The Art of Super Mario Odyssey, an art book for the latest 3D Mario game, was recently released in Japan. Among the one thousand pieces of artwork in the 368-page book, there are some pieces that give some interesting insights as to what could have been in the game.
On September 28, Nintendo released The Art of Super Mario Odyssey. The book contains a whole slew of artwork featuring the game’s characters and locales. Among the artwork is some concept art that is very interesting to any Mario fan.
First off, we have some concept art of an earlier version of New Donk City. This prototype version of the city looks much more colorful with human citizens that have Mario-esque proportions instead of the more realistic humans in the final version:
Looking at these original concepts of New Donk City makes me wonder why Nintendo never kept it. They look so colorful and amazing! pic.twitter.com/NPLteoHHBs
— m a y o (@m__a__y__o_) September 26, 2018
Next up, we have art from a character that could have appeared in the game. Rosalina, originally appearing in Super Mario Galaxy, can be seen in the art book. This rendition of her has her dressed up in casual clothes and strumming a guitar:
Finally, there’s a short comic showing off a conceptual character that would have taken the Internet by storm. Back when Nintendo introduced a Switch port for the Wii U New Super Mario Bros. games, they introduced an interesting concept related to the addition of Toadette as a character in those games. When she collects an item known as a Super Crown, she turns into a Peach-esque character known as Peachette. Among all the questions as to how this impacts the lore of Super Mario such as if the Super Crown affects other characters, a Twitter user named ‘@ayyk92’ posted a comic that set the Internet on fire:
The Super Crown's some spicy new Mario lore pic.twitter.com/7DQe6UXvLQ
— haniwa (@ayyk92) September 19, 2018
Well, according to The Art of Super Mario Odyssey, this character, dubbed Bowsette by the Internet, might have been a real thing, as concept art shows Bowser with a Cappy-like hat of his own:
So in THE ART OF SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY that came out in Japan today, there's an scrapped concept of Bowser taking over Peach's body with his own version of Cappy.
Kind of surreal how there could have been an "official" Bowsette long before the fan one took over the internet. pic.twitter.com/gSMOqNDKKf
— Nao (@Sakusuru) September 28, 2018
The Art of Super Mario Odyssey is only available for import right now.