Summary
Not only isSuper Mario 64almost 30 years old, but it’s one of the most popular games ever made. You’d think those two things combined would mean we have seen and heard everything the game has to offer. However, unless you left the game playing in a specific spot on a specific level for 14 months, you won’t have heard this particular sound effect in full before.
Kaze Emanuar’s YouTube channelis dedicated to modding and hacking Super Mario 64, making new discoveries about the game after all this time. One of their latest discoveries is the ability to hear a full sound effect from Dire, Dire Docks, potentially for the first time as in standard gameplay, the sound effect repeats before it’s finished, meaning it never plays in full.
Well, it does, but not until you’ve left Mario floating there for over a year waiting for the right moment, giving a whole new meaning to the term water torture. Thanks to their hacking abilities, Kaze didn’t need to leave theirN64running for 14 months to hear the sound effect, and thanks to them sharing the footage in the video below, neither do you.
Sushi Falls Silent If You Let Him Swim Long Enough
Go Hang Around In Dire, Dire Docks For 14 Months And See For Yourself
The sound effect is the one made by the shark - or the Sushi, as it’s called in the Mushroom Kingdom - as it swims by. Due to the overlapping nature of the 16-frame sound effect, the swishy water sound the Sushi makes is one long, never-ending sound effect. That’s unless, as Kaze demonstrates, you wait there for 14 months, after which point Sushi keeps swimming, but its sound effect falls silent.
That means the final 16 frames of Sushi’s sound effect are only ever played once, and it’s once that 14-month loop comes to an end. If you plan on trying to hear it yourself, keep a note of how much time has passed. Imagine waiting all that time and then popping to the bathroom the moment it plays. Nightmare.
Kaze’s most recent Super Mario 64 discoveries are a result of computers struggling to grasp the concept of infinity. Sushi’s sound effect can’t keep playing on a loop forever because an N64 can’t comprehend forever, hence it getting capped at 14 months. It’s a similar situation tothe star select screen softlock scenarioalso included in Kaze’s video.
There’s a 12-frame period when you reach the screen that stops you from selecting a star. If left long enough, that frame counter will overflow and force you to wait more than two years before you’re able to pick your star. It does require you to stay on that screen for two years first, though, so like the Sushi sound effect, almost certainly not a Super Mario 64 quirk anyone would have ever stumbled across accidentally.
