List of Super Mario 64 glitches

It has been requested that this article be rewritten. Reason: Very poor writing: Run-ons, contractions, generally does not follow the Manual of Style.

This is a list of glitches in the game Super Mario 64. For glitches found exclusively in the remake, Super Mario 64 DS, see List of Super Mario 64 DS glitches. Note that all names are conjectural.

Graphical

Boo glitch

Boo facing away from Mario.

The glitch.

The player must have at least 12 stars so that the Boo appears in the hallway. The player has to go to the far left side of the room with the Whomp's Fortress painting, and then go to the hallway where the Boo is. It should be facing backwards, and the player must chase it out of the room and to the back courtyard. Then, the player should enter the basement, and immediately go back to the Boo, which should now be facing forward. When going to the Whomp's Fortress room's left side again, the Boo's laughing can be heard. After returning to the Boo in the hallway, he should have disappeared. When Mario stands at the door which leads to the back courtyard and looks to the right while in first-person camera mode, the Boo can be seen floating behind the door.

Bubba Death Glitch

If Mario is using a Koopa Shell to surf on the water and gets eaten by a Bubba, the shell stays suspended in the air.

Fly Guy Size Manipulation

In Tall, Tall Mountain, by running back and forth underneath the Fly Guy, it begins to shrink. After a while, his size goes into negative values which results in his body enlarging from the inside-out. This occurs due to the Fly Guy enlarging slightly when it's about to shot a fire ball, and running underneath the Fly Guy affects its size modifier. Mario can interact with the Fly Guy only as long as it has a positive size value and if he jumps onto one, the starting height of the spin jump is directly dependent on the Fly Guy's size.

Doors in empty space

The first hidden door.

The second hidden door.

The two hidden star doors.

When Mario stands near a wall and uses the first person view mode by pressing to look through said wall, sometimes doors can be seen. These doors belong to other areas of the castle, which are loaded but invisible due to Mario being too far away.

• If Mario enters first-person view while standing on the left edge of the platform with the 70 star door and looks around, a door from the lower level is visible.
• Two doors with big stars, which are the 50-star door and the 70-star door, can be seen when using the first-person view mode while standing near the outside wall of the spiraling staircase to the second floor.
• Another door can be seen when standing in the left edge next to the painting of Whomp's Fortress.

Frozen Head

The Frozen Head glitch in action.

After defeating Bowser in the Dark World or Fire Sea, Bowser spins around to fade away and spawns a key. In the Japanese version, if the player runs to where the key will land, presses and looks somewhere, Mario keeps looking that way during the key collection cutscene.

Ground Pound Turn-around

When Mario ground pounds out of a Side Somersault, he turns around instantly in midair.

Health Meter Glitch

When Mario dies in a course and is re-spawned outside the course, his health is set to one wedge, loses a life and then regenerates his health. In courses with hole-like entrances, namely Hazy Maze Cave, Rainbow Ride, Bowser in the Dark World and Bowser in the Sky. There is a delay between respawning and setting the health to one wedge. This results in the health at death being visible for a few moments. Normally, this is not odd because when Mario dies, he usually is at zero health. But, if Mario dies by bottomless pits in these stages, his health meter will show the amount of health he had before dying. Before the animation of regaining his health starts.

Invisible Bowser glitch

Mario grabbing Invisible Bowser's tail.

Bowser is defeated while invisible.

This glitch can only be done in the boss fight of Bowser in the Fire Sea, as this is the only fight in which Bowser teleports himself. When Mario grabs Bowser during teleporting, he stays invisible until he gets thrown off the platform or teleports again. The invisible Bowser cannot hurt Mario on contact, but is still able to attack as usual.

Invisible Mario

For this glitch to occur, Mario must perform the Portable Chuckya glitch first. When Mario is grabbed by the submerged Chuckya, he is able to swim around while being invisible before he is thrown. If Mario manages to swim around and grab Chuckya in time, he stays invisible; however jumping on a slope near the Chuckya ends the glitch and turn Mario visible again. While invisible, Mario sometimes behaves differently than usual - for instance, when Mario stands on a tilting platform, it is pushed down as if Mario stands at the position where the Chuckya held him.

Misplaced Cloud

The hidden cloud.

The reflection of Lakitu's cloud, which can be seen in the mirror room on the second floor, is an object that is always loaded, even when Mario is not in the room. There are several places where Mario can enter first-person view to look through a wall and see the cloud, like the corners next to the room's door and the stairway to the second floor.

Mr. I hovering around Mario

This glitch occurs in Lethal Lava Land only. The player has to get the Koopa Shell from the ! Block and set the camera to fixed mode, so that a Mr. I can be seen until Mario moves. Then, he has to defeat the Mr. I by circling around it, but due to it being offscreen now, its death animation can't play. The defeated Mr. I's eyeball then hovers around Mario for a short amount of time and move in various ways.

Pitch Conservation

When Mario is in a diving animation (normal diving, swimming, or flying), his angle is preserved in memory. This value is supposed to be reset between animations, but due to an oversight, sometimes it doesn't. For instance, if Mario exits the water while he was facing upwards then does a dive, the dive will start with the previous extreme angle as opposed to a normal dive. In a dive move, this only changes the animation.

If an extreme angle is preserved and Mario starts flying, he will immediately face the preserved angle which will affect his flight. Several actions reset the conserved angle, including grabbing a ledge, shooting from a cannon, changing areas, and jumping while facing a slope.

Instant Tower of the Wing Cap transition

Mario performing the glitch.

At least ten stars are needed to gain access to the Tower of the Wing Cap. Mario has to stand right next to the sun carpet in the castle's main hall and look up into the sun on the ceiling by pressing . Then, he has to leave the first-person view mode, quickly step onto the carpet, and press again. Mario enters the Tower of the Wing Cap instantly while still in the zoom-in animation.

Camera

Camera stuck behind door

The camera glitch.

When Mario enters a door in the castle (except the ones on the first floor) and then goes back through it quickly, the camera may get stuck behind the door for a short amount of time.

Camera below Mario in Bob-omb Battlefield

When Mario uses a Wall Kick to jump over the seesaw platform from the area where the white slope ends while using the Lakitu camera mode, the camera focuses Mario from below the floor.

Camera out of bounds in Dire, Dire Docks

When Mario swims up to the water's surface in the first area and touches the wall right above the tunnel leading to the second area where the submarine can be found, the camera moves out of bounds. As soon as Mario gets away from the wall, the camera returns to a normal position.

Invisible Cannon

To do this glitch, the player must enter a cannon and press on the first frame of the cannon viewfinder. The viewfinder does not show up and the camera pans out of the cannon as if Mario was standing in that spot and reveal that the cannon is invisible and Mario is nowhere to be seen. The camera can be controlled and rotated around normally. This glitch ends when the cannon is used.

Star Camera Zoom

When the game is paused during the animation of a new star spawning, which occurs after collecting eight red coins (except the Big Boo's Haunt red coins) or collecting five secrets, the camera sometimes zooms in slowly for a short amount of time.

Star/Death Camera glitch

If the platform Mario stands on moves during his star collection or death animation, the camera does not catch up. Examples are dying on the spinning platform around the volcano in Lethal Lava Land and collecting a 100-coin star or a cloned star on a Donut Block or carpet in Rainbow Ride.

Wing Cap Camera Glitch

For this glitch, the player has to get a Wing Cap and do a Triple Jump, so that Mario hits a fence just as is about to fly. He starts moving on the ground with the camera somewhat closer to Mario as usual and moving around smoothly. Every movement by Mario is followed closely by the camera and the C Buttons only move the camera temporarily. Several things undo this glitch, which are: getting knocked back, using a cannon, flying and landing, getting thrown, riding a shell, burning, getting squished while standing still, swimming, getting caught in a tornado and leaving the course.

Audio

Big Boo's Haunt Music Cut-out

There is a glitch that can be done in Big Boo's Haunt which stops the regular background music from playing. The player must choose a star other than the first, and defeat Big Boo in the Merry-Go-Round, but not collect the star. Instead the player needs to leave, collect a Vanish Cap and activate the 100 coins star. After the Vanish Cap ends, the player should collect this star. If done correctly, the background music does not play, only sound effects can be heard, including the background sound from outside the mansion. Should the player put on the Vanish Cap again, the music restarts after the cap wears off.

Infinite Cap Music

This glitch does not work in the Japanese version. In order to activate this glitch, the player must select the second mission in Bob-omb Battlefield and talk to Koopa the Quick while wearing the Wing Cap. While racing him up the mountain, the player must use a small alcove to teleport higher up the mountain; the Wing Cap disappears, after which they must reach the flag at the top of the mountain and wait for Koopa the Quick to appear. After talking to Koopa the Quick, the Wing Cap background music plays endlessly. To end the glitch, another Wing Cap needs to be collected; after this one runs out, the normal background music is back.

Another way to perform the glitch is to talk to King Bob-omb while wearing the Wing Cap, and then quickly teleport at the alcove near the king.

Japanese Music Cut-out

In both Bowser in the Sky and Shifting Sand Land's pyramid, it is possible for the music to cut-out due to multiple glitches in the Japanese version of the game. While this glitch is in effect, any attempt to leave the course freezes the game. For Bowser in the Sky, just entering the stage the wrong way can cut-out the music. For the pyramid, collecting the fifth secret in an odd way sometimes cuts out the music.

Koopa the Quick Warp Music Glitch

This glitch works only in the Japanese version. In Bob-omb Battlefield, if Mario travels through a warp after starting a Koopa the Quick race, the Slider music is replaced with the Super Mario 64 Main Theme music. This glitch was fixed in all other versions.

Koopa Shell Music Glitch

The player can go to any course with a Koopa or an ! Block with a Koopa Shell. If the player times it so that Mario runs towards the shell and ducks right when he touches it but doesn't start riding it, the music in the level should replay from the beginning as if the player rid the shell and ducked, but the shell doesn't break.

Loud Ukkiki

In Tall, Tall Mountain, even if the player is very far away from Ukkiki, they can still hear him as if they were right next to him.

Yahoo Pause Sound Glitch

If the game is paused just after Mario starts making the Yahoo noise (from Long Jumping or Triple Jumping), it changes in pitch to lower or higher than the normal sound.

Freezing

Crash in Big Boo's Haunt

There is a corner of Big Boo's Haunt that crashes the game when Mario touches it. The corner is located through the rightmost door on the first floor. The player should head past the window with light shining through it (with a Boo) and stand on the tiny ledge located to the left. Then, he should press the button and move Mario slightly backwards with . After Mario falls for a little bit press forwards and push the button to kick for some horizontal movement. If performed correctly, Mario freezes in the air.

Dead Mario Freeze

The glitch in action

To execute this glitch, the player should be in Bob-omb Battlefield then do the "Zombie Mario" method by using a cannon while under the effects of a Wing Cap. Then, the player should fly to the floating island, and Ground Pound the ! Block star. When done correctly, Mario loses all his HP, but he also freezes and cannot move or lose a life. To end this glitch, the player can reset or turn off the N64 system.

Double Star Freeze

If Mario grabs a 100 coin star and is in the air while at the same time he opens a ! Block star block, and if the animations of the two stars play while Mario grabs one of them, the game freezes because it does not know which star Mario is supposed to get.

