Due to the open world nature of Mario Kart World, even though millions of us have already been exploring, there are likely easter eggs hidden throughout that we might not find for months, if not years. However, one of the longest-running easter eggs at Nintendo, nay, in the video game industry as a whole has already been discovered.
That easter egg is known as Totaka's Song due to it being a song Nintendo sound designer Kazumi Totaka has been sneaking into games since 1990. Several people have shared the easter egg after discovering it in Mario Kart World, but the best example I've found so far was shared by Stealth40k as it isolates the song so that it can be heard clearly over the game's soundtrack.
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While this hasn't always been the case with Totaka's Song, in Mario Kart World, the easter egg is hidden in plain sight. So much so that you may have already found it without even realising. All you have to do is linger on Yoshi when selecting your character, and the Mushroom Kingdom's resident dinosaur will start humming it. Rather fitting as Yoshi has been voiced by Totaka for almost 30 years.
Totaka's song was also hummed by a Yoshi in Mario Kart 8. However, it was a lot harder to find as the Yoshis doing the humming were the ones watching you race from the sidelines.
The inclusion of Totaka's song in various Nintendo games dates back even further than the sound designer's work as the voice of Yoshi, and is not exclusive to games starring Mario. Its first appearance was in Game Boy game X in 1990, then it was hidden in Mario Paint on the SNES two years later. Throughout the years, it has popped up all over the place and can be found in Zelda, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, and Luigi's Mansion games.
Mario Kart World marks the 25th confirmed appearance of Totaka's Song in a Nintendo game, with a few other likely appearances in games like Wii Sports and Super Mario Odyssey that remain unconfirmed. Even though Totaka is still working at Nintendo, fans may have feared the tradition had come to an end. The easter egg's last confirmed appearance was in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and five years between games is the longest the song has ever been absent. There's a very real chance games released between New Horizons and now feature the song, but we just haven't found them yet.
Mario Kart World
Systems
4.0/5
- June 5, 2025
- Everyone // Mild Fantasy Violence, Users Interact
- Nintendo
- Nintendo
- Local Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer
