Super Mario 64's mysterious plaque message finally decoded

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 19 Oct, 19:31 · Archive

A programmer has used computational analysis to determine that a blurry plaque in Super Mario 64 reads 'Eternal Star' and 'We hope so', ending a 30-year fan mystery.

Fans of Super Mario 64 have debated the meaning of a blurry plaque in the game's castle courtyard for over 30 years. The text has long been too small to read clearly, and even modern reissues of the 1996 game have not clarified it. For decades, players believed the plaque read 'L is real 2401', a theory that fuelled widespread speculation the message hinted at a hidden playable Luigi character. IGN even offered a $100 bounty to anyone who could unlock Luigi, and Nintendo Power mentioned the theory in an April Fool's Day issue.

Programmer Mochi64 has now analysed the plaque using computational software rather than simple graphical upscaling. The software searched through millions of combinations of words and fonts to find the text that best matched the pixels stored in the image. According to this analysis, the top of the plaque reads 'Eternal Star' and the bottom reads 'We hope so'. Mochi64 acknowledges this is not definitive but represents the closest possible match the software could find after millions of comparisons.

The revelation comes decades after speculation about Luigi was given fresh impetus when Shigeru Miyamoto, the game's director, noted that the team had experimented with a two-player mode.

How it is being reported

• We might finally know what's written on that mysterious plaque in Super Mario 64The plaque's message has haunted the internet for 30 years.Engadget · 19 Oct, 19:10
• 30-year-old Super Mario 64 mystery has finally been solved by obsessive fanFans of Super Mario 64 have long assumed an unintelligible message within the game read ‘L is real’ but new evidence suggests otherwise.Metro · 19 Oct, 13:30

In this story: Mochi64 · Nintendo · Shigeru Miyamoto

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