
Sega and Nintendo are best buddies these days, but it wasn't always that way. Once upon a time, the two companies were battling for domination of the living room via their respective range of home systems, and their mascots – Mario and Sonic – were bitter enemies that wouldn't be seen dead in the same game (how things have changed, eh?).
Given the rivalry that existed at one point, it's only natural that the developers of these two companies might find ways of secretly poking fun at one another, and one such example is hidden away in the files of the rather average (but very attractive) Sega Saturn 2D platformer Astal, released in 1995.
As you can see from the image below, someone on the development team went to the trouble of creating a rather sinister-looking Mario, and hid him away in the data files.
The description reads:
"Astal" that was released in Saturn. It is discovered that an image that seems to be Mario was hidden in 0xFE90 of APT.BIN on the disk.
A short while back, we reported that Mario was also to be found in the original Sonic the Hedgehog – but we still think that might be coincidence more than anything else.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 19
It’s-a me.. Mario.. 😡
This game was a classic! I remember being blown away by the graphics for years and years!!
I loved Astal! What a wonderful platformer!
Angry? He looks sad to me.
@CactusMan Man I tried that. I kind of want to hack a save file for time played (Suikoden 2), searched high and low for good tutorials but it was still gibberish to me.
I saw an image of Astal on this site and briefly got my hopes up for more Saturn games coming to modern platforms, or at least a revival of SEGA AGES.... But instead I get this incredibly peculiar trivia.
Lol it's really weird that there's a strange Mario hiding inside Astal huh.
A very mediocre game with an otherwise fantastic art/sprite work. That's a curious finding...
Ha nice! This game had a great soundtrack. Anyone curious should look up Astal Sea of Clouds and listen to it
That's the artwork that inspired the Mario Strikers' Mario
Kinda looks like a shorter version of the live action movie Mario
i have 3 or 4 saturn games still and this is one of them. As noted, the graphics are incredible (if it came out today on switch unchanged, people would still say it looks amazing,) and It's been a while but I remember it being pretty fun to play, too!
Side note, this was the only Saturn game to not have its logo or name on the spine of the case for some reason! in fact, thats why i even noticed it way back in the day (when used game stores had shelves full of "budget" saturn games LOL.)
@CactusMan Thanks for the info.
However, thing is, this hack is pretty well documented, since it involves a really cool but almost impossible timed sidequest, but I suspect that original ps1 save files are different to ones generated by the ps3 when playing the games on ps3.
Spent all night trying to figure it out. Guess I just have to admit defeat.
Not like the Alex Kidd in Shinobi World Mari-Ou/Ken Ou boss, they weren't disguising this one as an OC in the final product.
He's angry/sad/angsty that he didn't get a chance to see Sonic properly on the SEGA Saturn.
I dunno, he looks really scared and upset to me. Like either there's a monster hunting him or he just got kicked out of the house for not paying his half of the rent.
Not new news. I remember TCRF having this as one of their fun fact thingies...
Sega needs to release a new Astal game for modern consoles. Astral, Alisia Dragoon, Ristar, Vectorman, Burning Ranger, Chakan, Dynamite Headdy, Dynamite Cop, Billy Hatcher, Skies of Arcadia, After Burner, Eternal Champions, Eswat, Madworld, and Dragon Force all needs to return either as remake, remastered, or a brand new sequel/prequel/midquel.
"Psst. Hey you. Its a me. Mario. Wanna buy a Rolex?"
*lights a ciggie
@chewytapeworm or this.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...