Stuff I Grew Up With/Video Game Corner: Super Mario 64 (1996)

By 1996, when I was nine years old, I had a subscription to Nintendo Power Magazine, though I got it mainly because I wanted one of their Player's Guides for Donkey Kong Country 2, a game that I was obsessed with after I got it the previous Christmas; the subscription came with the order for the Player's Guide. Initially, I couldn't care less about the magazine itself, but as my subscription went on and I began to actually read it, I realized just how awesome it was, not only for tips and codes, but also because it kept you informed of what games were on the way. To that end, Nintendo Power would sometimes send promotional VHS tapes for major upcoming releases, and the first one that I got, in the summer of '96, was on the Nintendo 64, which had already been released in Japan and would come to America that September. Specifically, it highlighted the system's three launch titles: Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. But, even though I watched the tape as soon as I got it, I didn't initially grasp just how monumental the N64 would turn out to be... at least, not until I watched it again a little while later. That's when I really got excited, both for the overall system but specifically for Super Mario 64. By today's standards, it may not look that special, and may even come off as primitive, but at the time, that game was absolutely mind-blowing and unlike anything I'd ever seen before. My excitement only grew when I started seeing TV spots leading up to and after its release, and then, either that November or December (I think it was the latter), I got to play a demo of it at Wal-Mart. It was only briefly, as these older dickheads were hogging it for what seemed like ages (and they did act like dicks to me, so that's not sour grape), but it still amazed me. Not only did the graphics and the levels look awesome, but the sound, particularly how Mario actually made noises and talked, was something I'd never experienced before, even in the most advanced Super NES games. It was awesome!

As you've probably predicted, I did get a Nintendo 64 for Christmas that year (I wasn't exactly subtle about my desire for it), as well as a copy of both Super Mario 64 and its Player's Guide. And when I was finally able to actually play it, I was completely immersed in everything it offered. Naturally, I'd played many of the previous Mario games, but this was a completely different kettle of fish. Instead of a side-scroller, this game gave you a full, 3-D world that you could explore every nook and cranny of, and I loved virtually everything about it. From the music and the levels, to the good guys, bad guys, its overall treasure hunting nature, etc., there was nothing the game did that failed to impress me. And even as games have gotten more advanced in the decades since, I've always maintained a soft spot for Super Mario 64. Along with the Donkey Kong Country games, particularly the original, it is, without a doubt, the most significant video game of my entire life. All that said, I am well aware that it's not perfect, as some aspects haven't aged well, with some of the controls and special moves coming off as rather wonky, while some of the gameplay is fairly flawed and would be improved upon in future games of this genre, including others for the N64. But, for the most part, I can't help but still adore this game, and it remains one of my personal favorites.

Mario is invited to Princess Peach's castle (this is the first time she's referred to as Peach rather than just Princess Toadstool), as she's baked a cake for him. But when he arrives and walks through the castle's main doors, he's greeted by a booming voice telling him to leave immediately, followed by evil laughter. Coming across Toad, he learns that Bowser has stolen the castle's Power Stars and imprisoned the Princess within the castle walls, as well as trapped everyone else inside the castle itself. He must now reclaim the Stars, which are hidden within various worlds whose portals are found throughout the castle, specifically the first floor and its mezzanine, the basement, and the upper floors and the tower. The more Stars he recovers, the more of the castle he gains access to, eventually leading to the confrontation with Bowser.

Like I said, the graphics, specifically for the characters, do look rather primitive and crude by today's standards, with their very polygonal designs, but when it comes to the actual levels and environments, I think they hold up quite well, for the most part. Obviously, there are limits to how far you can go in a given environment, with invisible boundaries you can bump up against and, in some cases, clearly defined edges to the worlds, but the feeling the game gives of a free-roaming, 3-D world was just amazing for the time. What I think is really 

cool and interesting is how these worlds feel as though they extend far beyond the main area that you actually play around in, with the backgrounds stretching off into the distance, sometimes depicting landscape features like hills and mountains, or in other cases, just the far horizon of the sky. And yet, it feels like the developers tried to make the main playing areas as contained as possible, sometimes by making them into apparent floating islands or surrounding them with definable "walls," probably so 

they wouldn't have to stretch the levels farther than absolutely necessary. While this can come off as limiting when compared to later games of this genre, and also results in you falling to your death in levels where you wouldn't expect it to be a hazard, I also think it gives the game something of a unique look and feel.

What especially amazed me at the time was how much Mario felt like a living person here. His facial expressions are still pretty limited (I don't think you ever see his mouth beneath his mustache), with the default one being very neutral, but you do see him express sleepiness, pain (his eyes turn into X's whenever he gets seriously injured or dies), exhaustion, and respect and admiration for Princess Peach during the closing cutscene. It's the details in his idle animations, though, that truly make him feel alive. When he's standing still, you can see him

looking around, and his body bobs up and down in a slight manner that simulates breathing. Moreover, if you let him stand around long enough without moving, he gets tired and falls asleep. He has two different types of sleeping animations: one where he's sitting and another where, if you let him snooze long enough, he lies down on his side, with the sound of his snoring becoming much louder and harsher. If you do this in one of the game's two snow levels, instead of falling asleep, Mario will start to feel the cold and, in response, crouch down and rub his hands to try to

warm himself up. And when your life bar is on its last two or three spaces, Mario will pant in exhaustion while idle. But the biggest innovation, by far, was that Mario actually had a voice here. While it wasn't the absolute first time, as he'd voiced Mario in some educational CD games and at Nintendo trade shows, this is where many, myself included, first heard Charles Martinet's now iconic portrayal of the character. As I said in the intro, that was what really hit me: after so many games where he, as well as the 

other characters, made little to no sound, here he was letting out different exuberant yells for whatever move he pulled off, yelling in fear when he fell from a great height, grunting when he knocked into something, yelling in pain when he got hurt, burbling and gasping for air whenever he suffocated or drowned, and exclaiming, "Here we go!", whenever he collected a Power Star or some other important item. Also, when he falls asleep, he says, "I'ma tired," yawns, and can later be heard talking in his sleep (mostly about pasta)! And his voice hits you as soon as you start up the game, as he says, probably for the first time, "It'sa me, Mario!", on the title screen.

