Super Mario Galaxy has a “horribly inefficient” secret: the credits are always loaded in the background while you play, which has the “inadvertently heartwarming” side effect of making sure the platformer always remembers the Nintendo legends who made it

Mario titles are replete with mysteries, some of which were never intended to be uncovered, and dedicated enthusiasts have devoted years to uncovering them all. The two Super Mario Galaxy titles possess one particularly peculiar characteristic that is both inefficient and heartwarming, as they maintain their credits stored in memory at all times during gameplay.

“In the Super Mario Galaxy titles, the staff credits text is perpetually stored in RAM even though it isn’t required until the finale,” shared Mario trivia aficionado Supper Mario Broth on Bluesky, referring to insights from HEYimHeroic. “Though terribly inefficient, this is unintentionally heartwarming as the games seem to pay tribute to their creators by retaining them in memory consistently.”

In the Super Mario Galaxy titles, the staff credits text is perpetually stored in RAM even though it isn’t required until the finale. Though terribly inefficient, this is unintentionally heartwarming as the games seem to pay tribute to their creators by retaining them in memory consistently.

— @mariobrothblog.bsky.social (@mariobrothblog.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-10-08T17:20:03.821Z

For the initial Galaxy, all of the text from the entire game is consistently loaded, which makes it somewhat logical that the credits would be included here. However, with a total of “4,643 lines of text” within the file, according to Mario Broth, it ultimately occupies about “1/400 of the RAM consistently, which could be utilized for 1 or 2 additional objects.”

In Super Mario Galaxy 2, the text was divided a bit more effectively, featuring a distinct text file for each in-game galaxy. “But the credits are still permanently loaded,” adds Mario Broth. That exemplifies a commitment to appropriate crediting that modern Nintendo would never tolerate – even if it’s better characterized as a programming quirk rather than a deliberate attempt to ensure the creators are recognized.

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Dustin Bailey became a member of the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is presently located in Missouri. He has been reporting on games (with occasional ventures into the realms of anime and professional wrestling) since 2015, initially as a freelancer and then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His passion for gaming was ignited somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and nowadays, you can usually find him dividing his leisure time between retro gaming, the latest major action-adventure title, or a lengthy session in American Truck Simulator.