninja Gaiden, and Matoi from Phantasy
Star Online 2 as playable characters in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. A third leak for the game appeared in May
2021, this time with what appeared to be artwork for an unknown Mario Kart title. The art was first shared onto 4chan and quickly
made it’s way to Reddit. The artwork was swiftly tracked down however,
and revealed to be promotional artwork for Nintendo’s Mario Kart themed ride in their
Super Nintendo World theme park. Mario Kart leaks kept coming, and in the same
month a new rumor for “Mario Kart Maximum” hit 4chan. The leak claimed that Mario Kart Maximum would
have every track before Mario Kart 8 playable and fully remade, with the exception of Super
Mario Kart tracks keeping their 16-bit look. The leak went on to list off a full roster
of characters from Mario Kart’s past, including new characters such as Captain Falcon and
Kirby, with every character in the game also having unlockable color swaps and costumes. The game would even come with two new modes,
called Party and King of the Circle. Party mode would replace all the item blocks
with dice, with the dice roll determining what item the player ended up with. Holding onto dice blocks would lead to higher
numbers, with a roll over 50 being a winning role. King of the Circle on the other hand was a
simple King of the Hill mode, where players earned points the longer they stayed within
a set circle. And if it wasn’t clear already, none of
these Mario Kart rumors were even remotely true. Another rumored Mario game for the Switch
in 2021 was New Super Mario Bros. 3. The rumor comes from an alleged listing for
the game on Nintendo’s official website. The listing showed no artwork or release date
for the game, and shortly disappeared after a supposed screenshot was posted on Twitter
and 4chan. The rumor didn’t have very long legs however,
as the creator of the listing image quickly debunked it themselves. They replied to the original tweet saying
it was meant to be a joke, and was to make a point that anybody can make a fake leak--
a point that is undoubtedly true. In February 2021, Reddit user u/WaluigiBubsyPlok
noticed that Nintendo had recently updated the website domain for “waluigi.com”,
with the URL now leading to an endless reloading website. This sparked some discussion about a pending
Waluigi announcement, but it’s worth pointing out that the history of this particular web
domain is a bit strange. Originally, the URL was used as a promotional
link that led to the original Mario Tennis 64 website. Later on, the link changed and would redirect
users to Nintendo’s English North American website. And as of the making of this video, the link
now redirects people to 1-2-Switch’s product page. It’s unknown why Nintendo has changed the
link so many times or why it now points to 1-2-Switch, but something few have taken note
of is that Waluigi and Super Mario are the only Mario characters with official websites
that Nintendo owns. If you try entering any other Mario characters
anime followed by dot-com, they usually just take you to for-sale web domain sites or dead
pages. Did you also know that many false rumors were
spread about Waluigi appearing in both Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine? Or that many believed you could evolve a Dragonite
into a Yoshi in the original Pokemon games? For more rumors, check out the Did You Know
Gaming videos on Mario Rumors and Pokemon Rumors.