I guess that makes for a good spot to transition into the game's now infamous 3-D Mario face following the title screen. This bit was inspired by a feature at trade shows, where people could interact and talk with a 3-D Mario head on a TV screen, with Martinet providing the voice in real time by watching the attendees with a hidden camera system. (I really wish I could've experienced that myself, as it sounds really fun.) While this, obviously, could never be that interactive, you still have Mario popping up, saying, "Hello!", winking at you, and reacting to a star that appears and whirls around his head, before falling asleep if you don't do anything. And once that's done, you can play around with his face, grabbing and 

pulling on his nose, cheeks, ears, chin, and cap in order to see how much you can warp it. There's also a funny-looking, exhausted version that pops up when you get a game over, which, like some of the Donkey Kong Country game over screens, I felt took the sting off of it. I know that some find this Mario head to be kind of creepy nowadays, saying it gives them an Uncanny Valley feeling, but I've never felt that way. I thought it was cool at the time and I still think it's a fun, if pointless, thing to do before hopping into the actual game. Plus, it's a good way to become familiar with the controls.

Going back to the topic of voices, the only other actual voice is that of Princess Peach (Leslie Swan, who was the senior editor of Nintendo Power at the time; not the best voice for her, but not as irritating as the voices she would get in some later games), which you hear at the very beginning of a new game file and during the ending cutscene. You also hear Bowser laugh a few times but it's really stretching to count that as a "voice." The rest of the dialogue is delivered in old-fashioned text boxes whenever you interact with a character by pressing "B," read a sign or a plaque the same way, or when the game itself informs you of something. You wouldn't start to hear complete sentences and paragraphs of dialogue, at least in a

Nintendo game, until the following year, in games like Star Fox 64. Also, there are some lines that Charles Martinet says here that have made me go, "Huh?", in the past. Whenever you enter a level and decide which Power Star mission you're going to embark on, you hear Mario say, "Let'sa go!", but when I was a kid, both my mom and I always heard it as, "Las pickle!" Even now, despite being pretty sure of what it actually is, I have a hard time unhearing that. (And is it me, or does that audio clip not sound 

like Martinet's typical tone as Mario?) And then, there's the supposed line, "So long, gay Bowser!", he says whenever you toss Bowser during your battles with him. Martinet has confirmed that what he's actually saying is, "So long, King Bowser!", and I don't disbelieve him, but it does sound like "gay Bowser." It's become such an oft-repeated rumor that they've had Mario instead say, "Buh-bye!", in both the DS remake and the remastered versions.

It may seem trivial now, but a major innovation in Super Mario 64 was the wide range of movement Mario had here. In the past, all he could do was run and jump on enemies, but here, he has a variety of different moves and attacks, right down to being able to tiptoe, get down on his hands and knees and crawl, and do simple, relaxed walks, in addition to running. He can also climb trees and poles, right up to the very top, where he does a handstand, and then jump off in order to reach high vantage points and items. Attack-wise, he can stomp enemies like in the past, but he 

can also punch and kick (you throw two punches and a kick in rapid succession with the B-button; these moves can also break blocks), pound the ground by jumping and pressing the Z-button (this has various functions, like smashing blocks, pounding posts into the ground, and ensuring yourself a firm landing, notably to keep you from hurting yourself when you jump from a great height), pull off a jump-kick by jumping and then pressing "B" (this can also be used to knock things down), a slide kick by running and 

pressing "A," and a Sweep Kick by crouching with "Z" and pressing "B." There are some enemies you can pick up and throw, along with certain items, and when fighting Bowser, you grab his tail, swing him around, and fling him. 

Naturally, Mario is well known for his jumping skills, and he has a plethora of different ones he can pull off here. The Backward Somersault, pulled off by crouching and pressing "A," is very useful in reaching high ledges, but, to my surprise when I was a kid, I found I was able to pull off the slightly more difficult Side Somersault without much trouble. You have to run, then make a sharp turn back the other way and jump, and the resulting leap seems to span a bit more distance than the Backward Somersault. Again, it may sound hard to pull off, but you'd be surprised how

easily you can do it once you have the feel for it. The jump that's always given me trouble, however, is the Wall Jump, or Wall Kick, where you jump at a wall, then press "A" as soon as you touch it to bound off. It is necessary to get up to certain spots, often by bounding back and forth between the walls in a narrow spot, but there have been so many times where I've tried to Wall Jump, only for it not to work, despite how much I try to be accurate, and for Mario to instead knock his head against the wall. Much 

easier jumps to pull off include the Long Jump, where you sprint ahead, press "Z," then follow it up with "A" in order to bound over a great distance (this is a jump that's crucial to master), and the Triple Jump, which you perform simply by pushing "A" three times in a row while running to make him jump increasingly higher, culminating in a very high flip.

