How Super Mario 64’s 121st Star Fooled Me 

I'm gonna provide a summary for those who don't want to watch. I didn't use a script for the video so it ended up being a bit more longer than I wanted. Essentially this is what happened: I noticed these "objects" (the star, 3 star door, cannon, penguin, etc) a while back while examining slide levels, wrote them down, and revisited them when making my Vanishing Penguin video. When checking them out again I realized something didn't line up on the cutting room floor. The object I was looking at in my editor (Toad's Tool) was the same ID as a star. Since these objects had been on the cutting room floor website for 8 years, I thought someone would have removed them if they were fake. I reached out to Kaze subjectively, which only furthered the illusion, because I simply asked him about model and behavior data to see if things lined up. And they did, but only because I didn't know Toad's Tool was glitched. Perhaps he didn't either, but then again I didn't specify it was Toad's Tool, so the message was subjective to begin with. Got a response that mirrored my own and then started messing around with the object and writing the video. The problem is Toad's Tool 64 is an old editor. I had it on my computer forever and typically just used it to reference things in the game. It's outdated, and requires you to run the game through a process in order to look at it. This process causes issues like collision misalignments in the game - ie, the racing penguin can fall off the track, you can clip through Bowser's 8 star door, etc. I wasn't aware that this level in particular (the slide area within) has another glitch associated with it. Apparently Toad's Tool doesn't know when to stop reading object data for the game (data used to identify coin placement, enemies, etc - basically any "object"). So the tool reads past the container that references the objects and begins to create dummy objects out of other code that comes next in line. It references this code (like the penguin's pathfinding down the slide), and that data filled in fake object slots within Toad's Tool. By opening up and messing with them, they became real - even though they aren't real. So the foundation on which all of this was based on caused these objects to appear real when in reality they weren't within Super Mario 64. So my apologies for the huge mixup on all of this. Also, the 3rd ship in Jolly Roger Bay DOES exist. Just received further news on that and apparently it does show up and is not a Toad's Tool mistake.

Admitting when you were wrong shows strength of character.

Star: “You Fool, I have over 121 Alternative Accounts!”

SwankyBox: *Finds the 121st star* SwankyBox after 1 week: *"Weve been tricked. Weve been backstabbed and weve been quite possibly bamboozled"*

"did... did we just lose?"

“Toad’s Tool.” It didn’t take me long to get it. It took me too long to get it.

Props for being direct and correcting your mistakes, my dude

You know, I would be interested in a sort of recap series where you kinda rapid fire check some old videos to check if they're correct

Next video: "How being fooled by the 121st star fooled me"

Maybe the 121 Star it's actually real, it was the friends we made along the way

SwankyBox: Calls every other 121 star video fake Also SwankyBox: Proceeds to accidentally make fake 121 star video

1:16 I wouldn't mind being here a long time. I love listening to your logic and your findings. I'd listen to an hour long one if you had one.

I used to play with Toad’s Tool all the time. It’s crazy that we’ve gone from having one level editor in 2010 to a complete disassembly of the ROM in 2020.

Toad’s tool Toad stool Toadstool GODDAMMIT

"Have you seen the 121st Star?" "No I think it's outside" "YOU FOOL"

This is a great example how everything in a game, be it textures, collision data, nav data, game objects, ai, text, sounds and even the games execution code just boil down to being raw binary data, which is only given specific meaning by the game code interpreting this data in different ways.

We've been tricked, we've been backstabbed, and we've been quite possibly, bamboozled. That's not a Power Star at all, that's just an Invincibility Star

"Spreading misinformation online is definitely not my intention, it has never been and never will be." *Glances over to the Mario Galaxy 2 video with the "Impossible 1-ups" that Chuggaaconroy got to effortlessly.*

Well swanky it's because your copy is personalized

2:22 Interesting how the second post even suggests to check if it's real and not a bug, I wonder what happened since it still ended up on the wiki

Be like Swanky. Admitting fault, when he didn't even have to.

Fans: So does the 121 Star exits? Swanky: Well yes but acually no

The Star: *fools us* Us: "How could we let this happen, we're smarter than this!"

Star 121: "I think you missed one detail..." Swanky: "Hm, not likely. You're caught, bro." Star 121: "I'm not even here." Swakny: "What...?" **new editor appears** "WHAT!?" Star 121: "I was never there, you've been seeing fake data this entire time!" (yes this is based on CalebCity in case anyone accuses me of plagiarism)

121 stars was that star that was just pulled out of toy box, and just got lost in Mario 64 and since it isn't a real star, that's how this happened. Either way, don't sweat it Swanky, you're fine.