Hanging Mario Freeze

If Mario is pushed backwards off a ceiling he is hanging on before completing the grabbing animation, the game freezes. This can be accomplished using a bloated Bob-omb or a crate. In the case of the crate it must be placed in a way that can push him off. In the case of the Bob-omb it must be pushing Mario backwards.

Monty Mole Freeze 1: Too Many Rocks

This glitch occurs in Tall, Tall Mountain. The rocks that the Monty Moles throw, if they go off the edge of the cliff, do not despawn, due to a developer oversight. If there are too many of them (around 200), they fill all of the object slots, freezing the game. This is similar to how the game handles the teleportation clones of Mario's Cap. As stated by Scott B. alias pannenkoek2012 on YouTube, "... the game will eventually crash due to a continuously accumulating supply of pebbles. Pebbles deactivate when they are more than 4000 units away from Mario. Hence, a deactivated pebble won't hit the ground and unload, but instead just remain invisible and unmoving in midair. So by having Monty Moles continually throw pebbles off the edge, the pebbles will keep loading into object slots but never unload. Since the game only has 240 object slots, eventually all the slots become occupied and the game crashes." This glitch may not work in the Virtual Console version.

Monty Mole Freeze 2: Bob-omb Sniper

This glitch occurs when a Monty Mole is killed with a Bob-omb thrown at a distance. Because the game is not able to track the Monty Mole's next appearance, it freezes. According to Tyler Kehne, "When a mole is KO'd, the game runs a function to determine which hole the mole should go to next. The function cycles through all the holes to see which ones are eligible candidates, and then selects one of those at random. But if none of the holes are eligible, the function returns null. Throwing the Bob-omb at the mole allows the mole to be KO'd at a distance, something the programmers hadn't accounted for. Thus, Mario is too far away from all the holes for any of them to be eligible, and so null is returned, causing the game crash. TL;DR Long range mole KO's crash the game."

Monty Mole Freeze 3: The Mole-tergeist

Although it appears that there are multiple Monty Moles, only one or two of them exist which frequently switch places. They start out invisible and in a predetermined location. As soon as Mario gets within 1500 unites to a hole, the Monty Mole gets initialized, snaps to the hole and acts normally by throwing rocks at him. Attacking a non-initialized Monty Mole freezes the game. However this is impossible to do in Tall, Tall Mountain, as the uninitialized moles are located at the origin laterally and at the height of the death barrier, where Mario can only get to using a 100-coin star; but he dies immediately after collecting the star, so that he can't attack the moles. In Hazy Maze Cave on the other hand it is possible to attack the mole before it gets initialized, but a Backwards Long Jump is required to get through the wall blocking the star that one would normally need to go through the maze to get. After clipping through the wall, the player has to go down the elevator, enter the maze and take the first right turn to get to the plateau with the Blue Coin Block. When Mario is in the poison gas right in front of said plateau and walks around, he receives knockback from an invisible object, which is in fact the uninitialized Monty Mole. Attacking the mole results in a freeze.

Freeze while entering Vanish Cap Under the Moat

If the player tries to move the camera around in Lakitu Mode just after entering Vanish Cap Under the Moat while the screen is black, the game may freeze. This glitch works only in the North American Version.

Cartridge Tilting glitches

Warning! Performing these actions may corrupt your game's save file.

This infamous series of glitches can only be done in the N64 release. It is impossible to execute them in Super Mario 64 DS as a DS card cannot be tilted and in any Virtual Console port as they are obtained by digital download.

Cartridge-Tilting Mario 1

If the player tilts the N64 cartridge itself just a tad bit from the left, Mario's limbs disappear and reappear, and his body flips horizontally, but he can still be controlled. The music also becomes heavily corrupted, increasing in pitch drastically and emitting a strange, indescribable sound. If the player puts the cartridge back in place, Mario is back to normal but the overworld music begins skipping. Sound effects from the games are heavily corrupted, making a loud crackling and distorted noise. Entering any doors, grabbing any caps from ! Blocks (unless if the player first grabs it before tilting the cartridge) or levels like that freezes the game. This is a common occurrence in Nintendo 64 games and is often manipulated in sequence breaks. It can disable Mario's clipping with certain characters and objects, allowing him to pass through them, as well. However, Mario still cannot pass through walls or doors.

Cartridge-Tilting Mario 2

If the player goes to Hazy Maze Cave, he or she must go to the area with Dorrie, grab a Metal Cap, go under water, and tilt the cartridge. Mario's limbs become disfigured, though he does not go through objects. After the cartridge is tilted, the level turns into a bottomless pit filled with water. Because Mario has a Metal Cap, he can only head straight down. Going too deep makes the game lag for some reason, and going even further makes Mario fall through another pit, but he does not die. Mario keeps on falling until the player resets or turns off the N64 system or until the game eventually freezes. If the player presses any other button, the game lags a greater amount until the lagging freezes the game. Attempting to put the cartridge back in place either freezes the game, does nothing, or possibly makes the level normal again.

Cartridge-Tilting Mario 3

Mario must go to a Battlefield and grab a wing cap. If the cartridge is tilted, Mario becomes the same as Cartridge Tilting Mario 1, only he has the wing cap. Normally tilting the cartridge then grabbing the wing cap would freeze the game, but doing that in the opposite order will not freeze the game.

The player should go inside a cannon and shoot Mario into the air. His limbs disappear, but he is not sinking. The player must now put the cartridge in the correct position.

The game already has a hard time playing the music, so when putting the cartridge in position, a sound can be heard. Once the wing cap vanishes, the game plays the Battlefield music correctly. Battling a boss causes the game to freeze.

Cartridge-Tilting Mario 4

The player must go to Whomp's Fortress and go in the cannon. The player must then tilt the cartridge and fire Mario. He disappears in the air, and when he hits the ground, he looks like like Flip'd-up Mario 1. If the player grabs a tree, Mario disappears. If the player hits an enemy, the overworld music and the ground becomes glitched.

When Mario gets thrown out of the painting, the player must then put the cartridge back in place and enter the painting again and tilt the cartridge again. Mario's appearance is the same as in Flip'd-up Mario 1, but his head is gone. At this point, hitting an enemy crashes the game. If Mario hits an enemy while the player puts the cartridge back in place, the whole screen will become blurred and the game will crash, playing an ear-splitting screech.

Cartridge-Tilting Mario 5

If the player tilts the cartridge when the player quits the game and goes to the start screen (or simply when turning on the game), Mario's head appears severely stretched and disfigured while also disappearing and reappearing. If the player grabs Mario's face, the game crashes.

Mario lying on the floor

The glitch in action

This glitch only works in the American and European versions. The player needs to get onto the castle's roof, get the Wing Cap and go to the left of Princess Peach's image. Mario suddenly lies on the roof, looking like Cartridge-Tilting Mario 1; when jumping, Mario disappears for a second. It lasts until the console is turned off.

Physics

1-Up Mushroom Circles Mario

The 1-Up Mushroom chasing Mario.

When the player activates a homing 1-Up and presses to crouch, the mushroom flies in circles above Mario's head. This glitch was not fixed in the Nintendo DS remake.

Black Room of Death

This glitched area, which is also known as BRoD, is actually a small space, which is shown when Mario opens the door, found behind all doors that lead to loading zones. The player is normally not supposed to be able to enter it, but Mario can discover them by performing glitches and becoming accidentally trapped within the small space. Some of them are inescapable, and require resetting the console, others can only be escaped from one side.

• To access BRoD1, the player must perform the Go Through the Roof Glitch. This room can be exited by jumping through the wall above the front doors inside the castle.
• To access BRoD2, the player must perform the second Ledge Wall Clip. This room can be exited by performing the Backwards Long Jump.
• To access BRoD3 and BRoD4, the player must perform the MIPS Glitch trough the basement door or trough the moat door. BRoD3 can be exited by performing the Backwards Long Jump.
• To access BRoD5, the player must perform a Backwards Long Jump while in BRoD2, or do it while on the basement stairs.

• 

  Mario outside the castle
  (BRoD #1)

• 

  The other side

• 

  Mario under the stairs
  (BRoD #2)

• 

  Mario over the basement door (BRoD #3)

• 

  The other side
  

• 

  Near the moat.
  (BRoD #4)¹

• 

  The other side

• 

  Mario over the Courtyard door
  (BRoD #5)¹

• 

  The other side (It is escapable from this side through the corners next to the door)

¹) these BRoDs are inescapable

Changing Deaths

This glitch happens when Mario loses all his health in an area and his dying animation occurs in another area. It is possible to perform these glitches in the DS remake.

Burn 'n Drown

Mario performing the glitch

The player must go to Vanish Cap Under the Moat and long-jump over the slide, causing Mario to lose half of his health. The player must wait for the Vanish Cap power to disappear and then let a Keronpa Ball burn Mario, leaving Mario with two wedges of health. The player must then let the Keronpa Ball burn Mario again and fall off the ledge. Mario loses all of his life and is teleported to the lake. At the same time, Mario drowns and loses a life.

Death teleporting

Mario landing with no health

The player must deplete Mario's health to two wedges and enter the Tower of the Wing Cap. The player must then fly until the Wing Cap effect starts to wear out, aim to fall on the ledge, lose the remaining health and fall to the sky. Mario is teleported to the castle, and as soon as he lands, he dies.

Alternatively, while in a course, the player must fall from a height (must not be very high) while not moving the control stick. During the time Mario loses health before the animation, the player can pause the game and exit the course. The player has few frames to pause the game after Mario's health is fully depleted.

Lethal Lava Land Death

The player must go to the basement and deplete Mario's lives with the fire torches. When Mario is down to his last two wedges, the player must go near the fire torch near the Lethal Lava Land painting and then jump at the fire torch and then run into the painting before the lives are depleted. As soon as Mario lands at Lethal Lava Land, he dies.

Snufit 'n Drown

While in Cavern of the Metal Cap, the player must deplete Mario's health to two wedges and obtain a Metal Cap. Mario must then make a Snufit chase him. He must then long jump to the box, while making sure that the Snufit is still chasing him. If positioned correctly, Mario jumps and is hit by the Snufit, causing him to fall into the waterfall behind him. He is teleported away and dies as soon as he hits the lake.

Grinding

If Mario is positioned in a way that he as far on an edge as possible and on an angle almost parallel to the ledge, moving forward makes Mario constantly switch between a falling state and an on-ground state, during that the screen shakes. If the player presses , Mario automatically performs a Double Jump.

Invisible Walls

One of the Invisible Walls.

In some places in the game, there are some unintended invisible walls created by one of two things: they were left in early in development but neglected to be removed, and others caused by the rendering of two planes in close proximity.

• In the first room of the castle on the top right side where the fence bends.
• On the right side of the first stairs in Bob-omb Battlefield.
• In Bob-omb Battlefield, on top of the fence over the tunnel where there is a rectangular opening.
• In Bob-omb Battlefield above and in the red arrow sign directly after the bridge and to the left of the tunnel.
• Near the rotating log in Tall, Tall Mountain.
• In the entrance of Bowser in the Dark World, very small spot on the stairs.
• In Bowser in the Dark World, above one of the corners of the fence on the curving path.
• In Snowman's Land at a right angle to the edge of the snow triangle creating machine's path. Mario dies if he touches this wall.
• In Lethal Lava Land in the Volcano, in the middle of the vertical downward flowing lava.
• In Dire, Dire Docks where the sign is in the second area and the temporary boxes spawn.
• Just above the first pipe in Tiny-Huge Island.
• At the sides of a pendulum in Tick Tock Clock.