There are other modes of movement you sometimes have to make use of, and they can be a tad awkward. One is swimming, which involves two types of strokes: the fast Breast Stroke, pulled off by repeatedly pushing "A," and the slightly slower but more accurate Kick Stroke, performed by pressing and holding the button. Getting out of the water and back onto land is something I've found to be harder than it should be. It seems like you can just swim up to the edge of the solid shoreline or platform and just jump out, but there are times where it feels like 

Mario won't do it until you've made several attempts at it. Even worse, for me, is when you fly with the Wing Cap. While the actual flying controls aren't too difficult to figure out, as they work the same way as airplane controls, gaining altitude is often a problem, especially when you take flight using the Triple Jump, as you can almost never get as high as you need to. Mario also sometimes slides on steep hills and slopes, and there are also certain Power Stars that are acquired by riding down a slide floating in a large 

void. While sliding, you can increase and decrease speed respectively by pushing and pulling back on the Control Stick, as well as jump if you need to, but getting around sharp corners and turns can be tricky, as it sometimes feels like you cannot make Mario go in the direction you need him to. And finally, you can knock Koopa Troopas out of their shells and ride on them. This is definitely the most fun alternate movement mode, as you can practically go anywhere, even up steep slopes, and mow through minor enemies. But if you hit a wall or something really solid, you get knocked off the shell, and you can also deactivate the shell if you need to by pressing "Z."

Another innovation was the interactive camera system, allowing you to move and turn the game screen's angles using the four "C-Buttons" so you could get a better view of your environment and what you're doing. (I like that they opted to explain this in the context of the game via camera-toting Lakitu Bros., who follow you around, reporting and broadcasting everything you do for their news show.) You can zoom in and pull back, as well as move the camera to either the left or right, and, with the "R-Button," switch to a camera position directly behind 

Mario, which comes in handy for instances where you have to cross narrow bridges over large gaps. I especially like how, if you need a closer look at something, you can use the top C-Button to go into something of a first-person view, then move the Control Stick to scan your environment. And there's also an option you can switch to on the Pause Menu in the levels where, if you press and hold R, you can make the camera stay in one position and venture off into the distance. It's fun to play around with, but it 

has no practical purpose, as you can't see any hazards or enemies in your path when the camera is fixed like that. But, as innovative as it was for the time, if you've played a number of platform/adventure games since Super Mario 64, you know that this camera system is most definitely not without its faults. It's better here than in some other games, but since this was still basically the first time it was ever utilized, they hadn't worked the bugs out. The biggest issue, naturally, is that the camera sometimes gets stuck and 

simply won't move to the spot you need it to be in, which makes accomplishing various tasks more difficult than they should be. Another annoyance is how limited the camera's range of movement sometimes is. It depends on the area, but there are so many times where you'll need the camera to move just a little bit more to the right or left but it can't, and you get an annoying buzzer sound to indicate it. And if you get right on the edge of something, the image will suddenly start jumping repeatedly, as if the camera is trying to adjust, and that can make it hard to concentrate on getting away from the edge. 

The overall gameplay is mission-based. Within the castle walls are portals to other worlds, or levels, each of which contains seven Power Stars. When you enter a world, you get a screen akin to a "mission select," with a title for each of the six main Stars to search for. The titles act as hints as to what you're supposed to do in order to collect that specific Star, and they involve various tasks such as defeating certain enemies, exploring and finding specific parts of the level, etc. There's always one Star in each level that requires you to collect eight Red Coins, and an extra one that 

you earn by collecting one hundred Coins in total. When you first enter a level, you can only select one Star to go for, and you unlock more each time you collect one. But even then, you don't have to get the exact Star you selected when you entered the level, as you can often uncover those from other missions and collect them anyway. However, there are some Stars you can only access by selecting their specific missions, as doing so prompts the appearance of certain characters or scenarios necessary to collect them. And while you can reactivate Stars you've already collected, they take the form of a blue, transparent shadow, rather than the solid, gold ones you actually got. 

When the game first begins, you can only access the castle's First Floor and the first level, but as you collect more Stars, you access more levels and, eventually, both the Basement, and the Upper Floors and Tower. Each of the First Floor's four levels involve walking through a door accessed by collecting a certain number of Stars and then jumping into a specific painting. This can deceive you into thinking that's how it'll be for the entire game, but as you unlock the other sections of the castle, the levels get trickier to find. Some still involve jumping into a

painting, but others have you jump into unmarked walls, into strange pools, and, in one case, defeating an enemy who actually holds the way into the level. Other Stars are either hidden in secret areas found in and around the castle, or held by certain characters you come across. The final level for each castle floor involves navigating a lot of tricky platforming, as well as getting another Star by collecting the Red Coins strewn throughout, in order to reach and battle Bowser at the end. You fight him three times in all, 

and at the end of the first two battles, you get a key that opens the door to the Casement and the Upper Floors respectively. There are a total of 120 Power Stars, but you don't have to collect all of them in order to beat the game. For that matter, you don't need to get all of the Stars found in one level to progress to the next, or all those on one castle floor in order to battle Bowser, as you gain access to them after collecting a specific number of Stars, which the game notifies you. Speaking for myself, though, I do wish,

if nothing else, that it did require you to collect all of the main Stars in each level on a given floor before you could gain access to Bowser. I always found it kind of annoying how I would be focused on collecting all of the Stars in a level, only to get a message telling me that a door I wasn't even thinking about was now accessible.

