Major Level Expansion, occasionally shortened to MLE, is a rare anomaly where a level or course is expanded to have several new missions, at the cost of some levels or courses being condensed or removed entirely, as well as commonly requiring the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak in order for the game to run properly. Major Level Expansion appears to be an advanced mix of Dynamic Level Rearrangement and some aspects of Dynamic Level Arrangement that allows the Personalization A.I. to create new level geometry.
Major Level Expansion appears to disprove the established limitation of the Personalization A.I. being unable to edit the level geometry, though the exact mechanism it performs this with is unknown. Some theorize it is possible through some loophole in the A.I.'s programming related to the DLR and DLA features of the A.I. or some previously undiscovered property of the A.I. that rarely shows itself.
Description[]
Major Level Expansion has several related anomalies that can be found before the affected level is reached. The game has been reported to run slower, have more glitches, and occasionally crash or cause error screens such as the scrapped Anti-Piracy Screen to appear on some occasions. Most of these issues can supposedly be resolved by using the N64 Expansion Pak, though lack of recorded instances where this was used make it hard to confirm if this is true or false.
A mock-up made from memory of an error screen reported in a copy with an instance of Major Level Expansion.
Another related anomaly that has been much more consistently reported alongside Major Level Expansion is that several levels and courses, usually being of a similar theme to the level affected by MLE, can be removed, or have several segments removed from them, including stars or missions, objects, or even entire segments of the map. This is likely to make space on the cartridge for the additions to the level(s) affected by Major Level Expansion. If a level is removed but the entrance remains, when it is entered, the game can reportedly crash or show an error screen. A unique error screen has been reported to appear if these requirements are met that can say something along the lines of "This level can not be found, or is corrupted. Please restart your Nintendo 64 console."
A level affected by Major Level Expansion is easy to locate due to the affected levels almost always having at least 1 more mission than the standard 6 missions in a standard course, or functioning as a full course if they were originally a smaller level. They will have new sub-areas, or potentially have entirely new level geometry depending on how many stars are added. In some rare instances, the level is entirely remade from scratch to fit the additions to the level.
If more than one level is affected by Major Level Expansion, it is more likely that glitches in the levels affected will occur. Some parts of the geometry may lack collision, have glitched textures, or have out of place objects. These out of place objects could be floating objects, objects that don't fit the level's theme, or other anomalies of a similar nature.
The rarest aspect of Major Level Expansion is that the affected levels have been reported to change mid-gameplay, potentially due to the A.I. altering the level to further fit the needs of the player. These alterations are much more inconsistent when compared to the main manifestations of the anomaly, often appearing much more glitchy and sporadic, likely due to it being harder for the A.I. to edit a level while the player is inside of it.
Confirmed Instances[]
An image believed to be of this instance of Major Level Expansion, though may be part of an unrelated desert level with a similar appearance.
The Floating Pyramids[]
The Floating Pyramids are an added area to Shifting Sand Land via Major Level Expansion. The area can appear at any edge of the level or entirely encompass the original level, and is characterized by several sand dunes with minimal quicksand and the several titular floating pyramids. These pyramids usually cannot be entered, though some have reported that some are able to be entered and appear similar to the main pyramid's sub-area seen in the base game.
Most stars reported in this area are repeats of other stars in Shifting Sand Land, alongside several stars simply found by exploring this new area. Some have reported needing to defeat a large Pokey to obtain a star, though these reports are for the most part unconfirmed.
The Stormy Skies[]
Not to be confused with The Starry-Night Skies, the Stormy Skies is an additional area added to Wing Mario Over the Rainbow made up of several gray clouds with supposed unique lightning strikes that can appear and damage the player. Some have reported some clouds containing a water pond where aquatic enemies such as Skeeters, and in rare instances, Dorrie, can appear. A small number of reports have claimed cyan-colored Blarggs can appear in these ponds, potentially due to Blarggs being referenced to appear in Wing Mario Over the Rainbow despite going unused and not fitting the level's theme.
Several stars similarly to the ones found in Rainbow Ride and The Starry-Night Skies have been reported in this area, though other stars such as a 5 secrets star have been reported. In manifestations where Dorrie can appear in a pond, a star similar to the one seen in Hazy Maze Cave requiring Dorrie to reach has been reported as well.
