Talk:Whoa Zone
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Bizzare Whoa Zone discovery[edit]
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This is about another weird discovery I made while revisiting this game some time ago. Apparently, Mario's animations play differently when walking on the walls in 3D in this stage.
Normally, Mario has two different sets of graphics which display depending on which way he is facing, as explained in the gallery below.
This graphic is what usually displays when Mario is facing towards the screen in 3D, as well as most nearly all situations when in 2D. For simplicity, it will be referred to as the "frontsprite"
This graphic is what usually displays when Mario is facing away from the screen in 3D. For simplicity, it will be referred to as the "backsprite."
Due to a coding oversight regarding the sections of the Whoa Zone where the gravity has shifted to allow the player to walk on the walls, if the player stands in certain areas of the map in 3D as Mario, the game will erroneously display see the wrong side of his "frontsprite". A mockup of this error of this is pictured in the gallery below*:
Mario's front sprite.
The erroneous state showing the back of the "frontsprite" model, which is not the same as the "backsprite" depicted in the above gallery.
*Due to technical limitations, this example uses Mario's PMTTYD model, rather than his actual SPM sprites. but since both games use the same methods for assembling and animating their character models, my point still stands.
For further clarity, Mario's "backsprites" do not appear to display at all when Mario is on the walls, although they do function as intended when he is on the floor or ceiling. This oversight is very easily missed, because:
- There is usually very little reason to enter 3D while on the walls. As far as I can remember, no puzzles in this chapter requires the player to flip into 3D when gravity has shifted in this direction, it only ever requires it when the player is on the floors or the ceiling.
- The presence of two other characters to play as (and eventually three.) who do not have the ability to flip between dimensions.
- The Flip Meter, which largely discourages the player from idling in 3D for too long.
- The narrow angle of Mario when viewed from this angle. This is "Paper" Mario, after all. You do have to be paying active attention to Mario's appearance to notice this.
I would have added this oddity to the Notes section, but I'm not quite sure it truly belongs there. However, I'm also unsure about whether it belongs on the List of Super Paper Mario glitches page either, seeing as it is more of an oversight than a glitch. Any thoughts about where to document this information? Wandering Poplin (talk) 19:34, August 6, 2026 (UTC)