Hyperspeed Glitches

All of these glitches involve Mario being able to increase in velocity without a speed limit, due to certain actions such as backwards movement and wall jumping lacking a speed cap. Due to the game's movement calculation mechanics, Mario can pass through walls and enter Parallel Universes after accumulating enough speed.

Backwards Long Jump

Mario beating the game without 70 Power Stars.

Mario atop the endless stairs with 16 Power Stars.

The player must go to any set of long stairs, then face the stairs and turn around, so Mario is facing away from the stairs. Now, the player performs a long jump. As soon as Mario jumps, they must hold backwards on the control stick. After they land, the player should rapidly tap the button and after a while, Mario should start zooming backwards at very high speeds, usually going through walls and doors. This is most famously used to get to the top of the endless stairs in Mushroom Castle. Normally, the game can register how fast Mario can normally move, and teleport Mario to a lower section before he can reach the top of the stairs. This prevents him from accessing the door without the required 70 Power Stars. However when the Backwards Long Jump is performed, Mario can build up a lot of backwards velocity, and the game does not teleport Mario properly because he reached the top too quickly. This is also the way Mario can go through walls. This glitch can do a lot of things. It can make the player complete the game with no stars and can access the "Black Room of Death".

This glitch also works with elevators and similar platforms. The player executes the glitch in the same way, but if they stop tapping while the wall is still behind Mario, he starts to run backwards very fast as soon as the player holds the control stick in a different direction. If the player doesn't stop tapping and has reached the top, Mario teleports somewhere behind him (depending on what speed he gained while jumping onto the platform). This glitch was fixed in the Japanese Shindou edition re-release, as Mario's speed is capped when moving backwards. The glitch was also fixed in the DS remake as if when Mario attempts a backwards long jump, the camera goes behind Mario, making him do a normal long jump.

Hyperspeed Wall-Kicking

When Mario is in the state of moving after doing a wall jump there is no speed cap. Mario gains speed every time he bounces off the wall if the move was executed perfectly. This can be used to produce results similar to the Backwards Long Jump glitch, but is impossible to execute without tool-assistance.

Hyperspeed Walking

There are certain spots in Super Mario 64 where Mario's backwards speed increases without limit by standing in that place. These spots work in a very similar way to the Backwards Long Jump. Among these spots are:

• In the castle grounds next to the waterfall where the water and the wall touch on the left side.
• In Whomp's Fortress the corner next to the cannon and the brick wall in the pool of water.

It seems these spots work because the game is putting Mario in a sliding position (and thus the game increases Mario's backwards velocity), but Mario is in the water and thus he is unaffected by land velocity.

Hyperspeed Wind Glitch

This glitch only works in Tiny-Huge Island and Tall, Tall Mountain. When Mario is pushed up by wind, but gets stuck under a slope, his speed steadily increases without him moving out of place.

Hyperspeed Flying

When Mario has built up hyperspeed by one of the above glitches, most notably the Backwards Long Jump, and wears a Wing Cap, he can perform a Triple Jump to start flying at very high speed. This glitch is best known for allowing Mario to enter Vanish Cap Under the Moat without having to drain the moat first.

Overextended see-saw

This glitch requires that the Climb Slippery Slopes 3 glitch is performed on a platform that tips over on the side Mario is standing on (although the one in Big Boo's Haunt does not work for this). The platform is rotated in the direction based on the side Mario is standing on and it can be rotated more than 90 degrees if Mario stands on the top and narrow side. If the platform is rotated more than 260 degrees, it resets as soon as Mario stops standing on it. No platform can be rotated more than 270 degrees, because past that point, the whole platform is on the opposite side of Mario, and thus Mario has nowhere to stand to tilt it in the right direction.

Pass Through the Ground

This glitch only works on the Japanese version. If Mario exits a level while standing on a falling bridge block, when he returns to the castle, he clips through the ground and falls in front of the basement door.

Stuck in the Air

The glitch in action.

On the Cool, Cool Mountain level, if the player heads to the area near the wooden lift, where the red coin is found, and does a Long Jump towards the island with a Bob-omb Buddy on it, landing at the edge of the island (as if to grab onto the edge), Mario suddenly teleports. He appears to be stuck in snow, but he is actually floating in air. Once Mario frees himself, he falls and loses a life, as if he had fallen off of the edge.

Stuck Sliding Spot

In some courses there are certain locations where Mario can get stuck in a sliding or diving position and unable to exit the course through the pause menu. Most of these spots are also inescapable by normal means also.

• In Hazy Maze Cave between the abandoned mine wire door and the land in front of the Purple Switch. Requires precision placement.
• In Tall, Tall Mountain behind the log and on the waterfall.
• In Bowser in the Fire Sea between the pole and the side of the suspending hexagon facing toward the start (requiring knockback). While climbing the pole, the player need to press followed by .
• In the first room of the castle at the edge of the ceiling (where it is angled downward and inward)
• In Bowser in the Sky, At the vertical slope, with perfect movement, it is possible to get stuck in the corner of the slope.
• In Bob-omb Battlefield, Mario can get stuck in the corner of most hills.
• In Hazy Maze Cave at the bottomless pit where balls fall.
• In Whomp's Fortress, between the wall and the left breakable wall.
• Near Klepto in Shifting Sand Land between two inward and downward facing planes.
• Near the end of Bowser in the Fire Sea, by diving towards the corner at where the green funnel and the last platform touch.
• At the top of the giant Snowman head in Snowman's Land, when Mario is slowly walking towards the high sloped glaucous-colored wall.

Stuck to the Lava glitches

The glitch in action.

These glitches involving Mario jumping or falling into Lava, so that he gets stuck under objects like platforms which prevent him from jumping out of the Lava. Due to not having invincibility after getting burnt by Lava, he gets burnt repeatedly, so that he loses all of his health points and dies near-instantly.

Tilting Platforms in Lethal Lava Land

Mario must go to Lethal Lava Land for this glitch to work. Once here, the player must dive underneath one of the many floating platforms near the volcano. This may take a few tries to do correctly. If done right, Mario touches the lava, but becomes stuck to it instead of jumping up after being burned. This instantly depletes his Health Meter and causes him to lose a life. When stuck to the lava, the sounds Mario makes are slightly distorted, and due to the lack of invincibility after taking lava damage, Mario repeatedly takes damage and the voice clip of getting burned rapidly rapidly plays.

Rolling Log in Lethal Lava Land

The Crushing Log glitch in action

The player must go to Lethal Lava Land, grab a Green Shell and ride it to the log near the caged area. They must jump on the log and make it move. The player must charge at the log while it is still moving towards Mario. When Mario touches the log, he loses the Green Shell like he usually does, but the log is still moving and crushes Mario while he gets repeatedly burnt by the lava, causing an instant death.

Moving Platforms in Bowser in the Fire Sea

Performing the glitch.

If the player goes to Bowser in the Fire Sea, he or she must go to the area with the two moving platforms. Next the player must jump into the Lava when the platform is moving towards Mario so he moves to be under the base of the platform. If timed correctly, the platform crushes Mario while he is still on Lava. This causes an instant crushed kill. However, if Mario landed very close to the platform, Mario is instead crushed without damage. This glitch is tricky, as most executions of this glitch ends with Mario losing health and triggering his normal death animation, or triggering his normal death animation on the lava itself as if he was standing on ground.

Unreachable 100-Coin Star

Unreachable Star

When the 100th coin is collected close to a ceiling, like the red coins on the book shelves in Big Boo's Haunt, the highest red coin in Dire, Dire Docks or a coin dropped by a Goomba inside the pyramid in Shifting Sand Land, the 100-coin star may spawn above the ceiling, so that Mario cannot reach it.

Wall Clipping

All of these glitches allow Mario to pass through walls.

Without holding grabbable objects

Ground Pound Clip

When Mario ground pounds, the game keeps him in place for a trice and nothing can move him for this duration, followed by slamming down. This can used to clip through many platforms, including:

• A Whomp or Whomp King as it falls (ground pound is not even needed to clip, a simple jump works too)
• A revolving checkerboard elevator.
• An elevator that is not very thick.
• An elevator that moves fast downwards.
• An elevator that moves extremely fast upwards.

Ledge Wall Clipping

There are certain walls in the game that Mario can clip in a particular way that involves Mario grabbing onto a ledge. These are:

The glitch in action

• In the castle upstairs spiral staircase, running to the pole on the left wall, and then jumping twice makes Mario go through the room and onto the stairs.
• On the basement stairs, if the player aims a double jump correctly to the right side, Mario grabs a ledge and pulls himself up, and the player is trapped in another Black Room of Death.
• By standing under and jumping at the part of the first bridge of Bob-omb Battlefield that is closest to the start of the level, Mario clips through the bridge.

Go Through the Roof Glitch

The player must first have all 120 Power Stars collected, and be outside the castle. The player has to use the cannon near the castle's moat to shoot Mario up on top of the castle's roof, where he must locate the Wing Cap. Mario must use it to fly back to the cannon and then shoot himself back out of it again, this time aiming towards the flagpole at the top of the castle's tower. If done correctly, the targeting reticle of the cannon should be able to go no higher when aimed upwards. Once launched, the player has to steer Mario towards the second rooftop area on the side of the tower with the window. Mario must run into the middle part of the wall here, and then jump when he hits the wall (while simultaneously holding the control stick forward). This may take a while, but Mario should eventually go through the wall of the tower and end up behind the castle's front doors in a Black Room of Death. There is a glitch similar to this one in the DS remake.

Regular Wall Phasing-Through

Some walls in Super Mario 64 are unintentionally able to be clipped through by various methods. The following examples do not require the use of the Backwards Long Jump or other such techniques.

• In Whomp's Fortress, above and to the right of the cannon (between the flagpole and the "wrong" breakable wall), there is a spot where Mario can clip through the wall. This method of clipping does not require the crate.
• In Cool, Cool Mountain, right next to the most distant red coin at the bottom, if Mario climbs the slope from the direction that leads toward the cabin, there is a point at top where Mario can clip through the mountain.
• In Whomp's Fortress, if Mario long jumps to the right of the second Piranha Plant in a way that causes Mario to slam into the fence and the ground in the right direction, Mario passes through the wall.
• At the start of Tall, Tall Mountain, by long jumping into the mountain (at the spot where it is jutting out slightly).
• In Tall, Tall Mountain, by jumping into the ledge located just below the platform with an Ukkiki that steals Mario's Cap.
• At the top of Tall, Tall Mountain, by running up into the waterfall where the fence meets it.
• At the start of Cool, Cool Mountain, where two slopes meet (near the broken bridge with the warp).
• In Whomp's Fortress, if Mario uses the cannon and aims at a fence, he passes directly through it.
• In Snowman's Land, at the igloo, by standing at the wall directly opposite the entrance and pressing the button then the button (Mario kicks against the wall). Mario can enter the igloo in this manner.
• In Bob-omb Battlefield, by pushing into the spot where the wall and the gate touch on the left side while it is closed.
• In Bob-omb Battlefield, by pushing into the spot where the wall and the gate touch on the right side while it is open.
• In Jolly Roger Bay, above the entrance to the cave, by a rock. The wall can be clipped through if the player is swimming with full speed and pressing at the correct time. This lets the player clip through the wall into the cave.

With grabbable objects

All of these glitches involve Mario being pushed through a wall using either the hitbox of an object, or the backward force from throwing heavy objects.

