Super Mario Maker update doubles down on creepy “Skinny Mario” with weird easter egg【Video】

Super Mario Maker, the toolkit/game for Wii U that allows Mario fans to build their very own levels using a vast array of items and characters from the games’ universe, is without a doubt a huge hit. Players had been craving the ability to DIY their own levels for the classic series pretty much since the original handful of games were released for the original NES.

One addition to the game that players never expected to see was the inclusion of the crazy “Weird Mushroom”—originally a glitch in the first Super Mario Bros.—which turns Mario into “Skinny Mario,” a creepy, distorted Mario whose lanky limbs wiggle about all over the place with each (giant) jump.

Skinny Mario was, to put it lightly, not well-received by the gaming community, and Nintendo had a golden opportunity to fix it when it released the first update to the game a few days ago. Except, instead of doing away with Skinny Mario, Nintendo actually decided to include even more, super creepy, Skinny Mario appearances.

The folks at the gaming info YouTube channel GameXplain, acting on a tip from a viewer, recently revealed that the Super Mario Maker update threw in a couple of easter eggs along with the new features, and almost all of the easter eggs utilize Skinny Mario.

To wit, now when players use their stylus to continuously tap on a “warp door,” someone actually answers the door from within the alternate dimension on the other side. And, as you’d expect from the denizens of a bizarro alternate dimension, the one that answers is a being of pure, unadulterated evil. No, not Cthulhu—Skinny Mario!

As the video reveals, Nintendo seems to have gone whole hog with the Skinny Mario appearances with this update, casually brushing aside fan complaints that Skinny Mario is “creepy and unsettling,” “evil,” “basically just bizarro Luigi,” and “may be responsible for a string of unsolved murders.”

Luckily for fans of the new Super Mario Maker, the update also includes at least two new features that should make actually playing the mostly user-created levels more fun.

First, Nintendo has included new “Event Courses,” which appear to primarily be maps selected for their quality and which have some kind of unique background, such as a map that won an in-house Facebook “hackathon” to see which employee at the tech giant could come up with the best Super Mario Maker level.

Secondly, the update also introduces level checkpoints—a feature fans have been demanding since the game’s initial release since some of Super Mario Maker‘s best levels end up being exceptionally long, meaning that players had to start over from the beginning after every failed attempt. Before, some crafty players had been resorting to downright wacky password systems which involved Rube Goldberg machine-esque systems working in the background. Now, finally, amateur level designers can just click a new tool (just shake one of the pink arrow signs in your inventory, in case you were wondering) to add an automatic checkpoint.

Super Mario Maker clearly seems to be a piece of software that Nintendo plans to tweak and add to as time goes on, which is great for the fan community. Now, if only they’d finally do something about that Skinny Mario. I mean, jeez, that guy gives me the creeps. What a weirdo. Oh… oh, God… He’s right behind me, isn’t he?

Source: YouTube/GameXplain h/t Kotaku US
Screenshots: YouTube/GameXplain

SoraNews24 —Japan News—