SwankyBox a week ago: "We've found the 121st Star." SwankyBox now: "They played us like a damn fiddle!"

For a millisecond I thought I was watching blameitonjorge

Swankybox: Star 121 exists! Star 121: *laughing like eggman* You fool!

Here's my summary: He used an older level editor that, due to a commonly enabled option, read past the end of the level data, and saved the results in his emulator. The star was only there because he opened the level in that particular level editor. It is not there on a vanilla cart. Also, when he checked to confirm it, the same mistake had been on Mariowiki for 8 years. Plus he didn't aksk the right questions when he discussed it with a speed runner.

Oh, thank goodness. I'm at 118 right now and the concept of a 121st star has terrified me for months. Just two pain stakingly difficult stars to go!

Swanky: “We found the 121st star!!” Swanky 5 minutes later: “Yeah... about that.”

Honestly, seeing the title, I didn’t know what to expect. I started watching, and I genuinely smiled. I’m glad there are people out there that are willing to recognize their mistakes and point them out and apologize for them. It wasn’t your fault that the tool interpreted the data that way, though. I find this wholesome in a funny way. If I’m honest, you could’ve said that you intentionally faked the star, and I’d still stay subbed. Why? Because I think you’re awesome! You analyze things to the very bottom line, and I like that about you. 💖

Congratulations, you played yourself.

Rip star guy :(

1:35 big up man. I despise when people don't give credit.

When you admit your own mistake: congrats, your now griffpatch

"I don't want to cause misinformation. Click my video with '121st Star' in the title. The star fooled me."

8:00 So, about those three 1-Ups from Super Mario Galaxy 2...

I don't blame you but I would put in the title of the old video a [DEBUNKED] so people are not click baited in to false information

star: hi sb: OMG ur real? star: well yes, but actually no.

Mad respect for swanky. admitting his mistake

the way it seems everybody got fooled by this star so in my eyes no harm done respect for coming forth and apologizing for accidentally giving out incorrect information many people would've just moved on

@SwankyBox even your apology videos are intriguing and entertaining to me to watch, i don't know why but i think is because of how profound your way of expressions and explanations are that really captivates my full attention. I'm a big fan of you, thank you for your hard work and efforts, you are awesome!

Mario 64 has so many great mysteries!

No one: Star 121: In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve fallen right into my trap

Swanky: "I'm gonna do what's called an oof gamer move."

Super awesome explanation. Watching this video immediately makes me think you're a great RU-vidr. I always love to see humble corrections like this because it let's us know you really care about the quality of your content (which was already pretty obvious, but still). As always, looking forward to the next video!

You are so honest about all of this. I love that even through all of your efforts to make a video, you aren't ashamed to admit a mistake and talk about what happened. This was an SM64 research video in itself to me, so thank you for the amazing content as always ❤

Mad respect for owning up to this Swanky. I'm even more encouraged to continue watching your videos for your refreshing, blatant honesty =)

Why hello there old sport!

Swanky’s voice sounds much more natural in this video. Not to say he usually sounds bad, but it’s refreshing to hear him speak with a more frank tone.

I really appreciate the integrity and dedication it takes to openly admit your mistakes and explain/correct them in the full format of your usual content. Keep doing what you do, Swanky. ^^

Thank you for being an actually good content creator who acknowledges his mistakes.

Great to see your integrity at work here. As a man of science myself, this is what we strive for. Complete honesty and correction if errors are found. My best to you, sir!

At least he didn't start the apology by adjusting the camera

You know, I legitimately love that you put it out and then explained it... as much as it would have been cool to find an extra one? I think it’s WAY cooler you found out, fixed it, and made sure to make great documented info for modding community. 👍

The Star: *"You fell for it fool! Thunder Cross Fake Star!"*

Subjective definition: "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions." Ambiguous definition: "open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning." There you go.

It happens to the best of us sometimes! Thank you for coming out and clarifying what happened and that you had been working with the wrong data to begin with. That's a real sign of maturity and being a good person.

I respect your diligence and candor. A lot of people don't have that, or would just have left additional info hidden away in a comment on the video, instead of putting said info in a consecutive video. :D

I really respect that your owning up to your mistakes, makes me feel like you genuinely care for the community and not doing things for publicity sake.