Chuckya Clip

When Mario is held by a Chuckya, the Chuckya can move Mario slightly while ignoring collision before Mario is thrown. Since Chuckyas have poor collision detection themselves, Mario can lure the Chuckya to a wall and force the Chuckya partially inside the wall. If Mario is thrown in the direction of the wall, the Chuckya is able to clip Mario through walls. Similarly, with some walls, if Mario grabs a Chuckya, puts his back to a wall and throw the Chuckya, he is then able to clip through the wall.

Crate Clip

A result of this glitch being done in Whomp's Fortress.

Through use of a crate, Mario is able to clip through walls. After placing the crate next to a wall, Mario must then ground pound between the box and the wall. If done correctly, Mario is pushed through the wall. Separately, on certain walls, if Mario grabs a crate and is positioned such that he is pressing his back against the wall, letting go of the crate with causes Mario to get pushed through the wall.

Penguin Clip

In Cool, Cool Mountain both the big penguin and the small penguin can be used to clip through a wall. Through use of luring the big penguin to stand next to the cabin by picking up the small penguin, Mario can clip through the cabin by jumping in between. A small penguin can be used to clip through a wall at the start of Cool, Cool Mountain by jumping at the peak of the mountain between the penguin and the wall. This glitch can be used to avoid getting the two coins inside the chimney of the cabin.

By using Hyperspeed

When Mario uses a Hyperspeed glitch to gain an immense amount of speed, he can clip through numerous walls. This works because of how Mario's movement is calculated and how the collision check works. The game splits up each frame of movement into four quarter frames; for each quarter frame, the game calculates Mario's next position based on his speed and the direction of his movement. If this position ends up being inside a wall's hitbox, this quarter frame's movement gets redirected or canceled, depending on the angle Mario will hit the wall with. Otherwise, if there's no wall, Mario is moved to the new, calculated position, and the process repeats itself for the remaining quarter frames. This means, if Mario has high enough speed while moving towards a wall, his new position is calculated to be behind the wall's hitbox and so the wall is never regocnized by the collision check, allowing Mario to move past it.

Wing Cap Momentum Memory

When Mario touches the ground after a Wing Cap the game does not reset the variables affecting the direction Mario was turning towards. This means that if the player holds or on the Control stick just before Mario touches the ground and then does a Triple Jump (with the same Wing Cap) Mario suddenly jerks towards the direction the player was previously facing.

Zombie Mario

Mario entering a door with his Health Meter fully depleted.

Wing Mario flying with no sections of health remaining.

This glitch can be done in any level that has a cannon or Bob-ombs, but is easiest to do in the Bob-omb Battlefield level. First, the player must forcibly reduce Mario's Health Meter to one or two sections by running into enemies. After this has been accomplished, the player must quickly grab a Bob-omb and then run in front of a cannon, so that Mario's back is facing the cannon. If done correctly, the Bob-omb explodes, and Mario falls backwards into the cannon, losing the remaining two sections of his Health Meter in the process. Mario does not die, however, and the player is then able to aim the cannon and shoot him out of it. In addition, if the player collects a Wing Cap before doing this, they are able to control Wing Mario regularly after firing him out of the cannon, despite having no health remaining. Flying into any coins does not refill Mario's Health Meter. It is not until the player touches back down on the ground again (or the Wing Cap runs out) that Mario loses a life.

This phenomenon also occurs if Mario falls in front of a door in the castle with only two sections of health left. When this happens, the remaining two sections are lost, causing Mario to enter the door, but then lose a life when he is at the end. This glitch was fixed in the DS remake as if the player depletes Mario's lives and goes into the cannon after depleting the last one, he just dies in the cannon.

There is another method that is more difficult than the previously mentioned methods in both preparation and execution. In order to perform this, the player must have all 120 Stars collected (to unlock the cannon in front of the castle). The player has to deplete Mario's health by at least half, then use the cannon to access the castle roof. The player then must acquire the Wing Cap there and fly down to the cannon again. Here, the player has to aim the cannon as high as possible at the castle tower. If done correctly, Mario is left standing on the sloped roofing under the tip of the tower (a platform that is not normally accessible in the game). Upon reaching this section of the tower, there are eight walls placed in octagonal fashion. The player must go for the wall that is facing in the direction of the waterfall to the left of the castle. This certain wall shares the same properties of the brick pillars in Shifting Sand Land, allowing Mario to climb the wall by simply running over it. This leads Mario to the very tip of the castle tower.

Afterwards, the player has to aim Mario towards the cannon, and run in that direction. If executed properly, Mario strangely slides down the wall, and the sloped roofing below him ricochets him airborne at a very low trajectory, covering a large amount of distance in the way.

This is where the actual glitch is performed. The player should steer Mario so that he lands right in front of the cannon. Mario hits the ground, loses all health, and the momentum causes him to tumble into the cannon. After successfully performing this, Mario is in the cannon, despite being technically "dead". Like mentioned before, if Mario still has the Wing Cap, then he is able to fly in midair regularly until he makes any contact with the ground.

It should be noted that, if the player aims Mario at a tree or pole, then Mario instantly lets go and loses a life.

Baby Penguin Chimney Glitch

Floating Penguin

In Cool, Cool Mountain, the player must pick up the baby penguin at the start of the level above the cabin. Instead of taking it to its mother, they must drop it down the chimney of said cabin with or , causing the penguin to fall onto an invisible boundary within the chimney. The player cannot grab the penguin again in this state, as Mario is forced to enter the slide area with the Big Penguin. Leaving the area by way of the bridge warp and then returning resets the baby penguin's position.

Scripting

100-Coin Star Glitch

Mario's victory dance on air.

Mario's default victory dance underwater.

In several levels that have endless holes, including Tiny-Huge Island, Tick Tock Clock, Whomp's Fortress, Rainbow Ride, Cool, Cool Mountain, Tall, Tall Mountain and Hazy Maze Cave, if Mario collects his 100th coin directly above a bottomless pit, a Star will magically appear as usual, but if Mario collects the Star, he will immediately fall straight down and he does his victory dance while suspended in the air and then he falls in the endless pit and loses a life, and the high score will not be saved. However, the star still counts toward the total.

Another way to do this glitch in Dire, Dire Docks. The player must do the Unreachable 100-Coin Star but instead collect the coin from the bottom, the player should now collect the star while still hanging on the pole. Mario will be suddenly teleported to the bottom of the lake, and will do his default victory animation as if he was standing on land.

Beached Bubba

In Tiny-Huge Island there is a glitch that can be used to "defeat" a Bubba. Mario must lure the Bubba located near the Lakitu into its jumping animation. Just before the animation is finished Mario needs to jump in the air. All this should be done so that when the animation finishes Bubba ends up on the rocky land between the beach and the Cannon. If done correctly, Bubba will be facing vertically downward and will appear unaffected by slope-induced gravity. Bubba's momentum will also move it constantly forward. Gravity will take effect when Bubba falls off a ledge. Bubba does not disappear at the death barrier.

Beat Koopa the Quick in Zero Seconds

Mario on the goal flag with zero seconds.

To beat Koopa the Quick in zero seconds, the player must get the Wing Cap in Bob-omb Battlefield and triple jump right in front of Koopa the Quick, but not too close, then Ground Pound into the first cannon and blast to the floating island. They must then Ground Pound again into another cannon and blast to the goal flag on the top of the mountain. Koopa the Quick will talk to Mario from the race's starting point once he lands, though he is very far away. Then, the timer begins as usual and ends at zero seconds, as Mario has already reached the flag. However, Koopa the Quick never gets up there, so the Power Star can't be obtained in this way. If Mario goes back to the start, Koopa the Quick will be still in place but he will be invisible. Mario can't talk to him when he is invisible.

This glitch can be done too in Tiny-Huge Island, but is a lot harder. The player should defeat the small Koopa on the sand surface and leave the shell, the player then must triple jump right in front of Koopa the Quick, but not too close, and aim to land on the shell. The player must then ride to the goal pole. Koopa the Quick will talk to Mario at the finish pole but the timer will stop at zero seconds. Once again, if Mario goes back to where Koopa the Quick is, he is there but is invisible.

Bob-omb glitches

Bye-Bye Bob-omb

In Tall, Tall Mountain the Bob-ombs were very poorly placed on the mountainside considering what AI they were programmed with. They frequently fall off the mountain all by themselves (and this falling Bob-omb can be seen very often next to the Scary 'Shrooms). The Bob-ombs also seem to have a penchant for not reloading in the location where they normally spawn for this reason. Mario, however, can stimulate this artificially. The player should grab any Bob-omb and stand next to the edge of the mountain, facing off the ledge. Pressing the button or button, the Bob-omb will now never come back when Mario returns to the area, until he exits the level. The reason the Bob-omb does not come back can be seen from the windy area near the Chuckya (if that is where the bomb was thrown from).

Bob-omb Clip

Mario behind the gate

For this glitch to work, Mario must go to Bob-omb Battlefield. There, he has to grab the Bob-omb near the Chain-Chomp and manage to do the bloated Bob-omb glitch by throwing the Bob-omb at the beginning of a double jump and immediately regrabbing it after landing and turning around. By using the backwards momentum the bloated Bob-omb provides, the player has to guide Mario past the Chain-Chomp to the gate with a Star behind it. Once Mario touches the gate with its back, he has to throw the Bob-omb away, which allows him to clip through and collect the Star without having to free the Chain-Chomp.

Crazy Bob-omb

The Bob-omb suspended in air.

In Course 1 of Bob-omb Battlefield, if the player climbs the mountain and finds the Bob-omb that is manning the water cannon, picks him up, makes Mario jump, and presses , the Bob-omb will be suspended in mid-air. It appears the programmers gave this Bob-omb special properties to keep it moving in place so as to appear to be controlling the cannon but unintentionally created a glitch through this change of behavior.

Hold Larger Bob-omb

Mario holding a larger Bob-omb.

To perform this glitch, the player must grab the Bob-omb right while it exploding, whither it is by a bubble landing on one, or if the player tossed it and caught it again just as it hits the ground. If done correctly, Mario should be holding the Bob-omb in its "larger" form. Occasionally, Mario will start walking backwards uncontrollably until the Bob-omb explodes, in which case Mario will lose two sections of his Health Meter. The player can adjust directions by moving the control stick, actually moving will slow Mario's backward moving speed.

Another form of larger Bob-omb which can be held by Mario is the so-called Fake Bob-omb. This is a Bob-omb that has been dropped and regrabbed right as it exploded, so that Mario holds a bloated Bob-omb without a smoking fuse. It is called a fake, because, despite Mario holding it in his hands, the game recognizes the Bob-omb as exploded and unloads it, freeing up its object slot. As soon as a new object like a coin loads into this slot, the Bob-omb will transform into it, a process called Cloning.

Bob-omb Through the Bars

In Bob-omb Battlefield, the player must be near the Bob-omb that is near the bars, then, dive and catch it, going in the bars' direction. When Mario hits the wall, the Bob-Omb will slide to the other side of the bars.

Bowser Momentum Glitch

Bowser is sent flying off the stage.

Bowser is sent flying off the stage.

This glitch can be achieved during any Bowser battle. To do this glitch, the player must first grab Bowser's tail and throw him off the edge. When Bowser jumps back, grab his tail while he's still in the air and throw him onto a bomb. The result will be that instead of dying, Bowser will be sent flying off the edge of the stage but will still be alive. He will eventually jump back to the center of the stage and the battle will progress normally.

