[Luigi screaming] Not knowing what could have been or what changed
in a game is a weird concept. When it’s a game like Super Mario Galaxy,
that feeling is only amplified. I think this is partially because the game
feels like you’re exploring the great vastness of space the entire game. It’s uncharted territory. The unknown. That’s what made this game so compelling,
especially for nostalgic and existential suckers like myself. I will always relish in it. But, what’s equally as satisfying as exploring
the unknown is uncovering things that were lost over time. Aspects of video games that meant a lot to
someone at some point, but ultimately didn’t make the cut. 99% of players never even get to experience
them, and that’s kind of sad. But that’s essentially what leads us to
where we are today. This video will basically be a gateway to
a world that at one point only existed on paper. A place that people cherished. This is the story of Super Mario Galaxy’s
Lost Level. A level that was ultimately scrapped, but
not forgotten. When I first played Super Mario Galaxy, I
was extremely excited when I first unlocked Buoy Base. I dunno man. There was just something really epic about
it. Overcoming fortresses or castles in Mario
games always have that feeling, you know? So of course stumbling upon some secret fortress
with an epic soundtrack got me pumped. And honestly, it became one of my favorite
stages because of that. But as I became more engrossed in Super Mario
Galaxy’s development as I got older and older, I began to wonder if Buoy Base evolved
out of something else. At first I honestly didn’t even put two
and two together. I comb through the files of Super Mario Galaxy
1 & 2 very often, and during that process I often encounter a lot of weird things. Objects that I can’t explain, weird data
associated with things that still hasn’t been figured out yet, and of course unused
assets. Lots of cool stuff has been documented over
the years. But it wasn’t until I was combing through
a strategy guide of Super Mario Galaxy 1 when I noticed something. Now, this something has certainly been documented
online so it certainly isn’t something new. But on one of the last pages in the strategy
guide is the sketches of a fortress that never was hashed out for the game. It states the following. Quote: “The Fortress was designed at the
very beginning of development. This is a memorable piece for us all, because
it really solidified the idea that the next Mario game was going to be Super Mario Galaxy. This fortress was rebuilt repeatedly. On the other side of the planet, you can spot
some excavation sites for natural resources.” End quote. From the concept art, we can see a giant multi-leveled
fortress climbing out of a round planet. There’s water around the base and grassy
plains on some sides. It even looks like there might be some snow
too. As we rotate around, we see what appears to
be four moons, a floating platform, and the rocket ship cluster that looks pretty darn
close to Space Junk Galaxy. Of course, we have Megaleg peaking out at
the bottom too. So I gotta say… this is an awesome looking
level. And it looks absolutely huge in scale. Which is why I find it so sad that this level
brought about such excitement for people who worked on it and redesigned it, only for the
level itself to never see the light of day. It’s kind of depressing… This level paved the way for Super Mario Galaxy
after all. But there is hope. And honestly, that’s why this video even
exists. Many of you might already know this, but parts
of this level still exist within the game’s code. It’s dubbed the Star Man Fort. So I decided to partner up with CaptainByte
to piece this level back together. All the pieces are floating around in the
game, so really what needed to be done to get this level running again was to bring
them all together and use the concept art to place the pieces where they belong. And what we’re left with is a level that
is far more massive than I could have ever imagined. If this would have made it into the game… Man. I would have absolutely loved it. This fortress puts Buoy Base to shame, even
if perhaps at some point the idea for this level lived on through Buoy Base. We kinda have a lot of stuff to show because
this level is a bit of a doosy. So I hope you enjoy this grand tour through
Super Mario Galaxy’s lost level. As always, if you like this kind of content
and want to see more of it, consider subscribing right now if you haven’t already. My channel is full of videos just like this
one. Okay… Where to begin. Why don’t we start off with everything floating
around the fort? The fort itself is going to take a while to
go over, so let’s speed through some of the other areas. According to the drawings, this massive fortress
had a floating island, four moons according to the placements, and a rocketship drifting
in space. The rocket ship asset and the debris as shown
in the diagram can be recreated pretty easily based off the arrangement from Space Junk
Galaxy. However, the large star clusters were something
that we couldn’t restore. Not because they don’t exist, but because
the materials that are paired with them aren’t packaged in the game files. So when they load in, they are just transparent. From here it is easy to spot the four different
moons in the area, all of which are basically pulled from Deep Dark Galaxy’s first mission. Kind of neat that this area had four orbital
moons, and considering the drawing, their scale was pretty large too. But by far what I consider to be the neatest
area is actually what is called PlanetDisk in the files. It’s the disk shaped planet that has a lot
of odd things placed upon it. There are three tiered mounds that Mario can
jump across, a field of flowers that sway in the wind, giant mushrooms fixtures scattered
about, and some unique trees that look a bit different than what we normally see in the
game. Surprisingly, we can actually climb inside
of the trees and just chill, as there is a platform inside each tree. Something else I found interesting about this
island was that there was a giant puddle over where the trees were at. Kind of like it was raining pretty hard here
and the this particular part of the island flooded. But with that, the outer aspects of the world
have been documented… So now it’s off to the big boy. Star Man Fort. To make sure we don’t miss anything, we’re
going to cover this place floor by floor. It’s absolutely enormous, so hopefully this
will give you an understanding of how this level could have worked and the route Mario
would have taken when embarking on this quest. That’s assuming he could have gotten close
without getting blasted away. According to the concept art, it looks like
there was a large cannon at the bottom of the level. The ground floor was also surrounded by a
moat. However, these things don’t exist with the
