Wing Cap

The Wing Cap is an item found in Super Mario 64. When wearing a Wing Cap, Mario becomes Wing Mario and has the ability to fly. Mario can perform a Triple Jump or be shot from a cannon and begin flying. To obtain the item, Mario must find a red ! Block and hit it. A Wing Cap will then pop out of the ! Block.

The Wing Cap itself was omitted from Super Mario 64 DS, which replaced it with the Feather. Only Mario could use this Feather, which gave him identical abilities (and even the same hat) to those seen in Super Mario 64; if another character struck a box containing a Feather, they would simply earn a Power Flower. However, a lone, traditional-style Wing Cap could be found in one of the game's multiplayer stages; if Yoshi (who, along with other members of his kind, was the only playable character in multiplayer mode) put on a Wario or Luigi cap, he could use this Wing Cap (although he could not by default), again differing it from the Feather. It is possible that this one Wing Cap and its strange mechanics were added simply to make the concept of characters flying in multiplayer mode more fair for the mode in question; however, it may have also been a sort of remnant of beta programming stages where all (or at least most) characters could fly with the Wing Cap. (Indeed, an early promotional video of Super Mario 64 DS, then called Super Mario 64x4, did depict all four characters under the effects of an unseen Wing Cap, possibly the aforementioned Feather.)

Trivia

 * The Wing Cap was Mario's trademark Power-Up in Super Mario 64, being shown of the game's box art and a majority of its merchandise.
 * It is of some interest to note that when Mario obtains a Wing Cap, the music that begins to play is the same tune as the music that plays when Mario acquires a Starman in the original Super Mario Bros., but with an added melody. A version of this same melody appeared in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, when Baby Mario got a Star.
 * The Red Star from Super Mario Galaxy can be seen as the successor to the Wing Cap as it also allows Mario to fly.