Broken Pokey

In Shifting Sand land Pokeys are normally made of four connected segments and a head. If Mario punches/dives/slide kicks a segment it will disappear but after some time all segments will regrow. The head is located on top of the highest segment. If Mario damages/stomps on/butt stomps the head it defeats the Pokey and a Blue Coin appears. This is normal behavior. However, if a Pokey travels into the stone structure near the start of the level (with the two ! blocks on top of it), the Pokey will split into two pieces. This Pokey now has some strange behavior; the head does not move downward when Mario destroys all the segments.

Bully Glitches

Bully Blocker

The player should go to Lethal Lava Land and jump into the volcano, then go to the platform with the Bully. The player must make the Bully run after them and make Mario run into the corner of the platform with two walls around it. The Bully will ram into the player, but Mario will be unable to move, because the two walls are blocking him and the Bully is keeping Mario stuck in the corner. The Bully will keep ramming into Mario, making the player unable to escape. However, it is possible though very hard to jump away. This glitch was changed in the DS remake, where, if a Bully rams into the player, it will stand still for a few seconds before charging again, giving them a chance to escape.

Unboiled Bully

In Lethal Lava Land Mario must hit a Bully while on a shell in one of the last frames of animation of it boiling. If this is done the animation will stop and the Bully will be partially submerged in lava. If Mario makes contact with this Bully it will push him backwards with great speed until he moves away.

Chill Bully off Platform

This glitch can be done in Snowman's Land. Head over to the Bully on the ice. Knock it back off the platform with a shell. If Mario hits the Bully onto too low of ground it sinks into it. The Bully can die on frozen ice, a small slope, a large slope, a wall, and freezing water.

Broken Big Crate

Kick a crate that came from a Purple Switch just before it disappears. It will break as soon as the Purple Switch is pressed again.

Broken Bookshelf

In Big Boo's Haunt there is a glitch that makes a mission impossible to complete without sequence breaking. Due to an error in scripting, the books that Mario has activated stay in memory when he leaves the room, but the books reset. This means that Mario can hit two of the books in the correct order, leave the room, and come back to hit the third book. Normally the door would open up anyway, but before the animation plays, have Mario hit a book. The jingle that indicates that Mario has entered the right code should play but a book should fly out of the wall indicating that Mario entered the wrong code. The bookshelf will not move and the books will not pop out and allow the player to try again. This glitch can be fixed by exiting the level and entering again.

Cap in Hand

The glitch in action.

This glitch can be exploited in any level in which Mario can lose his cap and there is a teleport, or there is a ! Block holding a cap.

As an example of the Mario's Cap variant, the player must go to Shifting Sand Land and let Klepto steal Mario's Cap. In response, the player must attack Klepto and make him drop the cap, but not retrieve it. Instead, they must go through the teleport underneath the Tree, and immediately teleport back. They must then go to the place where he knocked out Klepto, where there will now be two caps instead of one. When Mario picks up the second, the cap on his head will disappear, and the animation will glitch, causing him to keep the cap in his hand rather than placing it on his head. After exiting a level, the cap will appear on Mario's head, but if the player goes to Shifting Sand Land, Klepto will have Mario's Cap. If the player saves and resets the game, Mario will be without his cap. Occasionally, Mario will have two caps: one in hand and one on his head.

For the ! Block cap variant, the player must hit the block to release a cap, but not pick it up until the block has reappeared and they have released a second cap. They must then quickly pick up the first cap (which will be blinking and about to disappear), and immediately collect the second, requiring precise timing.

While Mario is holding his cap instead of wearing it on his head, he'll still take more damage than usual if hit by any enemy, as if he had lost his cap.

Talking to a Bob-omb Buddy will cause Mario to recover his cap. However, collecting a Power Star will cause Mario to be capless.

Chain-Chomp Falls Down

If Mario activates the Chain-Chomp freeing animation when the Chain-Chomp is close to Mario, and about to lunge, Mario will get hurt and knocked off the post while the solved secret jingle plays. When the animation plays, Chain-Chomp will go over the fence and the animation will be messed up. Occasionally, but very rarely, Chain-Chomp will clip through the ground and sink to the bottom.

Chuckya glitches

There are multiple glitches involving the Chuckya, an enemy that grabs Mario and throws him into a random direction.

Grabbed by dead Chuckya

When a Chuckya is dropped off a cliff and explodes right at the moment it grabs Mario, Mario will be stuck in midair, unable to move. The same thing happens when the Chuckya is dropped into a bottomless pit, Mario jumps after Chuckya and gets grabbed in midair.

Chuckya Drop

This glitch happens in Bowser in the Sky. When Mario moves in a specific pattern on the platform with the moveable cube right after the start, he can manipulate the Chuckya on the huge platform above, so that it eventually falls down to where Mario is.

Being grabbed while holding a clone

If Mario holds a Chuckya clone and gets grabbed by the real Chuckya, he will throw the clone, which explodes and scatters its coins, but the Chuckya which held Mario will disappear, leaving Mario stuck in midair. This happens, because the clone replaces the real Chuckya as soon as it is thrown.

Holding a fake Chuckya

This glitch can be used for Cloning and is similar to the Hold larger Bob-omb glitch. Mario has to grab a Chuckya, throw it and grab it right as it explodes. He will now hold a Fake Chuckya, which transforms into a new object, as soon as one loads into the Chuckya's now vacant object slot.

Portable Chuckya

This glitch works best in Wet-Dry World. To do this glitch, Mario should throw a Chuckya off a ledge and be position himself to get caught by it in midair before it touches the ground, making sure Mario does not get thrown in midair. The Chuckya will touch the ground and not die. The player should now raise the water level using a Crystal Tap. With the Chuckya being underwater, Mario should grab the Chuckya. When Mario carries this Chuckya he will be able to jump high and run at normal speed.

Coin Counter Rollover

If Mario collects more than 255 coins it will save a number lower than or equal to 255 as the Coin count record. The maximum number of coins that can be collected while in a level is 999, any more do not affect the coin counter (but in the Japanese version something different happens due to a glitch, see Negative Lives). If Mario collected a star while his coin count was at 999 it would save in the records as 231 coins. The reason this happens is that the record's coin counter only saves the first byte of the level's coin data (which is stored in two bytes). The coin counter effectively rolls over while saving. If Mario collected 256 coins (or a number multiple of it, such as 512, and 768) in a level, it would be stored as 0.

Coin Through the Platform

To do this glitch, Mario must go to the Shifting Sand Land course. He must go onto the area where there is a grey platform suspended by four pillars. Mario must run toward a Goomba that is under the platform and do one of two attacks: diving (pressing B while running), break dance (crouch and press B), or slide kicking (run, quickly crouch and immediately press B). The Goomba should be stomped, but the coin will continue to fly up and appear on top of the upper grey platform, which Mario cannot normally jump through. This does not affect the game, other than requiring Mario to Triple Jump onto the upper platform to get the coin.

Cloning

Mario holding a Goomba clone.

Mario holding nothing in his hand.

Every object currently on the screen takes a slot of the 240 slots available in the SM64 system. To save memory, when Mario moves near an object, it loads into a slot and appears on the screen. And when Mario moves away from an object, it unloads from the slot and allows more objects to take this slot.

The crate unloads after 30 seconds of inactivity and moves to its original position. And when Mario grabs an object regularly (either while standing still, or while walking), it takes two frames to send a signal to the object to prevent it from unloading while Mario is holding it. However, if the crate unloads during these two frames. Mario will be holding a vacant slot, which can be filled with any other object as they load as Mario approaches them. It is possible to hold a vacant slot by other ways including grabbing a Bob-omb as it explodes or grabbing a crate as it breaks.

If a coin loads into the vacant slot, he can collect the copied coin by throwing it. After that, Mario can move away from the coin's Spawning Point's radius and return to find all coins intact. The reason for that phenomenon is that the real coin had been moved to where the clone coin was placed and after Mario collected the clone, it did not send a signal for the loading point to not respawn the coin. Therefore, when Mario returns to the spawning point, the real coin will reappear as if it never was collected.

Cloned objects differ from normal objects. Most clones cannot be thrown far, attempting to throw a one will make it stuck in mid-air. After throwing one, Mario can interact with the clone once before it became unusable. For example: after cloning a Goomba, Mario can either be injured from the Goomba or bounce on it (it won't be defeated) before it became unusable. Platform clones cannot be stood upon. Also, clones do not unload, and do not disappear without Mario passing through a load point.

Mario holding a coin clone.

Due to how the game was programmed, explosions and dust (and basically anything on the screen except the HUD) are considered objects that can take vacant slots. This can alter which vacant slot Mario is currently holding. Also when objects unload, they move with their slots to the start of the vacant slots (i.e: If Mario is holding the vacant slot #3, and two objects unloads, Mario will end up holding vacant slot #5.) the opposite is untrue, objects load in the first vacant slot (i.e: If Mario is holding vacant slot #5, and a ring of eight coins loads, Mario will end up holding the fifth coin.)

Objects that can be cloned include a Goomba, a coin, a Chain-Chomp chain part, a flat bubble, a water bomb, a Big Steely or even dust. Some objects are always loaded, thus it is impossible to clone them without a load point in the course. Those objects includes: Red Coins, Power Stars (outside box), Star Markers, the five secrets along with their coins (the secrets are separate invisible objects that can be collected) and more.

Spawning points themselves can be cloned, if the course has a loading zone. If Mario holds a Spawning Point clone, these thing will happen depending on when Mario lets go. If Mario were to let go of the spawning point when the coins it spawns are invisible, the coins in question would never appear as the spawner cannot send the proper signals for the coins to appear. However, if Mario lets go while the coins are in plain sight, the coins will not unload no matter how far away Mario moves from the point, as the spawner cannot send out the signals for the coins to disappear. If Mario collects the coins, the coins will attempt to notify the point that they have been collected, however, the copied spawning point will not receive these signals. Thus, when Mario leaves the loading point and returns, he can recollect the coins as the spawner has no memory of them being collected.

Confused Skeeter

If the water level in Wet-Dry World is lowered when a Skeeter is in between two platforms, it will be unable to move correctly, constantly banging into the side of the platform.

Crushed without Damage

The glitch in action.

This glitch works in Shifting Sand Land. The player needs to go into the pyramid, at the place with Spindel. If Mario gets close enough, the Spindel will start to flatten Mario. Mario will be crushed, but he will not lose any health. Mario can't move again until the Spindel gets off of Mario. This also works in Whomp's Fortress: if the player stands under the very edge of the Thwomp, it will land and squish Mario and he will not lose any health.

Delayed Dialogue at a Distance

Certain text boxes that automatically play for Mario when he is in a certain proximity with Koopa the Quick, the big penguin, et al. can be delayed until Mario is touching the ground at a distance from the speaker further than intended. This involves doing a Triple Jump with one of the jumps being in the range of the speaker. The jump in the range should be done as soon as Mario touches the ground or else the dialogue will activate. Mario can use the wing cap while doing this. As soon as Mario lands on the ground the text box will activate. See Beat Koopa the Quick in Zero Seconds for a possible use of this glitch.

Fly Guy Suicide

In Snowman's Land there is a particular tree that if Mario hangs off the top of it the nearby Fly Guy will fly towards the freezing water and will instantly die. Mario doesn't even need to be on the tree for this to happen, he just needs to be in the vicinity. What makes the Fly Guy die is a mystery, but it is believed to have something to do with the freezing water being a 3D box.