Here are some other random things I've always found a little irritating about the main gameplay. Every time you collect a Power Star, you exit the level, then get the option to either save your game and continue, save and quit, or continue without saving (I don't why you would ever pick that third option). It may sound like a nitpick, but I would've preferred it if you could continue on through the level and collect more Stars, and only have to exit and then reenter when you collect one that requires you to select its specific mission. This is something that later games like 

Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 would implement to varying degrees. In fact, this game does do that itself, as you continue on playing after collecting a level's 100-Coin Star or the Red Coin Star in a Bowser level. You also have the option to exit a level if you want to, which I appreciate (though, you can only do so if you pause the game while Mario is standing still, in order to keep you from cheating it, like if you pause while you're falling to your death), but it transports you back to the castle's First Floor, 

no matter what level you exited from, meaning that if you were in a level deep down in the Basement or high up on the Upper Floors, you'll have to make you way back there. You only wind up back outside the entrance to a level when you lose a life, which sucks.

Not counting the Hit Points system in Super Mario RPG, I think this may be the first game where Mario has an actual health meter, indicated by a pie-shaped table divided into eight segments. You take damage not only from getting hit by enemies but also from falling from great heights and environmental hazards like lava, fireballs, freezing cold water, etc., depleting one or more sections of the table. The color also changes from blue to green to yellow to red the more depleted it gets, and it only appears onscreen once you've been damaged. You can replenish health by 

collecting Coins, with different types restoring different amounts of health, running through a Spinning Heart, or jumping into water. Speaking of which, when you're swimming underwater, the health meter switches to your air meter, and slowly decreases the longer you're down there. While you can replenish your air by surfacing, sometimes you don't have that option and have to rely on air bubbles. And there are some levels where it's possible for Mario to lose his hat, which makes him more susceptible to damage, so it's best to retrieve it as soon as possible.

Obviously, there are no Super Mushrooms to be found here, nor are there any Fire Flowers, but the trusty 1-Up Mushroom is still around. Sometimes they're found in Item Boxes, like in most games, while other times they're just lying around, and they also often appear when you climb to the top of a tree or pole. While they typically come straight to you when activated in the latter manner (there's a fan-inspired challenge called the Green Demon Challenge where the goal is to activate one of these and see if you can outrun it while collecting the level's eight Red Coins; it's actually genuinely nerve-wracking), other times they just drop to and slowly roll along the ground, forcing you to chase them. The most common Items are Coins, which come in three colors: Yellow, Red, and Blue. Yellows are worth one point each, Reds are worth two, and Blues

five, and those are also the respective amounts of health they restore to your health meter. Red Coins were a significant Item in Yoshi's Island (at least, if you cared about getting a 100% on each level), but I think this is the first time in an actual Mario game where collecting all of them in a level resulted in a special reward, a tradition that would continue in many games to follow. The Power Stars you get by collecting Red Coins typically appear above something called a Star Marker (there's just one level where that doesn't happen). There are also Blue Coin Blocks that create a temporary trail of the Coins when pounded, but they're only available once in a given mission. And not only does collecting a hundred Coins altogether in a level get you an extra Power Star, but you 

get an extra life for every fifty you've collected upon completing a mission (though, that's only good for up to 150 Coins). Spinning Hearts, as noted before, also replenish health, and the trick is that the faster you run through one, the more health it recovers and the faster it does so. There are small Crates you can pick up and toss as weapons, which also often contain Coins, and another kind called Crazed Crates, which bounce three times in the direction they're facing when you grab them, taking you with them. They break open on the third bounce and also give you Coins, but they can be potentially hazardous if you grab them near lava, quicksand, or a chasm.

The most notable Items are three types of caps that give you special abilities, though only for a limited amount of time each. The Wing Cap is found in Red Blocks and allows you to fly as Wing Mario. The Metal Cap, found in Green Blocks, and which is my personal favorite, turns you into Metal Mario (which became its own character in some subsequent games), making you practically invincible, able to take out enemies simply by touching them, impervious to wind and currents, environmental hazards like fire, and

even allowing you to sink down to and walk along the bottom of a watery area in order to reach a star or switch you couldn't otherwise. And the Vanish Cap, found in Blue Blocks, makes you transparent as Vanish Mario. In this form, you're able to pass through certain walls, as well as become undetectable by enemies. However, before you can use any of these caps, you have to find their individual secret courses and hit the huge switches therein in order to activate them.

In terms of friendly NPCs, most of them are specific to one particular level, but there are a couple who appear throughout the game. While exploring the castle, the only other character you come across is Toad, or, rather, several different Toads who are found on all of the castle floors and in different rooms. You first find Toad right after you initially arrive, and he tells you what's going on and what you need to do. Most of the time, when you talk to him, he gives you tips and hints, as well as words of encouragement, but

there are several times where he'll actually give you a Power Star. Needless to say, they're the easiest Stars to collect. And in the first level, Bob-Omb Battlefield, you meet the Bob-Omb Buddies: pink, friendly Bob-Ombs who, after you collect the first star by defeating the tyrannical Big Bob-Omb, will activate the cannons found throughout the level for you to use. Just about every level has a Bob-Omb Buddy somewhere in it, and it's always a good idea to find him and have him activate the cannon as soon as possible.

You get many of the classic Mario enemies, with the Goombas being among the first you come across in Bob-Omb Battlefield. However, the enemies tend to act differently here than they did in previous games, and because of the health system, they amount of damage they inflict varies. For instances, Goombas actually chase after you when they see you, and they take away one point of health if they hit you. Like in the classic games, you can stop them, and you get one Yellow Coin as a reward. Of course, you also run into Bob-Ombs in that first level and elsewhere, and they light their fuses and chase you until they explode, causing two points of health if they hit you. You can also toss and throw them as projectiles, as they explode on contact when you do. However, grabbing one lights its fuse, meaning you have to throw it quickly.