But what if that star that you found in Cool Cool Mountain was just the star "In the talons of the flying bird" from Shifting Sand Land glitched somehow in Cool Cool Mountain? I'm saying this because this star has almost all properties as the star from Shifting Sand Land: both stars rotate diagonally, both stars are always yellow and both stars has no colision! What if the star glitched somehow in the slide?

Thanks for letting us know 😊 I enjoy your videos a lot, looking forward to the next one.

Always appreciate someone willing to come back and correct themselves when they have more information!

You're a "scientist". You discovered something, tested it, proved it was real with the data/instruments you had at your disposal, and make a claim. It's the scientific process after all. Now knowing your initial discovery tools were creating dummy data, you can now be more careful and include more rigorous testing before issuing a claim. It might take you longer to produce videos, but it will increase your success rate. No need to apologise. You are now better for it.

The game has a 1:1 reverse engineered code set, why not just look at that

Dude, you are awesome for even being able to catch this mistake, let alone figure out why it was happening via programming details and explain them to us. Most of us wouldn't have thought twice about all of this. Thanks for once again providing us with more game and code knowledge!

I can confirm that the ship from JRB is actually there, because when you look there in the editor Quad64, it's visible, but all of the objects from Toad's Tool in the slide level aren't.

Good on you for admitting your mistakes. You did everything right by fact checking with others and looking for sources to see if there was any info that could verify what you found and make sure it was accurate.

If he really cared, he would delete the star video, but he hasn't.

Takes a big man to admit when they’re wrong. Well done. And thanks for all the info. This plus the last video are the only ones of yours I have seen so far but now knowing what kind of a person you are I will be definitely checking out more of your content.

Hmm that actually really interesting, I had no clue that could actually happen. I would be super interested if you go more into this type of topic. Like for example going back and checking the floating ship and such. But it would also be interesting in colvonating all the interesting information such as this and analyzing it. idk food for thought, either way thanks a bunch for the interesting update. I appreciate you going through the hassle to do so instead of just taking it on the cheek and moving on

Welp, you've cleared up misinfo on the internet, and I now understand why cutting room floor has removed the entire section. So you have done us all a service. Still, LOL

"I do not want to put false information out there" But you still have the first video up.

Love this! I used to think you weren't the type of RU-vidr to really care about giving us accurate information (enough to, yknow, put out a video like this). Pleasant surprise! :)

awesome video! its rare to ppl to recognize their own errors, im glad you did let us know about it, continue with the awesome content!

Swanky sounds so depressed in the intro

Why not deleting the old false video tho

My god that last video was a week ago? Time flies; it only felt like 7 days!

I will definitely continue to watch your videos. Always great content.

Almost 10 minutes required for a simple ‘the level editor read too far into extra data and ended up creating data that should never have been there’. Could have been a 5-ish minute video.

Hey. Kudos dude for owning up to this

Woah! Great video man! We can learn a lot from it and from you! Thanks for the always amazing content.

Thank you for being honest and setting things straight. Very few people would be willing to apologize for their mistakes, and do the necessary steps and research to correct it, so I really deeply appreciate you taking the time to do that :)

Hey man, everyone makes mistakes, it’s ok and you didn’t know that the information was wrong. If anything it was just a very interesting video that proved to be false

stop misusing the word "subjective"

It's extremely brave of you to be able to come out and make a full video explaining in detail something you did was extremely incorrect. I honestly don't think I could have done anything more than a tweet and silent removal of the video if I made this. Thanks for coming out and doing this man, people gotta be more like you.

I'm glad that you were honest about the situated and I sorry about the fake star, I hope you make more discoveries in the future

Well hey, at least you learned something new.

Finally. An apologie video without crying.

Honestly I subscribed just based on your integrity. I loved all that you talked about here man and appreciate the honestly and how real you were about this.

I appreciate the honesty and such and for that you’ve gotten my sub 👍

Everything seems to fool you. Especially common sense

hello i love maro 64 also i watched the other 121 star on the game!

I like it how this APPARENTLY came out 1 minute ago. When there is over 1000 comments that where sent over 18 hours ago

I saw that video and actually thought there was a 121st star, and was excited at the possibility of it somehow being collected one day. Now I see this one. Oh well... back to the mystery goomba then XD

Wow

no views but 3 comments

Love the honesty! That's why you're the best! Keep crushing it buddy!

So basically, emulator editor accidentally looked too deep into sm64 and made things accidentally. Perfect episode of Game Theory.