Frozen Environment

These glitches send the game into a surreal state where most objects do not update when interacted with and many are unloaded. All of these glitches seem to share the same properties, behaviors and interactions of Mario with entities when they are executed.

Mario's Magic Monkey

This glitch works only on the Japanese version. The player should head to Tall, Tall Mountain. Mario should grab the first Ukkiki and lose his cap (it does not matter if the cap is stolen or not, because the glitch will still work, it is to the player's preference). Next, Mario must grab the Ukkiki with a dive grab when it has his cap in a way that he ends up in the water, swimming with Ukkiki in his hands. The player should then move Mario over and down the waterfall. When Mario starts falling down he player now needs to press to do a glitch Ground Pound item drop while Mario is falling. Mario is now in the surreal world of frozen time and unloaded entities. Some of the properties of objects in this frozen world are:

• The Crazed Crate is invisible but it is still loaded in the same spot and it is fully functional. It will move Mario normally but yields no coins and can be reused.
• Red coins are stuck in the same frame of animation and can be collected, but do not disappear upon collection or show the number of them collected.
• The rotating log, while still visible, is intangible and Mario will fall through it.
• Chuckya behaves the same way as the Crazed Crate except for the fact that it does not lock Mario into a bouncing sequence.
• Mario will interact with Bob-ombs exactly like the Chuckya. It won't explode or move.
• Not a single Monty Mole appears and the holes they emerge from are missing.
• Goombas interact almost exactly like the cloned versions of themselves; they can be interacted with only once. The only difference is that these Goombas have no animation. They have shadows and appear to be floating. They appear to be stuck in the first frame.
• 1-Up Mushrooms appear normally but cannot be collected.
• Power Stars can be collected, and will take Mario out of the level, but they do not rotate.
• Fly Guy can be interacted with only once and stays in place, and does not disappear or produce coins after it is killed.
• The Bob-omb Buddy has no animation and will not rotate towards Mario. Talking to a Bob-omb Buddy will "soft freeze" the game (music still plays).
• If Mario gets his cap back from Ukkiki, coins that were supposed to spawn near Mario will, coins that spawn from the location of the enemy will, Goombas will finish their squishing animation and coins are yielded, and almost every entity will behave normally.

This glitch is not possible to perform in the American version because the game forces Mario to send the out the text of Ukkiki as soon as he has finished his diving/grabbing animation and is touching the ground. Bouncing off the ground is impossible because of the text box. It appears the text box mechanics were changed between versions. Also, it is not possible to drop Ukkiki in midair, as pressing the button now does absolutely nothing while Mario is airborne and holding Ukkiki (it may do something different in the European version).

Time-Freezing Cap Switch

This glitch works only in the Japanese version. When Mario has just stomped on a cap switch (any of the three will work) the game goes into a frozen state until the text box is closed. To make the text box not appear instantly apply the method from the glitch Delayed Dialogue at a Distance. Thus, if Mario does not activate the text box by standing on the ground, Mario can move around the level while it is frozen. The frozen level has many unusual properties, including the fact that stars do not disappear when collected. The glitch ends when the text box appears.

Hands Free Holding

There are three ways to do this glitch; the player must do the following:

• Dive into an object to grab it and land on a downward slope
• Hold an item and be pushed backwards off a ledge by a Bob-omb
• Hold an item and jump into a glitch wall (e.g. the sides of any ! Block).

While Mario is holding hands free, he cannot do the following:

• Walk
• Crouch
• Stand
• Wall Kick
• Grab onto ledges or poles
• Jump up steep slopes or recover while sliding
• Ride shells, owls or the wind
• Use cannons
• Head bonk
• Be knocked back, catch on fire, touch lava, get electrocuted, get squished, fall hard, get thrown, or get heaved.
• Get sucked into a tornado or get blown by a Fwoosh without instantly dropping the item.

Thus, Mario must move constantly. Turning is difficult and requires sliding (sitting) down slopes or rotating platforms. Mario can, however, punch, kick, use the triple jump, hang, and fly. He moves at the normal speed as he would if he is holding nothing. Returning the items to a normal grab requires diving, entering water, trying to pick up something else, or activating text or temporary game-interrupting animation (signs do not work).

Hands Free Teleport

The start of this glitch is simple: Mario must go through a warp while holding an object hands free. When he arrives at the other point the object will be missing from his hands. The object will now be:

• If it was a clone it will vanish from existence and will not affect the real object.
• If it was a crate it will never come back even after thirty seconds of inactivity.
• If it was a Chuckya it will come back through a loading point
• If it was a Penguin the big penguin will show a text box but will give no star for it.
• If it was an Ukkiki it will repeatedly ask to be freed no matter what option is chosen.
• If it was a Bob-omb smoke will start appearing from Mario when he approaches the location of where it was obtained. Diving or grabbing will put the Bob-omb back in Mario's hands, provided it has not been kicked yet. This suspended Bob-omb will destroy other Bob-bombs on contact and push Goombas around. Crates can be walked through, and if they can't, they can be picked up only for a moment. The Bob-omb can be kicked only once, before or after this glitch. If this glitch is performed with a bloated Bob-omb it will be identical except for the fact that Mario will receive constant backwards velocity unless it is kicked.

Heave-Ho glitches

There are multiple glitches involving Heave-Hos. They can all be done in Wet-Dry World, one of two courses with Heave-Hos.

On the water's surface

Usually Heave-Hos appear as soon as the water level gets lowered below the platform they're supposed to be and disappear when the water level gets raised above said platform. However, if Mario is near a Heave-Ho while the water level drops, the Heave-Ho sticks to the water's surface and sinks through the floor it should spawn on. By turning the camera around, the Heave-Ho can be seen driving around below the platform, unable to reach Mario.

Out of Bounds

First, the player needs to do the Portable Chuckya glitch to be able to bring the Chuckya down to the lowest area with a Ho-oh and a block that can be pushed into the wall. By throwing the Chuckya while standing in front of the block, the player can make Mario clip through the block, so that he can push it out. Then, the Heave-Ho needs to be lured into the space between the block and the hole the block was pushed out of. By pushing the block back, the player can push the Heave-Ho out of bounds. It will fall down to the death barrier, and then respawn at the water's surface, analog to the result of the glitch above.

Periodically disappearing Heave-Ho

If the player uses a cloned Crystal Tap to set the water level so that it is at the exact same level as one of the surfaces with a Heave-Ho, the water level will repeatedly rise above said surface due to its natural oscillation. This causes the Heave-Ho to repeatedly appear and disappear, depending on the current water level.

Getting heaved while holding a clone

This glitch is pretty similar to the Chuckya glitch. The player has to clone a Heave-Ho first which can be done using the level's loading zone. Then, while still holding the cloned Heave-Ho, he must be thrown by the original one. This causes the clone in Mario's Hands to fall down and move around as usual, but the Heave-Ho which was about to throw Mario, disappears, leaving him stuck in midair.

Infinite Coin Glitches

Using Glitches, it is possible to optain an infinite number of coins in some courses. However, the coin counter cannot go higher than 999 coins and when saving, the number of coins collected is saved modulo 256, so that a maximum of 255 coins can be saved.

Piranha Plant Coin Glitch

This glitch is possible in Tiny-Huge Island. Mario must head over to the area with the Piranha Flowers. Attack a Piranha Flower while it is shrinking at the last frame where it can be hit. The death jingle should be heard but a plant will spawn in its place. Attack it and get its two coins (notice it has no death animation). Quickly get in the Shrinker Pipe and back. Notice that the process can be repeated because the plant the coins were obtained from is back. (Note that if the player did not get in the pipe quick enough or did not kill the plant, the plant will not come back)

Money Bags Duplication

This glitch is possible in Snowman's Land. If Mario approaches a Money Bags just as it transforms back into a coin it will duplicate into two Money Bags, one that transforms into a coin and the other that hops away. This glitch can be repeated over and over, however if too many money Bags are on the screen, the game will freeze.

Cloning

By cloning coins or their Spawning Points in courses with loading zones it is possible to obtain an infinite amount of coins; in courses without loading zones, the amount of coins which can be collected by cloning is limited by the amount of available object slots.

Disappearing Crate

This can be performed in courses with crates and either Blocks or Blue Coin Blocks, namely Bob-omb Battlefield, Whomp Fortress and Shifting Sand Land. The player has to grab the crate and place it on top of the Block or Blue Coin Block. Then, he has to run away, until the Block or Switch becomes intangible and the crate falls through it and lands on the ground. Right before it despawns, the player has to run back to make the Block or Switch tangible again, causing the crate to break and release its three coins which can be collected. The crate will then respawn just as if it was not broken, allowing the player to repeat the glitch.

Impossible Coins

There are currently two coins known as impossible in the game, both are found on Tiny-Huge Island.

• The first one is located on the small island, below the slope in front of the Big Steely spawner. There's a line of three singleton coins, with the first coin being visible, the second coin being inside the ground but collectible by running over it, and the third coin being the impossible one, as it is located inside the slope. However, there is a way to collect it, which involves clipping into the mountain, where water can be found, and jumping out of the water at the right moment to reach the coin.
• The second one is located at the same spot, but on the big island. There's a line of four coins on the slope, which is spawned by one Spawning Point. However, coin lines always have exactly five coins, so one coin is missing there. This one coin spawns halfway inside the slope due to the spawner being placed a bit too low, causing a failsafe mechanism to activate, which immediately unloads the coin.

The reason for the two impossible coins is believed to be a change of the slope's angle in late development, without adjusting the coin's and coin spawner's positions.

Instant Movement Glitches

All of these glitches involve Mario being mysteriously and instantly moved to another location.

Instant Downward Teleport

Some of the actions Mario does have the potential to instantly teleport Mario to the nearest ground underneath Mario. Usually this happens because Mario is in an animation that does not allow him to become airborne, however some collision detections might send him to the nearest ground as a failsafe.

• Grabbing the tail of Bowser(If Bowser's tail is off the edge of the arena and Mario grabs it, Mario gets instantly teleported to the death layer).
• Being moved to a lower ground by an action that was not caused by Mario's movement, an enemy (most of them) or a slope (sliding, e.g.). Also if Mario is standing on the edge of a Tox Box and the Tox Box becomes upright, Mario instantly sinks in the sand. (Sometimes in mid-air).
• Swimming into a certain part of the ship of Jolly Roger Bay will instantly teleport Mario to the bottom. Similar glitches occur in the walls of the first section of Dire, Dire Docks
• In Tick Tock Clock, by jumping into a certain location to the right of a pendulum
• If Mario is being crushed while the platform he stands on moves out from under him.
• If Mario collects a star while the platform he stands on moves out from under him.

Instant Lateral Teleport

There are some actions that Mario can do or places Mario can be that will instantly teleport him some distance sideways. It is highly unusual behavior and the reason it happens appears to be that the physics engine of Mario 64 has several bugs that instantly affect the position of Mario. The known places where this happens are:

• In Snowman's Land, walking into the right side of the entrance of the igloo teleports him to the left.
• In Hazy Maze Cave, the by walking forward into the left side of the sign that tells Mario how to climb located at the emergency exit of the Toxic Cave. It almost looks like Mario is just clipping through the sign rather than getting teleported to the opposite side, but since this cannot be ascertained it is listed here.