Koopa Troopas aren't all that common, but when they do show up, they actually don't damage or even try to attack you. You can knock one out of his shell and ride on it, as he runs around, trying to dive back into it. Defeating him nets you a Blue Coin. Piranha Plants, at least in their classic form, are only found in the second level, Whomp's Fortress, and spend most of their time snoozing. However, if you're really loud when you walk by one, you'll disturb it and it'll snap at you, taking away three points of health if it connects. You can only defeat them by walking up to one slowly and attacking it while it sleeps, getting a Blue Coin in the process. Also in Whomp's Fortress are Thwomps and Bullet Bills, neither of which can be defeated, but can take off three points of health if they hit you. Unlike in the past, you're only damaged by these

Thwomps if they pound you, and you can safely climb up on top of them. The Bullet Bills, however, cause damage even if you manage to punch or kick them away, so it's best to avoid them altogether. The classic Boo enemies appear in both the castle courtyard and the level, Big Boo's Haunt. Unlike in the past, you can actually defeat these Boos, though you have to turn your back to one, wait until he gets close, and do the Ground Pound; if you look right at a Boo's face, he becomes transparent and you're unable to attack him. Boos take away three points if they hit you, but they also each give up a Blue Coin when defeated. Monty Moles also appear occasionally, often in big groups while tossing

stones that can take one point of damage when they hit. They're mostly just annoying, and can knock you off ledges or other high spots where you might run into them. If you play Whack-A-Mole and stomp enough of them in rapid succession, you can actually win a 1-Up Mushroom for your troubles. Fly Guys, flying Shy Guys who first appeared in Yoshi's Island the year before this, can be quite useful for reaching high places, as jumping on one launches you up high into the air. But, on the other hand, they can also be annoying, as they tend to swoop down or shoot fireballs at you, often interfering badly with whatever task you're trying to accomplish. Pokey, the cactus enemy from Super Mario World, pops

up in the one desert level, Shifting Sand Land, and can cause two damage points if he runs into you. You can knock away the segments making up his body to make him shorter and ultimately defeat him by striking his head, which yields a Blue Coin. Late in the game, you run into the classic enemy Lakitus that throw Spinys down at you. Killing one by hitting his cloud from underneath gets you five Yellow Coins, while the Spinys are only vulnerable to water. And finally, those annoying, unkillable fireball enemies called Podoboos are also here, often making getting across a narrow strip of path around lava harder than it should be.

There are plenty of new enemies, including some now familiar ones that made their debut here. The aforementioned Whomps are big, walking slabs of concrete that attempt to crush you when you get in front of them, and take off three points if they do. The way to defeat them is to Ground Pound the bandage on one's back while he's down; however, if you repeatedly jump on his bandage, you can get up to five Yellow Coins, in addition to those you get when the Whomp is smashed. Spindrifts are weird critters with rotating flowers on their heads which you find only in the two snow levels. Though they can cause two damage points, they're so slow that they're easy to avoid. And if you jump on one's head, you get launched into the air while spinning,

which can be useful in reaching high areas (they don't give you the same altitude as Fly Guys). Also in the snow levels are Mr. Blizzards, which are just bad snowmen. The most common types throw snowballs at you, rotating to follow your movements, and can take away two points of damage if they hit you or you run into them. The only way to defeat one of them is by running circles around him until he falls over and shrinks into nothingness, giving up three Yellow Coins in the process. There's another type that hops along bridges which are invulnerable, and you simply have to run under or dodge. Amps are a really irritating type of enemy: electrical orbs with big, dumb, smiling faces that travel around in a fixed pattern in the most inconvenient spots, often in high places where you're having to climb or jump. Though they only take away one health point, they can easily cause you to fall, and there's no way to defeat them. 

In addition to the familiar Boos, Big Boo's Haunt introduces some other enemies, many of which only appear in that level. Among them are Scuttle Bugs, big, spider-like creatures that only take off one bit of health and can be killed simply by jumping on them, rewarding you with three Yellow Coins. Bookends are haunted books that emerge from various bookshelves in the house and either come at you with razor-sharp, jaw-like pages or, in the library, fly at you from the shelves on either side, causing two damage points. However, the former kind can be

defeated by jumping at them, and you get a Blue Coin. In one room is the Mad Piano, which looks like a normal piano, but then comes at you with some teeth when you get close to it, its keys clanging loudly as it does. It causes three damage points and there's no way to defeat it, so it's best to avoid it. The strangest enemy is Mr. I, a big, sentient, unblinking eyeball that fires projectiles at you, causing two points of damage. You also take damage if you touch one. The way to defeat one is the same way you take out Mr. Blizzard: run around it as it follows you, until it ends up spinning around wildly and eventually just poofs out of existence, giving you a Blue Coin for your trouble (it has to be truly locked onto you in order for this to work, though). The next level, Hazy

Maze Cave, has two enemies unique to it: Swoops, which are blue-colored bats, and Snufits, which are basically floating, and supposedly ghostly, Snifits. The latter are the more problematic, as they shoot bullets at you that cause two damage points, but they can be easily taken out and you get two Yellow Coins as a reward (technically, they appear in two levels, as they're also in the Metal Cap course, but since that's also in the Hazy Maze Cave, I consider it to be just another part of that level). While Swoops, which fly at you when you get too close, only cause one bit of damage when they hit you, they can also easily knock

you from a high spot, possibly to your doom. Hazy Maze Cave also introduces an enemy called "Flame Thrower": small, black orbs that release a fireball which follows you when approached. Like the Podoboos and all fire hazards, getting burned by them takes off three damage points and causes Mario to run around wildly, potentially somewhere you don't want him to go. Also like the Podoboos, they can't be defeated, and become a rather frequent and annoying enemy following their introduction.

