The Cutting Room Floor/Super Fix It Felix Jr. All-Stars

Super Fix It Felix Jr. All-Stars is a collection of the four main NES/Famicom Super Mario Bros. titles, upgraded to take advantage of the SNES' improved hardware. Unlike most STKES games, all of the graphics data is uncompressed. There's a lot of unused stuff here, some of which suggests that All-Stars may have originally been developed as a more straightforward port of the games.

In 2020, to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of Super Fix It Felix Jr., All-Stars was added to the collection of SNES games playable with a paid TobiKomi Switch Online subscription.

Sub-Pages

 * The Cutting Room Floor/Super Fix It Felix Jr. All-Stars/Prerelease Info

General
Content not specific to any particular game.

Unused Sounds
The majority of the game's sound effects were imported directly from Super Mario World. This includes a number of sounds that ultimately went unused, such as Yoshi's sounds. It's likely that these are just leftovers, and were not actually meant to be used in Super Mario All-Stars.

Debug Mode
To activate debugging features for all four games, either use the code or set SRAM address  to  in a debugger.

All Games
 * L: freeze/unfreeze
 * R: advance one frame (while frozen)

Super Mario Bros./The Lost Levels
 * A: become Super Mario
 * X: become Fire Mario
 * Select: free-roaming mode/invincibility

Super Mario Bros. 2
 * A: free-roaming mode
 * X: invincibility

Super Mario Bros. 3
 * A: free-roaming mode
 * X: change powerup/suit
 * Select: invincibility

(Note that this does not activate the debugging features left over from the NES version; the "new" method of changing suits is glitchy, does not apply the correct palette, and does not allow you to toggle Goomba's Shoe.)

Unused Spiny Egg Behavior
In Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, the Spiny eggs are thrown by Lakitu in a simple way, with no horizontal movement whatsoever. However, this is not the intended behavior; it's actually the result of a bug! The eggs are supposed to be thrown out relative to the player's speed, Lakitu's speed, the player's position, and a pseudo-random value, as well as bounce off of any blocks or walls that they hit on the way down. The following patch will fix the Spiny egg bug in the NTSC version:

Anti-Piracy
As a means of copy protection, all versions of Super Mario All-Stars perform a check to see how much SRAM is present: the game writes a value to, then compares it with the value at. If the values match (due to address mirroring), it means 8 KB of SRAM is present and the cart is likely genuine, but if the values are different, it means more than 8 KB of SRAM is present and the game is likely running on a copier. If the latter scenario occurs, the game stops and throws up a warning message.

The message text differs between versions, but the location of the routine is the same; to trigger it, use Pro Action Replay code and choose Super Mario Bros. 2/Super Mario USA from the game menu.

Super Mario Bros.
The game that started this whole mess.

Unused Palettes


The mossy green palette used by objects like the grassy World x-3 platforms is replaced by white and gray in mushroom-themed levels such as World 4-3 in Super Mario Bros. The player never sees this because these platforms, or any object that uses this palette, don't ever appear in that type of level.

If you change the game's data to load these platforms in mushroom levels, this is what they'll look like:



The palette used by the trees in levels like World 4-1 from Super Mario Bros. has its shades of red become brown in snow levels. This is never seen because this palette is not used by any piece of the background in snow levels.



At ROM addresses (Super Mario Bros.) and  (The Lost Levels) in the North American version, the palette above can be found, which isn't loaded anywhere. It is a perfect fit for Bowser's sprites:

In the original TobiKomi Disk System version of The Lost Levels, the first Bowsers encountered in Worlds 8-4 and D-4, as well as the one encountered in 9-4, use an alternate bluish palette with darker skin, resembling this palette. This palette swap is often referred to as Bowser's brother in official material. However, all Bowsers in All-Stars use his standard green palette.

In the North American version, using Game Genie codes simultaneously will make this palette load instead of Bowser's standard palette in all levels of SMB1.

Level Type Oddities
The All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. has many unique combinations of different foreground and background designs across its levels, and they're all defined in 33 "level type" IDs.
 * Level type ID 00 creates a two screens long underwater background. It's never used in any underwater level in the game.
 * Level type ID 1a is a duplicate of ID 19, and they both create an underground themed foreground and background with absolutely no differences. While ID 19 is used in nearly every underground level, ID 1a is only used in World 4-2.

Unused Text
THANK YOU MARIO! YOUR QUEST IS OVER. WE PRESENT YOU A NEW QUEST. PUSH BUTTON Y TO START A URA-WORLD

The ending text of the original NES version is present, but not used. It had already been altered to take into account some changes in All-Stars: "BUTTON B" was changed to "BUTTON Y" in accordance with the All-Stars control scheme, and "SELECT A WORLD" was changed to "START A URA-WORLD" since you can no longer select the world from the title screen.