current model. The cannon pillar is just a stone pillar,
and the flooded area is actually textured as grass. Water could be added back in, but the waterfall
would also need to be recreated. As we’re walking around on this ground floor
it is very apparent that this fortress has seen better days. In many areas the fortress appears to have
taken damage. But it doesn’t look like artillery damage. The way the walls are cracked, and in some
instances collapsing from the top, almost make it look like this place is crumbling
from the elements and not necessarily from impact. The fortress is old and past its prime for
sure. The bottom floor doesn’t have much to offer
seeing as it is dry and lacks objects it would have normally had. So we press on. As Mario makes his way up from the lower level,
he will need to climb some triangle-shaped steps to ascend. At this point Mario needs to wall kick up
the wooden columns at the top of the steps to reach the next level. If he doesn’t, when he tries walking around
he would come across a giant waterfall. Given that there is no water here, we can
wall kick up these columns as well. Either way there is a choice to either go
down and across the water fall, or go up to the next floor. If the waterfall way is chosen Mario would
of had to jump across the platform in front of the waterfall. This would lead to an area down below. It’s kind of neat seeing where the waterfall
would have flown from too. It’s basically a rectangle with a wooden
roof that serves no purpose since the water isn’t gushing out. Making our way up higher on the fortress we
come across what appears to be a yellow landing pad. There are giant electricity signs marking
this part of the fortress. From the concept art it actually looks like
it was a helipad for flying vehicles. However, the markings for both the landing
zone and the other associated objects with this area don’t exist. There appears to be some kind of black circular
object and a radio antenna or weather head attached to the side. These things, alongside the wires that run
up the fortress are missing. And since these objects are missing, that
also means the top half of the fortress is technically in-accessible. It looks like these wires would have been
the only way up judging by both the in-game model and the concept art. There’s a possibility that this yellow landing
pad also could have extended upwards too like a forklift, possibly bringing the player closer
to the top floor. But as it stands, there isn’t a way to reach
the top from he fortress side. We’ll talk about another way soon, but for
now let’s push on. The next area in terms of height is a small
overhang fixated with a floating pipe. Again, there is no way to directly get over
here. I suppose it may be possible to get to the
bottom section of this area - the part with the brown roof - but again, it wouldn’t
go anywhere. This area is only halfway up in terms of distance
to the next area too - as this fortress is massive. There is a pipe above us that leads to the
top floor before the roof though. There’s no way to reach it though. In addition, these pipes are hard-baked into
the model and not like the pipes that would be encountered anywhere else in the game. In its current state they behave more like
the sewers in Super Mario Sunshine. At this point we’re finally at the top of
the fortress though. This area has tons of cannons in the concept
art but all the cannons are shut in-game. This area would normally come accompanied
by cranes and other heavy machinery to lift things. There are long crane appendages shooting out
from various sides alongside a wheel that would have housed the cable system for the
crane. This makes sense since Star Man Fort doubled
as a mining facility too. I mean, the whole thing looks like a rust
belt era shipping and loading factory. It gives off strong Shime Tower energy too
based on how it is configured, which was that crazy-looking coal mining place in Japan. This floor features more damage to the wall
of the fortress too. But this got me thinking - I wonder if this
damage is possibly from mishandled shipments that bumped into the walls. It makes you wonder. And with this, we’ve finally reached the
top. If Mario begins to climb onto the roof, he
can attempt to make his way to the very tip top of Star Man Fort… Which has a pleasant surprise waiting for
him at the summit. A green pipe. But where does it lead? Well… If Mario peers down it… It’s apparent he’s in for a hell of a
journey. This pipe extends all the way to the other
side of the planet. It’s by far the longest pipe I’ve ever
seen. It think it’s just the scope that throws
me off as it seems so strange. This pipe just acts as a huge fall though. Because the other side of the planet isn’t
configured, we basically die at some point. However, originally this pipe did spit you
out on the mining operation side of the planet. This is where the player would have fought
BossCrab, which was essentially the beta form of Megaleg. The bottom side of this planet was extremely
dark and only lit up by flood lights. Perhaps upon defeat of BossCrab, the pipe
would have spawned and took Mario to the peak of the fortress where the star would be waiting
for him. Given the scale of this level, I imagine it
would have had plenty of stars too. But with this, that brings the Star Man Fort
to a close. I really would love to know what this place
looked like on the inside though given how many windows are present. Besides this model, another version of this
place does exist in the files called NeoStarManFort. It honestly looks a lot like test rooms you
encounter in other games. It sports that grid-like texture system that
makes it end up looking like Green Hill Zone. Given the nature of it, it also makes me feel
like it’s almost like the Bob-omb Battlefield version of Star Man Fort - as it’s just
rocky walls and grass all the way up. And… that’s the legacy of Star Man Fort. A level left behind by developers which to
me is kind of sad given that they mentioned that it excited them so much. That reason alone was what made me think showcasing
the level in its entirety would really be a neat tribute. Because now tons of players can experience
the level vicariously through this documentary. But, what was your thoughts on this lost level? Any areas catch your eye? Let me know! And of course, none of this would have been
possible without the help of CaptainByte. Having him aid me in assembling this world
really made the process super smooth for documenting it in all its glory. So I can’t thank him enough for his assistance. If you haven’t checked out his work, I highly
recommend doing so. You can find links to his profiles in the
description below. And with that… Perhaps you’ll enjoy one of these videos
on screen now. Go ahead and give one a click. Thanks for watching guys and gals, and until
my next video - cheers!