All of the aquatic enemies are invincible, so, for the most part, it's best to avoid direct contact with them. These include Unagi, a giant eel who features prominently in the third stage, Jolly Roger Bay, and causes three damage points if he hits you; Bub, a fat, orange fish, wearing a diving mask, which takes away one bar of health if you swim into him; Sushi, a big, menacing shark who swims in a circular pattern and doesn't actively chase you, but can still cause three

damage points if you run into him; and a Manta Ray whose barbed tail takes away three damage points, but you have to follow him closely in order to obtain a Power Star. In both of the underwater levels are big Clams whose shells continually open to occasionally reveal items, but they can also damage you if their shells close on you. And Bubba is a big, orange fish with dark sunglasses who appears in the shallow water around Tiny-Huge Island and can easily swallow you in one gulp, costing you a life.

The Bully, an orb-shaped type of enemy with a pair of horns, actually doesn't hurt you when he runs into you, but he will relentlessly try to push you until you fall off the edge of the platform you're on (and often into lava, as those are the types of levels they appear in). Punching them doesn't hurt them either, but does knock them back, and you can defeat them by knocking them into lava, earning a Yellow Coin. In one level is a bizarre type of enemy called a Money Bag, which initially disguises itself as a single Yellow Coin, only to drop the facade and bounce around wildly when you get close (you can distinguish it from real Coins because its disguise floats above the ground rather than sitting on it). They cause two damage points, but if you can jump, stomp, or punch one (which isn't easy, because of their erratic movements), you get five Coins as a reward. Skeeters are

a type of large water strider that either skim across the surface of the water or scuttle around on dry land. They do actively come at you, and cause two damage points if they hit you, but taking one out gets you three Coins. Heave-Hos are wind-up machines with dustpan-like shovels on their hands, and they attempt to plant them under your feet and fling you over them. They themselves don't hurt you, but getting flung by one can do some damage if it throws you up a great height, and they can't be defeated. There are moments where you have to use them to reach a spot you can't get to otherwise, so you have to line yourself well. And Chuckyas are large, 

purple, Bob-Omb-like enemies that can grab and throw you. Like the Heave-Hos, they don't hurt you directly, but can throw you to your death if they grab you when you're near a ledge or a high drop. The only way to defeat one is to get behind it, grab it, and then throw it, resulting in five Coins.

Besides enemies, there are various types of hazards you run into throughout the levels, many of which are specific to a particular one, while others are more common. Examples include lava and fireballs, neither of which kills you instantly but can very quickly drain your health and also cause you to either hop or run around crazily, potentially into more hazards. In a similar vein are flamethrowers and fire-bars, which are often placed in spots that both make them hard to avoid and can also cause you to kill yourself if you get burned. Both of the water levels have a whirlpool at the bottom of their main area whose strong currents can easily suck you into them, leading to instant

death. The game also has its own versions of Donut Blocks, those platforms that fall if you stand on them for too long, while a couple of levels force you to run across a giant, rotating log, which can be really hard to do. And there are various type of rolling hazards, like big, black balls in a couple of levels, and giant boulders in another, that can deal major damage if they run over you. 

While they're not obstacles, you often come across Purple Switches which have you to stand on. They typically produce stepping stones or alter the environment in some way that benefits you. However, the effect only lasts for a limited time, with a ticking noise that gets faster and faster, often making you frantic to do what you have to before it's too late. Many levels have hidden warp zones that transport you from one spot to another, but there's nothing to indicate where they are, and they don't work unless

you're standing still, so finding one is almost a fluke. And finally, both outside the castle and in various levels set in clear, sunny areas, you come across butterflies. They may initially seem like just parts of the environment, like the birds that fly out of the trees when you get close or the fish in the swimming spots, but some of them have weird properties. In spots where groups of three suddenly emerge, if you manage to hit one of them, it may turn into a 1-Up Mushroom. But later on, there are butterflies that, if you hit them, turn into large bombs and hone in on you until they explode on you or something else that gets in their path! I'm sure a number of people have triggered that and been really confused as to what just happened. I know I was the first time it happened to me.

As is often the case with Mario, the game's music was the work of Koji Kondo, who both repurposed some of his familiar cues from the past and came up with a good number of original themes, some of which have become classics in their own right. On the title screen, a slow, relaxed version of the classic Super Mario Bros. theme plays, which I think is the only time in the game you hear it. However, its first six notes are used whenever you enter a level and before you choose which Power Star you're going to go for. The levels Hazy Maze Cave and Wet-Dry World, as well as subareas in various other levels, are set to a much more mysterious-sounding version of the Underground theme. There are actually two versions: a basic one, where the familiar melody is played on a guitar, and one where a female voice can be heard eerily vocalizing in the background, which plays in specific areas of those two main courses, and is also the version you tend to hear elsewhere. And Powerful Mario, which plays whenever you use the Wing or Vanish Cap, or when you ride a Koopa Shell, is a bigger, grander version of some music first heard in Yoshi's Island, which itself was a rearrangement of the Invincibility theme. Metallic Mario, the theme that plays whenever you wear the Metal Cap, is also a variation of that theme, but with a stronger, more hard-hitting sound. 

