6) Romancing the clone

Mushroom Kingdom denizens can be spotted in the crowd during Megaton Punch, an otherwise unremarkable minigame on the SNES’s Kirby Fun Pak. But wait... two Marios? Two Luigis? Clearly, the Mario Bros.’ baby doppelgangers have blossomed into adults at an accelerated rate of growth, possibly because they’re evil aliens, like in the 1995 film Species starring Natasha Henstridge. It’s the only rational explanation.

07)  E-Bombs: now 42% cuddlier

A floor-scuttling, wall-clambering yellow bomb-on-legs can be collected in Ocarina of Time, either from the House of Skulltula in Kakariko Village, or ‘won’ like some manner of explosive goldfish in the Bombchu Bowling Game located in the Market. This is clearly a militant subspecies of Pikachu, the ubiquitous Pokemon.

8) Someone needs to ‘mallow out

Everyone’s favourite pastel windbag (if only there was another pastel windbag) pops up as an enemy toward the end of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, presumably as a pre-emptive strike before the upcoming Smash Bros. tournament. He’s not the only familiar face who’s looking for a word in Link’s pointy ear during his adventures on Koholint Island; in this screenshot alone, you can spot a rogue Goomba.

9)  Save the cheerleader, save the bed linen

Now, what kind of an top 20 list would this be, if we didn’t somehow manage to crowbar in an Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 reference? Well, two suspiciously familiar plumbers appear in a young bed-wetter’s dreams. Your task is to cheer them on as they set about repairing his internal plumbing. Did we mention this is a Japanese game?

10) Not all tyrants make it big...

We probably could have conjured up an entire list of top 20 cameos from Link’s Awakening alone. The pick of the litter has to be Wart’s (of Super Mario Bros. 2 infamy) bizarre appearance. The deposed Subcon despot, withered and penniless, has been reduced to slumming it in a cave on Koholint Island, where he hungrily accepts 300 rupees from passers-by in exchange for a sing-song. Unfortunately, as he’s singing at you through a Game Boy Color speaker, it sounds a bit like a wasp’s nest being fed into a paper shredder.