A YouTuber claims to have finally solved one of Super Mario 64’s biggest mysteries nearly 30 years after the game’s release, potentially putting decades of rumors about Luigi to rest.
Released in 1996, Super Mario 64 has remained a hotbed for secrets and fan theories, with players continuing to uncover new discoveries decades later.
One of its most famous mysteries involves a small plaque beneath a star statue in the courtyard of Peach’s Castle. The blurry text has long been interpreted as “L is real 2401,” sparking theories that Luigi was secretly playable in the Nintendo 64 classic or was leftover text from when the character was intended to be included before being scrapped.
However, YouTuber mochi64 believes they’ve finally cracked the code, and the actual message has nothing to do with Mario’s brother.
Super Mario 64 mystery solved after millions of calculations
In a YouTube video, mochi64 explained that the plaque’s texture measures just 32×32 pixels, making the letters almost impossible to decipher with the naked eye.
Rather than attempting to enhance the blurry image, the creator developed a program designed to recreate how a Nintendo artist would have produced the texture in 1996.
The process involved testing approximately 530 fonts alongside millions of combinations of words, letter spacing, image sizes, and resizing techniques to determine which produced the closest match.
After narrowing down the font to Adobe’s 1990 version of Palatino Bold Italic, the program identified what mochi64 believes is the actual inscription: “Eternal Star. We hope so.”
The first line was determined after testing more than 27,000 words, while a separate search involving over 17,000 English words identified “We hope so” as the strongest match for the second line.
According to the creator, the famous “L is real 2401” theory performed roughly twice as poorly when compared against the original texture.
The discovery could finally put an end to speculation that the plaque contained instructions for unlocking Luigi, although Mario’s brother really was intended to appear in Super Mario 64.
In fact, Shigeru Miyamoto previously confirmed that Luigi was originally included in the game as part of a planned multiplayer mode, but was removed due to memory limitations
Mochi64 has also released the project’s code, data, and a 40-page report on GitHub, allowing other players to test the findings themselves.
While Nintendo has yet to officially confirm the inscription, the discovery is another example of how fans continue to uncover secrets in the nearly 30-year-old game.
In 2025, another YouTuber discovered a hidden Super Mario 64 sound effect that takes 14 months to play.
More recently, a developer even managed to get Super Mario 64 running on original SNES hardware, nearly three decades after the game helped define 3D platforming.
I’m Abhishek Sharma, an author at TigerJek.com. I enjoy exploring games, testing different strategies, and turning what I learn into clear, useful guides. My goal is to help players understand the game better and improve without the usual confusion.