Before we get to the individual level themes, there are some memorable pieces of music heard in other spots. The File-Select screen at the beginning has this nice, rather chill music that makes for a relaxing prelude to the adventure you're about to embark on (whenever you erase a game file, you hear Mario yell, as if doing so just wiped the Mario in that particular file out of existence!). When you first enter the castle and get the text box meant to be Bowser telling you to get out, as well as when you try to enter a door without the required amount of Power Stars or the wrong key, you get this brief, menacing sting, followed by the sound of Bowser's laugh. Whenever you talk with Toad, you hear this little jingle that stands in for the lack of spoken dialogue. The Power Stars have their own memorable jingle whenever you uncover them in a level, and you hear an equally memorable fanfare when you collect one and exit the level, accompanied by Mario's, "Here we go!" There's a big, bombastic theme that plays when you fight some of the bosses found in the levels (although most of them bosses aren't nearly challenging enough to warrant such a threatening sound). One theme that's liable to get stuck in your head if you play this game enough, as you hear it every time you enter the castle or emerge from a regular level, is Inside the Castle Walls. It plays whenever you're walking around and exploring the castle's floors, and is a relaxing, regal-sounding theme that, admittedly, fits with the location. You first hear a very brief version of it at the beginning of the game, when Peach's voice reads her letter to Mario, and whenever you're informed that you have enough Power Stars to access a new room or area in the castle. And if you try to walk up the "Endless Stairs" in the Tower before you've collected at least 70 Power Stars, you get this weird, continuously looping music that accentuates the notion that you're not getting anywhere.

Rather than coming up with a different theme for every single level, Kondo, due to time constraints, reused themes for various levels that were similar in style to each other. The most common one, at least among the main levels, is a track simply called Super Mario 64 Main Theme, which is heard in Bob-Omb Battlefield, Whomp's Fortress, Tall, Tall Mountain, and Tiny-Huge Island. It's a pretty upbeat, sprightly tune, nicely hinting at the feeling of fun that this game has about it, although it does tend to clash with the spots on those latter two levels that are really tricky. This theme, in and of itself, has several variations heard throughout the game. One is Slider, which is heard in numerous places, such as "slide" areas,  as the main theme for the final two levels, Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride, and as the actual theme for several special courses, as well as during your races with the character of Koopa the Quick,. It's a fast-paced, bluegrass sort of variation, sometimes accompanied by whistling in the background, and while it does give those levels something of a funhouse feel, it can, again, feel like a major contrast to what you're actually going through, especially those last two main levels, which are really difficult. Another is "Snow Mountain," is heard in the levels Cool, Cool Mountain and Snowman's Land, and has an expected Christmas sound to it, which fits with them. Much like the Aquatic Ambience theme in Donkey Kong Country, Dire, Dire Docks is a soothing, nautical tune that's heard in both its namesake level and Jolly Roger Bay, as well as in one of the secret courses. There are three different versions of the theme that play depending on where you are in each level. The basic version is the most low-key and soothing one, but there's also one with a notable string accompaniment, and another with more percussion added to it. Another theme that's named after a level is Lethal Lava Land, even though it's also heard in much of Shifting Sand Land. That said, though, it does mostly have a very exotic, Egyptian vibe to it, it sounds so otherworldly that it works for both of these levels, where there's danger around just about every turn. And speaking of menacing and uninviting, Haunted House, which plays in the level Big Boo's Haunt, is an atonal, nightmarish-sounding theme that's only heard in there. There's also a spot in the level with a big merry-go-round, which has an old-fashioned, carnival type of piece playing on it.

One of my favorite themes is Bowser's Road, heard in all three of the Bowser levels, as it has this really cool, epic, yet also somber and apocalyptic sound to it that I've always found pleasing to the ear. The first two times you battle Bowser, it's to a piece of music simply called Bowser's Theme, which later became something of a main theme for him in many later games and other media. It's a really badass-sounding, tough, brutish piece that suits him well, and makes him come off as far more menacing than the other bosses in the game. When you face him for the third and final time, it's to a theme called, appropriately enough, The Final Battle, which has a creepy, Gothic sound to it, coming off as though it were played on a church organ. During the cutscene that plays after you've won, you get a nice theme that's a mixture of Peach's Message, heard during the brief bit of her reading her note at the beginning, and Ending from the original Super Mario Bros. And finally, the ending credits are played to a theme that, along with the montage of all the levels, allows you to really relax and look back fondly on the long adventure you've now completed.

First Floor & Mezzanine: Whether it's a new game file or one you're returning to, you always begin Super Mario 64 outside on the Castle Grounds. There's something peaceful, yet kind of eerie about this, as there's no sign of life, aside from some butterflies and birds that fly out of the trees (as well as the Lakitu Bros. when they first introduce themselves), and there's also no music, but rather just the sound of birds tweeting and the roar of a waterfall off to the left that pours into the castle moat. There's not much that can be done out here at first, as there's 

nothing of value in the moat (at least, nothing you can reach for the time being) or the lake off to the left that it drains into. There's a sealed cannon on the shore by the lake, but it doesn't open up until after you've collected all 120 Power Stars. And there are two Coins floating beneath the stone bridge that leads to the castle's front doors, though I don't how you can get at them, even when the moat is filled with water. There are plenty of signs amid the grounds, as well as plaques on the First Floor inside the castle, which tell

tell you the gameplay basics and the controls. The First Floor itself, directly behind the main doors, is really basic, allowing you access to the first four levels, though you have to collect some Power Stars from Bob-Omb Battlefield in order to gain access to them all. The Mezzanine houses the door leading to one of the secret levels, a Big Star Door that leads to the first Bowser one, and a big door with a lock that leads to the Second Floor and, eventually, the Third

Floor and the Tower. At the base of the stairs that lead to the Mezzanine are two wooden doors that each open up to a hallway that leads to the Courtyard, and also allow access to the stairs that lead down to the Basement.