Instant Upward Teleport

There are some actions that Mario can do that will instantly teleport him upward. Presumably this is because the wall/ground in question has a special priority flag that "snaps" Mario to the top of a predetermined layer. The most blatant example of this would be water. If Mario enters the X and Z perimeters of a water box at a lower height he gets teleported to the top of the water.

• In Bowser in the Fire Sea there is a way to grab at the top of the first pole from the base of it. It requires a Triple Jump that has its peak directly under the hexagonal prism that supports the pole.
• In Tiny-Huge Island there is a way to teleport up and grab on to the grating by diving back towards the exit from the inside of the mountain.
• In Whomp's Fortress, it can be done with the water box. Normally Mario can not enter the area where it is position from underneath because of invisible walls blocking it(the programmers were aware of it being possible). However, not all of the water box is blocked with invisible walls. The player should position Mario a the top left corner where the wall with the pool above it and the fence meet at the start of the course. Mario should then be positioned outward and downward (facing left and down). The player should then make Mario jump, move slightly to the left to get over the fence, push to the right and backwards while pressing the button to kick for decreased falling speed. Mario then will be teleported upward and pushed out of the water.

To the Bottom of the Town

In Wet-Dry World's small town, Mario needs go to the white structure and hit the Crystal Tap to adjust the water level. Then, he needs to go over where the arrow lifts are. An Amp is floating above the platforms. To do this glitch, Mario needs to jump near the enemy (trying to not have platforms under him) and do a Ground Pound. If the enemy comes and hits Mario while doing this, he will fall to the very bottom of the ocean and suddenly pop right back up to the top without hitting the button to swim up.

Killer Corner

Mario loses his cap, dies and Bowser's emblem covers the screen.

After collecting all 120 Power Stars, the player must take Mario to the roof of the castle (or use Climb The Castle without 120 Stars). For this to work, Mario has to walk to the far right side of the castle roof. When Mario reaches a corner, he will fall down slightly and grab onto a ledge. The player must pull themselves back up onto the roof, at which point Mario will lose a life. For unusual reasons, he also loses his cap. The reason this happens is the same reason as the Killer Slope glitch below.

Killer Slope

There are places in the game where Mario can do this trick, preferably using the Crate Clip to activate it. Here is an example: if a player grabs one of two crates in Bob-omb Battlefield, carries it up the bridge to the little hill below the hill with the red coin, faces towards the grass, standing on the edge of the hill (with the crate 3/4 above the grass and 1/4 on the hill) and presses the Crouch button, the crate will be slightly in the hill. If the player then does a ground pound between the crate and the Hill, Mario will die instantly, somehow losing his cap. This glitch can be done in many more locations not listed here. The reason this happens is that Mario has a special function that tracks the spot (X and Z coordinates)on the nearest ground directly below him. If the ground below Mario doesn't exist, it goes to the exception handler, which results in an automatic death. The reason this doesn't work over death pits is that death pits are "fake" bottomless pits. There a set layer that if Mario is lower than the height of it activates the death sequence, and below that layer is an invisible ground layer. That is why this glitch does not work in levels that are floating in mid-air.

Koopa Shell Glitch

This glitch can be done in Tiny-Huge Island. Go in the large island and head to the Koopa Troopa. Punch its shell off repeatedly in the direction away from the water. When the Koopa enters the water jump on the shell in a way so that Mario touches the shell and enters the water on the same frame. If it was done right the player will now have the shell roughly in the middle of Mario's position. Mario will receive constant forward velocity. Mario can still do all the moves he could if he wasn't on a shell. When Mario tries to walk the glitch ends, and all the things that break a normal shell will break this one, in addition to entering vertical wind, twirling, getting grabbed, entering a cannon, getting knocked back, and burning.

The glitch works differently with a shell clone. Mario will not receive forward velocity or have a shell visible, and the only difference is the music. The music will stop playing when does an action that would have broken the shell. When Mario has a shell, the shell clone is intangible. The shell clone can be reused. If Mario goes through a warp the music will stop playing but the shell will be forever intangible.

Lakitu Skip

Lakitu without his cloud after the process of the glitch.

At the beginning of the game, the player can do a Long Jump on the exact edge of the bridge. If he succeeds, the player won't need to talk to Lakitu, who will be standing in front of the castle's entrance door, without his cloud.

Lava Sidekick

The glitch in action.

If the player does a sidekick next to lava, he will bounce on lava without being hurt. This also applies to the sliding while sitting, so if the player slides over a slope, he can bounce on lava. This is because of animations. The game handles it so if Mario is in the middle of an animation, and an animation starts in the middle of the animation, the game does not play the second animation at all. If the "burned by lava" animation does not play, Mario will not get hurt.

Lose Cap Permanently

Occasionally, in Snowman's Land, if Mario gets blown off the icy bridge by the snowman at just the right angle, his cap will fall into the ice box with a star in it (from In the Deep Freeze). If Mario tries to grab his cap, he will instead grab the star. If the player saves the game at this point, then Mario will be permanently capless.

Manipulation of the HOLP

An example of HOLP manipulation. The Bob-omb was grabbed and thrown by Mario with the cap in his hand, so that it spawns at a pre-set HOLP, facing Mario's direction.

HOLP is an abbreviation for Held Object's Last Position. The HOLP is a location or set of coordinates that is modified when Mario grabs any object (except a Crazed Crate) and is constantly rewritten to the position of Mario's hands. The HOLP stops updating when Mario isn't holding anything. When a new object is picked up the HOLP works exactly the same with it as the previous object except it tracks the position of the new object. When an object is thrown it spawns at the HOLP. It faces the same direction Mario is facing and is given velocity towards that direction. If the object is dropped by Mario it spawns at the height of Mario's feet and at the lateral position of the HOLP. It also faces the direction of Mario, but it has no velocity. When Mario is holding his cap in his hand, however, the HOLP does not update. This means that objects can be manipulated to spawn where Mario last held an object without holding his cap in his hand. The default HOLP value is (0,0,0), which is a location near the center of the course. The HOLP is a global variable and is the same in all four save files, even if they are switched. The HOLP does not reset even when Mario switches courses or the player switches save files. The only way to reset the HOLP is if the player resets or turns off the system.

Mystery Goomba

The Mystery Goomba is a misplaced Goomba found in Bowser in the Sky. After climbing up the long Pole, Mario reaches a platform with a Goomba Spawning Point on it. Despite all Goomba spawning points spawning three Goombas, only two of them can be seen at this location. The reason for the missing Goomba is the spawner's placement, which causes the third Goomba to spawn off the platform, above a bottomless pit. Because Goombas always spawn at the closest possible floor, this Goomba does not spawn in the air next to the platform, it rather spawns all the way down on the death barrier, where it gets deactivated only one frame later due to Mario being too far away. It can only be seen for one frame, when Mario drops off the platform at the right moment. The Mystery Goomba cannot be defeated due to it being so far away from its spawning point - both the spawning point and the Goombas it spawns have their own activation radius, and Mario needs to be within both the Goomba's and the spawner's radius to activate the Goomba and be able to interact with it - because its own activation radius and the spawner's activation radius can never overlap.

Negative Lives

Mario with "M25" lives.

This glitch only works in the Japanese version.

While fighting Bowser in Bowser in the Dark World, the player should avoid his fire breath and keep picking up the coins that come from the flames. When Mario reaches a total of 1,000 coins in the level, his extra life total will change to "M25". In other versions of the game, when the player collects his 1000th coin, the coins total changes back to 999 coins. It is programmed incorrectly in the Japanese version as it tries to set the life total (instead of the coins total) to 999 when Mario has 1000 coins. Since the life counter is only 8 bits, this becomes -25, which is displayed as M25 in the game. (M is used in the place of a minus sign.). That is, the total will go down when Mario normally gains a life, and it will go up when he normally loses a life. In other versions of the game the player can't collect more than 999 coins as intended.

Parallel Universe

Each area in the game has a collision map, which consists of hitboxes for walls, floors and ceilings and is used to determine where Mario can go. However, in addition to the one collision map which is present on the area itself, an infinite number of copies of said collision map exist, spaced out in a three-dimensional grid. These copies of the collision map are called the Parallel Universes or PUs. The reason why these exist is a simple integer overflow, which happens when Mario's position coordinates, which are stored as floating point decimal numbers, are typecasted to 16-bit integers for collision calculations. As a signed 16-bit integer can only store 2¹⁶ values, ranging from -32768 to 32767, casting a higher or lower floating point decimal to said integer will result in an overflow to the other end of the range. And if exactly 2¹⁶, the number of possible values for the integer, is added to one of Mario's position coordinates, it doesn't affect the collision check at all due to overflowing to the exact same value modulo 2¹⁶.

When attempting to get into a Parallel Universe on console, the game usually freezes, unless the camera is put in fixed mode; on emulators, PUs can be reached without fixing the camera. As Mario has to pass over an out of bounds area to reach a Parallel Universe and the game splits up every frame of his movement into four parts, running collision checks for each of them, it is necessary that each of those quarter frame steps goes far enough to reach a PU. This means, Mario has to build up enough speed using Hyperspeed Glitches to travel a distance of 4 Parallel Universes, called Quadruple Parallel Universe or QPU distance - or a multiple of that - to successfully reach a Parallel Universe.

Parallel Universes themselves are invisible, as there are no graphics loaded. Also, most objects are not loaded in Parallel Universes; walls are missing and there is no water. The latter is especially important, as this is the reason why the Moat Door Skip works. However, some things like loading zones, namely paintings in the castle, or Crazed Crates, are still present there. Spawning a Power Star like a 100-coin star in a Parallel Universe softlocks the game.

Permanently Crushed

To do this glitch Mario must be holding a cloned 100 Coin Power Star with the hands free glitch. Mario must collect the star while he is crushed by an object. If Mario does this the glitch will take effect. When the player presses or it will do absolutely nothing. Lateral movement is decreased and vertical momentum created by jumping is decreased. Slow quicksand will never kill Mario. Other than that Mario behaves exactly the same.

Scuttle Bug Glitches

Scuttle Bug Raising

It is possible to raise a Scuttle Bug infinitely, even into vertical Parallel Universes. To do this, the Scuttle Bug first has to be placed in a specific way via Scuttle Bug Transportation - it needs to be in a room that can be unloaded by entering a door and reloaded just by going close enough to the door, while its own activation radius must also be accessible from outside. Then, after placing the Scuttle Bug, the player has to leave the room through the door to unload it and to deactivate the Scuttle Bug. In deactivated state, the Scuttle Bug is always facing towards its home location, but turns towards Mario and attempts to start an attack if he enters the activation radius even if the room it is in is currently unloaded. Leaving the activation radius causes the Scuttle Bug to deactivate and to turn towards its home location. By going close enough to the door or wall not only the Scuttle Bug will activate again, the room will also load - and the Scuttle Bug will now do the attack it attempted to start earlier and jumps towards Mario. Mario has to leave the activation radius of both the Scuttle Bug and the room at the right time, this causes the Scuttle Bug to deactivate in midair so that it doesn't finish the attack and doesn't fall down, it only turns around to face its home location again. By repeating those steps over and over, the Scuttle Bug can be raised up infinitely, and will eventually end up in a Parallel Universe.

