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The background cacti seen here were created specifically for fangame Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii, released in 2013. [credit: Newer Team ]
A piece of scenery at Japan’s newly opened Super Nintendo World theme park area appears to draw direct inspiration from an original piece of art created for a fangame.
Twitter user meatball123 was among the first to notice the uncanny similarity after seeing a cactus decoration in the background of a video for the park’s Yoshi’s Adventure ride. The specific three-pronged design of the cactus in that video doesn’t look like anything seen in an official Mario game, but it does match almost precisely the background cacti found in World 2 of Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii, a fan-made mod released in 2013.
Meatball123 also notes that, as of last weekend, the three-pronged cactus sprite appeared prominently when a search for “New Super Mario Bros. Wii cactus” was performed on Google Images, which could explain how the mixup happened. Representatives for Nintendo and Universal Japan have yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.
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