Why in basically all NES games do characters or objects that go above or below the screen by half a block temporarily get separated in half and appear on the opposite side of the screen vertically?
Examples include:
- SMB where if a Mushroom falls off-screen, and you jump off-screen right above it, you obtain it, or you can stomp an enemy right as it starts going off-screen if you do the same jump above it.
- Excitebike (seen in a TAS), where if the rider goes too high (then eventually off-screen), he teleports in from the bottom of the screen.
- Cheetahmen (referencing the AVGN episode covering it), where when he does a jumping glitch and goes too far up the screen, he dies, but the death animation is split in half between the top and bottom.
It would seem to me that that is just the way the NES is since this occurs across a wide range of games. Though, it does seem to happen only in sidescrollers (or at least games that allow you TO go off-screen one way or another.