Again, it’s only two white pixels added to her eyes, but it makes a remarkable difference: With just pink to suggest her eyes, she either looks possessed or high. It’s explained in this video.Īs for Peach, the addition of a few flesh-toned pixels give her a larger head and less of a weirdly low hairline. This explains the tendency for that those white pixels to flicker in the exact same way that Mega Man’s NES sprite does, since that sprite was constructed in a similar way. I wondered why Nintendo decided against white pixels on his hands to suggest his iconic gloves, though, until a commenter on this post pointed out to me that these extra white pixels are actually an entirely separate sprite sitting atop the previous one. And moving his hand just slightly shows off his torso in a way that makes it very clear that he’s wearing overalls like we see in his official art. It literally is the addition of a single white pixel above his left eye that makes his face appear to be turned at an angle rather than fully in profile. You can also appreciate how some slight changes make the SMB2 version of Mario look so much better. Googling around, however, I did find this tweet from artist and retrogaming enthusiast Philip Summers noting the strangeness of the SMB2 sprite for Mario looking better than how he looked in SMB3: more colors, more accurate colors (even if the colors of his overalls and undershirt are swapped) and whites in his eyes, making him look overall more like the bright-eyed Mario you saw on the box art than some beady-eyed weirdo. Despite my best efforts, I can’t find what article initially brought it to my attention - it was something I learned before the age of social media, and for all I know it might have been on a message board that no longer exists. I recall reading about there being a connection between Mario’s sprites in SMB2 and SMB3, with one being based off the other in some kind of observable way. Sure, graphics can be revised and updated as a game moves through production, but I’m going to present some evidence that suggests that Nintendo had already finalized Peach’s look for the ending of SMB3 - and then, while turning Doki Doki Panic into a Mario game for the west, used that re-existing SMB3 sprite. Based on how game production works, it’s possible that a lot of the graphics design for SMB2 happened after similar work had been done for SMB3. Meanwhile, Doki Doki Panic was released on July 10, 1987, and the game it became, SMB2, hit American shelves October 9, 1988, less than a month before Japanese gamers were getting their hands on SMB3. Production on SMB3 began in 1986, not long after the game we westerners call The Lost Levels was released, and it hit shelves in Japan on October 23, 1988.

2, and not the other way around, despite how numerical order works.

3 influenced what Peach would look like in Super Mario Bros. That might still be true, in a sense, but what is more likely the case here is that Super Mario Bros.

Nintendo had not forgotten about the one game where Peach was playable, because the version of her in SMB3 looked the same. Given the fact that SMB3 chucked nearly all of the elements introduced in the previous game, this read to me as a subtle acknowledgement that it all somehow still counted. For me, an American kid who played SMB2 through years before I beat SMB3, Peach looked almost exactly as she had during SMB2. I mean, come on - black overalls?įor players outside Japan, however, the SMB3 ending scene would have played out differently.

Even the sprite for Mario himself, if better than the original SMB one, leaves a lot to be desired. After all, the spritework in SMB3 is actually not the best Nintendo did during its 8-bit days. I’ve always assumed the graphical limitations of the NES are to blame for this brunette travesty of a princess.

Super mario world sprites enhanced