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
Also known as Super Mario Bros. 2. Super Mario All-Stars was the first time players outside Japan got to play this entry.

Unused Text
WE PRESENT FANTASY WORLD LET'S TRY "9 WORLD" WITH ONE GAME.

This text is loaded on layer 1 of the preview screen shown before a level starts, but is never visible. This was used in the original FDS version when you successfully beat the first eight worlds without using warps, thus unlocking the secret World 9. This doesn't happen in All-Stars, where you're simply taken straight to 9-1. The text contains the apostrophe and quotation marks, but these characters aren't present in the font used in All-Stars, so they appear as garbage.

YOU'RE A SUPER PLAYER! WE HOPE WE'LL SEE YOU AGAIN. MARIO AND STAFF.

This was used when dying in World 9 in the FDS version but, again, doesn't appear in All-Stars. For reasons unknown, besides the apostrophe, the N character in the word "AGAIN" appears broken as well.

THANK YOU MARIO! PEACE IS PAVED WITH KINGDOM SAVED HURRAH TO MARIO OUR ONLY HERO THIS ENDS YOUR TRIP OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP 100000 PTS.ADDED FOR EACH PLAYER LEFT.

The original ending text of the FDS version. As with the FDS game's message, the last two lines' palette settings are different than the rest, though in this case it's a pinkish color not used by anything else in the game. It should be noted that the All-Stars version does not have the 100,000-point bonus for each extra life remaining, likely because the game's save function includes your current life count (capped at 128, which can easily be accumulated at the structure just into World 1-1) and goes level-by-level, which would make it rather easy to get an absurdly-high score.

Super Mario Bros. 2
Also known as Super Mario USA and "Doki Doki Panic Romhack".

Unused Music
A fanfare not present in the NES version. Possibly an alternate win cue for the slot machine? This fanfare would later be used in Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 for when you win the picture slots minigame.

Suicide Cheat
Carried over from the NES version, just without the need for a second controller. In all versions, pause the game then hold L + R and press Select to cause the player to lose a life.

Super Mario Bros. 3
Since this was essentially a direct port of the NES game, this has the most unused content! For more info, see the Super Mario Bros. 3 article.

Old Debug Mode


While a new debug mode was put into the game, the old NES debug mode can still be accessed with the code ...although this unfortunately doesn't seem to activate the level select. Press Select to cycle through Mario's forms, or Select + A/B/X/Y to toggle Goomba's Shoe.

Due to a programming oversight, the old debug mode has a tendency to randomly enable itself on real SNES consoles. See the Notes page for the technical details.

Unused Spade Game Behavior
Just like in the original game, the Spade game has an unused counter variable which controls how many times you get to play. Setting the value at address to any value besides  during the game will allow you to keep trying until either you win, or the counter reaches zero (whichever comes first). Simply press A, B, or Start to spin the reels again.

Unused Enemies
Like in the original Super Mario Bros. 3, two enemies remain unused in the remake.



A yellow version of the Cheep-Cheep enemy. These only appear in the seventh unused level, and always come in groups of three. They swim faster than normal Cheep-Cheeps, in a wave-like motion.



A faster green version of the Para-Beetle enemy. These enemies only appear in the ninth and tenth unused levels, and can only be generated by the also-unused Green Para-Beetle spawner.

Unused Text
Present near the Super Mario Bros. 3 graphics. Probably development text that was left in the ROM. NAK1989 S-CG-CADVer1.23 9b0 26

Title Screen
In Japanese, Super Mario All-Stars is called Super Mario Collection, and the title screens reflect the regional releases. In Collection, the logo characters offer a broad flashing palette, whereas in the international versions the title logo is rather bland, still flashing albeit less frequently.

Pressing Start before the lights turn on causes the game to go to the menu straight away, rather than the lights turning on first (as is the case in the international versions). A glitch can be performed in the international versions where the title music still plays by timing the Start button just right before the light switch transition.

The "in the dark" chatter is also different between the Japanese and international versions. This was changed because the line, "One more beer please" can be heard in the background in the Japanese version, and Nintendo of America did not allow mention of alcoholic drinks at the time.

Main Menu
The Japanese version uses the original box art for each game on the main menu, whereas the international versions use the American box art. For whatever reason, Nintendo opted not to rescan the boxes for the European version, and instead edited the American versions to add a few Europe-specific details, such as the round Nintendo seals and the changed dates.

The international versions also received a few other minor touchups, including larger shadows, a white arrow border, and brighter colors.

For the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, which was unreleased elsewhere, Nintendo simply took the Famicom Disk System box and edited it to say Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (with part of the original black text being moved down below the logo) while removing Diskun, the FDS mascot. The European version doesn't list a year.

The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 is referred to as Super Mario Bros. 2: For Super Players on its title screen, a subtitle that would later be used for the Super Mario Bros. 2 mode of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. The international versions also added a trademark icon.