Scuttle Bug Transportation

Like most enemies, each Scuttle Bug has a home location, patrols the area around this location within a certain activation radius and if Mario enters this radius, the Scuttle Bug will try to attack him. However, unlike most other enemies, the Scuttle Bug's home location can change location, because every time the Scuttle Bug hits Mario, its home location gets updated to the location where it was when the collision happened. By strategically luring the Scuttle Bug away from his home location and allowing it to hurt Mario, it can effectively be transported through the course, but if it tries to leave its native room, it will get stuck in the door.

Spawning Displacement

This glitch only exists in the Japanese version of the game. When Mario stands on a moving platform like the arrow platform in Bowser in the Sky or the rotating platform in Wet Dry World, and leaves the area by dying, collecting a star or using the exit course option in the pause menu, the platform's movement applies to Mario for one frame after he appears in the castle. This causes Mario to not spawn at the intended point, but a bit next to it, dependent on the movement of the platform he was standing on before exiting the course.

Suicidal Bowser

In any Bowser battle, most easily on Bowser in the Dark World, Mario needs to explode a bomb, so it won't interfere with the glitch. Later, he must throw Bowser near the edge of the platform but make sure Bowser doesn't fall off it. Then, Mario must stand near the edge too but staying far away from Bowser. If done correctly, Bowser will jump but will eventually fall from the platform. As Bowser's fall wasn't caused by Mario, Bowser won't jump back to the platform, and Mario will stay there until he quits the level or jumps off of the platform.

Suicidal Goomba

In Tall, Tall Mountain there is a group of three Goombas near the start. The one closest to the water often gets stuck on an invisible water current or a wall point in the water by walking towards it. (The existence of this can be proven by Mario trying to swim around in the same spot. Mario's physics will act funny.) This Goomba can be lured off the edge by Mario placing himself in the water in front of the spot where the Goomba usually gets stuck. When the Goomba is in the water it will not die; when the Goomba touches the ground in the water it will die. There are also a few spots in the game where Goombas will naturally walk off the edge, and a Goomba can also push another Goomba off the edge into a death pit.

Victory Dance on a Fence

When a Power Star is collected near a fence during a jump, like the first and third Toad stars or the star inside the Ancient Pyramid in Shifting Sand Land, he will perform the victory dance on the fence.

Water Level Manipulation

When Mario leaves a loading point area with water the median water level will be set to the current level of the water when it is loaded. Water naturally fluctuates slightly in its level. This means that through repeated timed movement across a loading point Mario can manipulate the water level slightly. While getting significant results from this glitch is very tedious, it is still within the bounds of the game and this can be used to drain or flood Dire, Dire Docks or Wet-Dry World. If used to raise the water level in Dire, Dire Docks way beyond the intended maximum height, the water will periodically disappear for a few frames.

Yoshi Falls off the Roof

There is a glitch that will make Yoshi fall off the roof. There are four spots on the roof where Yoshi can be. Yoshi will randomly walk to the other three points. The points are located: near the wing cap, near the back corner, near the front corner, and in the middle. If Yoshi walks from the wing to the back corner and back there is a chance that Yoshi will step on the slanted part of the roof. When Yoshi walks on the slanted part his movement will be pushed slightly off center. Yoshi will pass the point where he would stop and will keep walking forward off the roof. Yoshi will walk off the roof and reappear on the roof when Mario is away from where Yoshi reappears. If Mario talks to Yoshi just as he is falling off the roof in midair Mario will receive 100 lives and Yoshi will fall to the ground. When the jumping into waterfall animation tries to play Yoshi will get stuck walking towards that direction and the game will be in a soft freeze state. It also freezes when Mario talks to Yoshi on a slanted surface.

Sequence break

Blast Away the Wall cannonless

If Mario touches an exact spot on the wall which can be blasted away by using the cannon, he will do a get-up animation for one frame and collect the star inside it. While it is possible to do this just by running off the log bridge which leads to said wall without further preparation, the player can set up an ideal position for Mario, so that getting the star is almost guaranteed. To do this, he first needs to pass over the log bridge and hang onto the wall right next to it. After getting back up, he must do a backflip onto the bridge, turn the camera left twice and punch once. Then, the player has to hold the stick down, so that Mario walks to the bridge's ledge and grabs it. After resetting the camera by turning it right, then left, the player has to push the stick up to make Mario get up from the ledge grab, and immediately down, so that Mario runs an arc, drops off the bridge and hits the wall on the right spot to collect the star.

Climb Slippery Slopes

The glitch in action

This will not work on all slippery slopes. Once in front of a slippery slope (Mario should be facing it), the player must tap continuously. If carried out correctly, Mario will climb the slope. The player can also tap and , making Mario climb in the commanded directions. This can also be accomplished in the remake (but does not work on most slopes) simply by holding in the given direction without holding down . This works on many slopes including the one in the image to the left (Only in the N64 version, due to this slope having been changed into a wall in the remake), and the white slope in Bob-omb Battlefield.

Climb Slippery Slopes 2

The glitch in action

Another faster way that works on most Slippery Slopes. Once in front of a slippery slope, The player will need to press to jump, but not letting go of it. The player must press and hold in the slippery slope direction and repeatedly tap the . If done correctly the player will walk on the slop, repeatedly jump and kick until he reach the top. This works on many slopes including the slope next to the basement door, the slope of Toxic Maze in Hazy Maze Cave, Bowser's steep slopes (which are turned into staircase once the player steps on Purple Switch) and the white slope in Bob-omb Battlefield.

Climb Slippery Slopes 3

To climb all short slippery slopes. Once in front of a slippery slope, The player will need to run and Triple Jump the slope (The first jump should be on the ground, the second and third jumps should be on the slope). If done correctly, the player will be able to climb the slippery slope.

Climb The Castle without 120 Stars

The glitch in action

From the right side of the castle, the player should do the Climb Slippery Slopes 3 glitch and aim his second jump a little to the left. If done correctly, Mario will slide while sitting, the player now must quickly jump and grab the ledge of the castle roof.

Moat Door Skip

It is possible to go through the door inside the castle's moat while it is still flooded. To do this, it is required to use TAS due to the complicated movement. It is easier with 10 stars or more, but can also be done with less stars.

If the player has 10 stars or more, he can enter Vanish Cap Under the Moat by Hyperspeed Flying using the Wing Cap found atop the castle. With less stars however, Backwards Long Jumps starting from near the pond are needed to enter the level as the Wing Cap is not available until 10 stars are collected. In the level, the Player has to go to the wooden elevators at the end and use one of them to build up hyperspeed by doing Backwards Long Jumps. Then, he has to drop off the elevator into the abyss. Because Mario reappears in the moat's water and does not lose a life, he conserves the built-up speed. The player has to swim the moat along until he reaches the slope on the other side of the castle. From there, he has to use the conserved speed to do Parallel Universe movement to maneuver Mario to the door.

Complete the game with 0 stars

To perform this glitch, the player must select a new game, enter the castle and go to the stairs leading to the basement. There, one needs to enter the Black Room of Death and do Backwards Long Jumps (BLJ) to build up speed. Once Mario has enough speed, he snaps through the castle's entrance door into another Black Room of Death. By turning the camera around, the player can guide Mario back into the castle's main hall, up the stairs and through the 8 star door into Bowser in the Dark World. After defeating Bowser and receiving the first key, the player must head to the basement.

It is also possible to do the Moat Door Skip, which allows Mario to enter the basement without beating the first Bowser, but due to requiring extremely precise movement it is currently only possible with tool assistment (TAS).

Regardless of how the player managed to enter the basement, he has to perform the Backwards Long Jump sideways on the small set of stairs in the room with the 30 star door and build up enough speed to clip through said door and skip Dire, Dire Docks. After the second Bowser has been beaten, the player has to enter Dire, Dire Docks and leave the level via the pause menu to warp to the main hall, as it is not possible to go through the still locked 30 star door from this side. Then,the player has to use the key to get upstairs where Backwards Long Jumps can be used to pass through the 50 star door and to reach the end of the endless stairs where the entrance to the final level is.

Mario Through the Jet Stream without Metal Cap

Mario must be in either Jolly Roger Bay or Dire, Dire Docks. He must dive to where a jet stream is. Next, the player must press , and just as Mario stops his pose the player must do it again. He or she must repeatedly do so, and, although it is hard to do, if done correctly Mario will be inside the jet stream. This can be used to collect the "Through the Jet Stream" stars without the Metal Cap.

MIPS Glitch

Mario inside the door after a successful clip and grabbing MIPS

When Mario lets go of MIPS, he goes forward a bit. For some odd reason, MIPS stays around after the player grabs him and gets his star. Mario can then grab him like a normal object. If Mario walks toward the right side of the a door (one of the two spots where the door and the wall touch) while holding MIPS (angled so that MIPS goes a little bit into the wall), and lets go, then Mario will be stuck in the middle of the door (this glitch only works sometimes). If Mario turns around (by crawling) and faces towards MIPS, grabs MIPS, still in the door, then turns towards the other side of the door and lets go of MIPS, then MIPS will be on the other side of the door. If Mario does this to the main door in the water filled room that leads to the star door room, and repeats it with the star door (with less than 30 stars), Mario will be able to get to Dire, Dire Docks or Bowser in the Fire Sea with less than 30 stars. Mario can also do this glitch to get to two different Black Rooms of Death.

Pillarless Through the Top of the Pyramid

Using a bloated Bob-omb, it is possible to enter the pyramid in Shifting Sand Land through the top without getting onto the top of the four pillars first. To do this, the player has to do the bloated Bob-omb glitch with the Bob-omb near the start and try to grab it at its largest possible size before exploding to gain maximum backwards momentum. While holding the big Bob-omb, the player needs to go up the slope and slide back down to get the right angle for the way up to the pyramid's top. Then, he has to pass over the quicksand by using the backwards momentum provided by the Bob-omb and two Ground Pounds; the first one should hit the small area with the 1-Up Mushroom and the second one near the fence. A double jump is needed to pass over the fence and to get onto the pyramid, from where the player has to press A rapidly to climp it up while still holding the Bob-omb, until he is at the right height, which is approximately next to the star. There, he has to do a Ground Pound to clip into the Pyramid's top and into the loading zone to enter the elevator inside the pyramid.

Shortcuts to the cavern

There are multiple ways to reach the cavern with Dorrie in Hazy Maze Cave without having to use the long elevator located after the rolling rocks area.

Elevator Clip

The player has to enter the room with the black hole, the bottomless pit in which the rolling rocks fall, turn right and go through the door to get to the elevator which leads to the red coins area. After triggering the elevator by stepping onto it, the player has to jump off of it and hit the wall to prevent fall damage. As soon as he lands, he has to position Mario directly in front of the wall the elevator is connected to, and walk to the right side while Mario is hugging said wall. When the elevator comes down, it will push Mario through the floor, so that he falls right onto the island in the center of the sea.

Triple Jump off the Top

To use this shortcut, the player has to get onto the platform over the black hole, where a yellow [[! Block] can be found. There, he has to perform a Triple Jump, so that the final jump starts from the ! Block. This gives Mario enough height to pass over the room's wall into the area with the sea. Ideally, Mario lands onto the island in the center of the sea.

Wallkick in the Elevator Room

Like for the first shortcut, the player has to head to the room with the elevator leading to the red coins area. There, he has to perform a Side Somersault or a Triple Jump followed by a Wall Kick to pass over this room's walls into the area with the sea. This shortcut is best used to press the Purple Switch without the Metal Cap, as Mario falls from a great height, so that he dives a bit deeper into the water upon impact than usual.