New Anomalous Levels[]
Some anomalous levels have been reported to utilize Major Level Expansion. This can apply to already established anomalous levels such as Big Boo's Forest, usually having minimal differences from the main version of the level, or more commonly, entirely new levels that have only been reported alongside Major Level Expansion. The only confirmed example of an entire new level that uses Major Level Expansion is a level named "Frozen Fire Fields", a water level covered in ice, with part of the level splitting off into a lava area. This level usually has a combination of stars from Cool, Cool Mountain, Snowman's Land, and Lethal Lava Land, as well as stars present in other anomalous levels.
Theorizing[]
Major Level Expansion has been a controversial topic of discussion since it's discovery due to it appearing to break the established limitation of the A.I. being unable to edit level geometry. However, theories have risen that state that MLE brings back larger, more ambitious versions of the levels from older builds of Super Mario 64, or that MLE is a scrapped algorithm that allows the A.I. to recreate an existing level with much more content, essentially being an expanded version of Dynamic Level Arrangement.
Reports[]
These are unverified claims and may easily be false. Please take these with a grain of salt.
Report 1[]
"So, I was playing Mario 64 and just finished a mission in Big Boo's Haunt, which felt smaller than usual. I then went to Hazy Maze Cave to do another mission until I noticed 3 more missions were added. This was weird, because I hadn't even completed the sixth mission, so I don't know why they were showing, but they were definitely there.
7- "EXPLORATION BEHIND THE HIDDEN BOX"
8- "BEWARE OF THE METAL PARASITE"
9- "ADVENTURE IN SALTY, SALTY SHORE"
I decided to choose mission seven, and searched the entire course until I reached that area with Dorrie. I looked around and noticed that there was a breakable box that wasn't there before at that path leading to the lake. I broke it, and saw a massive area that was never there before. I checked multiple wikis and videos and they all said that only 6 missions ever exist in Hazy Maze Cave, or any level for that matter unless you're playing Super Mario 64 DS, and no such area like the one I had just found existed. I decided to explore this area, and saw a massive gap that I had to long jump over. I just barely made it over the gap, and I saw multiple Scuttlebugs on the right side of this area. I looked around and saw that there were 2 doors, one on the left and one on the right. I went to the left door and saw a bridge connecting to the next side of the room, with lava below the bridge. I walked on the bridge and saw some creature jump from the lava. It didn't seem to have any textures, and was all red except for it's teeth, which were white. I assume it was a Blargg. though it might have just been a similar looking enemy, I'm not sure. it hit me, and Mario took damage before jumping into the air like he does when he falls into lava. After getting past the bridge, there were a plethora of rocky platforms on the sides of the walls. I climbed them, collected some coins, and made it up the platforms where there was one of those elevator things that was in the regular Hazy Maze Cave. I went up the elevator and to the second floor of this new area. I saw multiple controllable platforms also like the ones in the regular version of Hazy Maze Cave and a star at the top of this area. I jumped on the platform and had to navigate for several minutes past several platforms and stuff before I reached the star and completed the mission. I then decided to go to Wet-Dry World after that instead of exploring the other missions since that WDW is usually the one with the weirdest anomalies. I jumped into the painting, but then instead of going into the course, it showed some weird error screen. I restarted the game but I couldn't find any of the weird missions or that area, though I did keep the star I collected."
Report 2[]
"...Okay, this was the weirdest thing. I went to Tick Tock Clock. but the course was huge! I don't remember much, but there were so many random paths to new parts of the level, with all sorts of random obstacles and stuff! I almost thought it was Blasting Bullet Factory for a second, but nope, it was still Tick Tock Clock. It had almost all of the Tick Tock Clock anomalies too, but that’s not saying much since there’s not much variety there for the most part. I wanna say there were 3 or 4 new stars in total, with one being found by fighting a Motos, and another being a 5 secrets star, but I don't remember what the rest were, and I can't go to check since my cartridge got fried, though that's another story... Oh yeah, all of the smaller levels including the cap levels were gone, except for the Bowser levels, they were still there. The entrances were gone, and I couldn’t find the levels in the level select screen. I was kinda confused when I just found the Vanish Cap switch in the mirror room, but hey, at least the caps were still there…”