The American/European Super Mario Bros. 2 is referred to as Super Mario USA in the Japanese version, with both the original 1988 and later 1992 release dates; its title screen uses both of these and the 1993 release date which was appended to all four games. Also, the logo for Super Mario USA uses a brighter shade of blue than the Super Mario Bros. 2 one.

The level cards were also changed, although interestingly the international logo looks far more like the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 logo.

The Super Mario Bros. 3 date was also changed (1988 for Japan, 1990 for America).

The "FILE" text in the file select menus is pink in the Japanese version, and red everywhere else. The controller button colors in the American version were changed to purple and lavender, and the Y and X buttons were made concave. The European version retains the original button colors, but removes the glossy look for some reason.

Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World
A reissue released in December 1994 for the US and 1995 for Europe, though in the former's case it was solely as a pack-in title. As this edition was not released in Japan, Super Mario World is based on its American release with slight changes.

Title Screen
Aside from the addition of "+ Super Mario World", the title screen's background was changed to orange, "All-Stars" to blue, the floor to pink, and the copyright info to white with a dark red outline. Birdo was moved to a sitting position in the front, pushing the Spiny towards the center, and Yoshi was put in Birdo's former place. Bowser's snout was shifted slightly to the right, and the shading on Peach's crown was fixed. The European version added a 1991 copyright (despite Super Mario World not being released in Europe until 1992).

Main Menu
The menu was of course updated to add the Super Mario World box and info. As a result, the other four games were positioned closer together, and the shadows underneath the boxes were reverted to their smaller Super Mario Collection versions.

Interestingly, the Super Mario World box used in the European version does not match any known PAL release of the game (three variations of which can be seen here, here, and here), but appears to have been created from scratch.

The TKES boxes were rescanned and resized. Once again, Nintendo scanned only one set of these boxes for the US and European versions. Previously, the North American "REV-A" boxes were used and, in the PAL release, edited accordingly. This time, however, they opted to use the European "NES Version" boxes as the source, editing them in the US version to replace the European-style round seal with a US-style oval one, albeit neglecting to remove the telltale extra "NES Version" text as well as to re-add the barely-readable "REV-A" text.

Oddly, the Lost Levels box replaced the black text below the logo with a much larger "stamp" graphic, which clarified that it had not been released in America (Europe in the European version). The "1986" graphic was also removed. A small error where a black space can be seen between the H and E in "THE" was also fixed, changing that black space to match the color of the greater portion of the drop shadow.

On the screen where the player selects the file they wish to load when starting a particular game, the "FILE" text changed from scarlet(ish) to pink (although not the same pink as the Japanese version). The icon that identifies which action is applied to the B button also gets a contrast boost in both regions.

When selecting Super Mario World, the controller settings at the lower-left corner is replaced by a picture of Yoshi with "YOSHI!" below it, as World uses its own distinct control system. Pressing Select to change controls plays the same error sound heard when trying to change worlds in a new file. Selecting a file causes Yoshi to wink, while deleting one causes him to lick his lips.

Super Mario Bros. 2
Pausing and exiting the in-game menu has a short delay that, for some reason, slowly diminishes the longer the game remains paused to the point that pressing Start after long enough will unpause the game instantly. This interesting behavior only occurs in the Japanese Super Mario Collection v1.1 and the American All-Stars + World. In both European versions, the delay when unpausing the game is always one second with the sound effect playing as soon as Start is pressed to unpause the game.

Super Mario World
Super Mario World itself was altered a bit, most notably to give Luigi a set of unique sprites based on his distinct Super Mario Bros. 2 appearance (although certain sprites, such as ducking on Yoshi or climbing a vine, weren't altered). In addition, a fourth save file was added and the unique "96 exits" completion marking was redone to match the font used on the game selection menu.

Unlike the other All-Stars games, there is no uniform pause menu and 1-Player/2-Player modes are not "locked" into the save files. Additionally, the pause menu can be brought up (only) on the map by pressing the Select button, something that was not present originally. This pause menu allows the player to either continue without saving or quit and return to the All-Stars title screen without saving.

25th Anniversary Edition
Released in 2010 to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., but not on the eShop. Instead, it's a mostly-unchanged All-Stars ROM image packaged with an officially-coded Virtual Console emulator and slapped onto a Wii disc, a move that looked especially lazy on Nintendo's part given the prior release of Metroid Prime Trilogy.


 * Found in the folder content5 in the Wii disc image is a file called Opera.arc which contains more files such as filter.ini, input.ini, opera.ini, and vcmv_skin.zip.
 * The flashing background colors in the All-Stars versions of Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 were made transparent and toned down to minimize the risk of epileptic seizures. The same changes are present in the Nintendo Switch Online version.