How did Nintendo miss this glaring mistake in Super Mario 2 for so long?

Even the best game developers can make mistakes, and some gamers love picking up on them almost as if they were intentional Easter Eggs waiting to be discovered. In the past, we've seen the mistake in the Nintendo 64 logo and the 'hidden sound effect' in Super Mario 64.

Some errors are due to game design oversights or compromises that had to be made in development, but developers can also fall victim to more humble everyday blunders that writers like myself are all to too familiar with: a lack of proofreading.

One fan has gone all the way back to 1988's Super Mario 2 and uncovered a mistranslation and a strange mix up in the credits. And they that somehow persisted through multiple versions of the game.

Super Mario 2 Got This Totally Wrong ❌ - YouTube

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As demonstrated by Nintendo aficionado and documentary maker Gruz in the YouTube short above, Nintendo mixed up the names of Birdo and Ostro in the original Super Mario 2 credits. Ostro the ostrich is labelled as Birdo and Birdo as Ostro. The same mistake was made in the original manual for the game.

The later Japanese version Super Mario USA had the same mistake. And Clawgrip was named Clawglip.

These might seem like minor mistakes, but Nintendo missed them multiple times. The same errors were still there after Nintendo reworked the game in Super Mario All Stars for the SNES five years later in 1993. They were finally corrected for the Game Boy Advance version.

Super Mario 2 was a curious game due to its origins as a reskinned Doki Doki Panic for the Western market, but it was a big hit and is fondly remembered by many of us. These little mistakes hardly detract from the fun of the innovative gameplay and characters, but it just shows that game developers should proof every detail, particularly when releasing in markets with different languages.

That might be something that developers should bear in mind today more than ever now that some are leaving so many tasks to AI.

The big Mario news at the moment is the release of Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 for Nintendo Switch and the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy Movie. See our guide to Switch 2 prices or check the deals below if you still need a console.