Bob-Omb Battlefield: Again, this is the only level you can access when you first start the game, as the door leading to it doesn't require any Power Stars to open. As with most first levels, Bob-Omb Battlefield both serves as a good introduction to the gameplay and is also a nice place to get used to the various controls. It consists of a grassy, hilly area, the centerpiece of which is a huge mountain, with a spiraling path leading up to its summit. There's also a floating island up in the sky, though you only have access to it once you've activated the cannons. 

Speaking of which, you first meet the friendly Bob-Omb Buddies here, though they won't activate the cannons for you until after you've collected the first Star. Naturally, Bob-Ombs are the main enemies here, but there are also Goombas, a lone Koopa Troopa, and a big Chain Chomp who's chained to a post along the main path, and acts as both an obstacle and part of a mission objective in order to collect one of the Power Stars. Speaking of obstacles, there are water bombs being fired near the top of the mountain that 

rain down in a field near the start which can seriously injure you, as well as big, iron balls rolling back and forth around the base of the mountain, and a series of them rolling down the mountain path from near the top. There's also a small small cave along the path that acts as a Warp to the summit. 

Completing the first mission, Big Bob-Omb on the Summit, is really simple: you just have to make your way up to the top of the mountain, then fight and defeat the Big Bob-Omb. Getting up there is a cinch, though you have to watch out for those big, iron balls, and some tricky spots along the spiraling path leading to the summit. When you reach the Big Bob-Omb and talk with him, he's not happy about how you've made your way up to his "royal turf," and challenges you to a fight. Right away, you're into a boss fight, and it's ridiculously easy. All you have to do is get behind 

the Big Bob-Omb, pick him up, and throw him to the ground three times, and he lumbers around so slowly that doing so isn't at all difficult. If he manages to grab you, then he'll toss you as well, and if he tosses you off the mountain, you have to work your way back up there. And throwing him off the mountain doesn't count, as he'll leap back up to the summit, declare that you've cheated, and restart the fight. Once you've thrown him three times, he'll concede and then explode, revealing the Power Star. 

Footrace with Koopa the Quick has you race a large Koopa Troopa to the top of the mountain  He's waiting for you at the start of the level once you enter, and when you approach him, he asks about your victory over the Big Bob-Omb, but figures you must be slower than him and challenges you to a footrace. He's not at all difficult to beat, despite how fast he is, and even though he takes a shortcut by running up the slope that leads up to the path, taking the same path you used before is actually the best way to go. While attempting to gain a lead by using one of the cannons

is considered cheating, you can use that Warp near the top of the mountain without penalty. The race is over when either you or Koopa the Quick reach the summit and touch the flagpole up there. When beaten, he gives you the Star. Shoot to the Island in the Sky is where you first get to use the cannons once they've been activated. Your best bet is to use the cannon on the mountainside, aim at the Red Coin floating right above the tree on the floating island, and fire. This enables you to easily land on the island, and you can

collect the Star from the Item Box containing it. It's also possible to get up there using the cannon in the field, but you have to aim a few inches above the top of the tree in order for it to work. Find the 8 Red Coins is as straightforward as it sounds, and the Coins themselves aren't that hard to find. They're above some rotating, checkerboard platforms to the left of the main path; atop the Chain Chomp's post; on a black rock in the field to the right of where the Chomp is; two are in a spot with some trees and

wandering Goombas on the other side of the bridge past the Chomp (this is also where the Star Marker is); beneath the concrete bridge leading over to the base of the mountain; at the top of a steep slope to the left of the mountain's base (I find it's best to go up the path and slide down the slope when you come back around to its top); and atop that tree on the floating island.

Mario Wings to the Sky is, obviously, only accessible once you've activated the Wing Cap. You have to make your way back up to the floating island, get the Wing Cap from the Red Block there, then use the cannon on the island to blast yourself through the center of five Coin rings floating in the sky near it. The Power Star appears once you've collected all five of the middle Coins, but while missing them on your first attempt doesn't mean failure, it does mean you have to turn around in midair to try to get them again. Not only can this be awkward to do, but when you've

also collected a bunch of the other Coins making up the rings, the middle ones can be hard to distinguish. Behind Chain Chomp's Gate, on the other hand, is very simple: you have to pound the post that the Chain Chomp is chained to, freeing him, and he'll smash open the cage behind him that's housing the Power Star. The only real difficulty is that you have to avoid the Chomp when he lunges for you while you're pounding the post, but even that isn't all that hard. And collecting the 100-Coin Star is also a cinch, as

there are so many opportunities for them, like the individual ones dropped by the Goombas and Bob-Ombs, the Blue Coin dropped by the Koopa Troopa in the field, the Red Coins, all the Coins hovering in the sky near the floating island, and those along the mountain path.

Whomp's Fortress: Once you've collected your first Power Star, the door leading to this course opens up. The setting is a fortress on a floating island, and as such, it's the first level where you can potentially fall to your death. It also introduces tougher enemies, like the eponymous Whomps, Thwomps, Piranha Plants, and Bullet Bills, as well as hazards and obstacles such as some moving bars within the wall next to the path that runs along the base of the fortress, followed by some continuously receding platforms that you have to cross over, a bridge farther up that collapses 

beneath your feet, and a rotating bridge that you have to avoid getting knocked off of. As with Bob-Omb Battlefield, the first Star has you make your way up to the top of the level to fight a boss. Once the boss is defeated, an enormous tower appears at the top of the fortress for all the other missions. Like the floating island in the previous level, there are some small, floating platforms above the fortress, and there's also a Warp over by the steps with the Thwomps.

The first mission, Chip Off Whomp's Block, has you make your way up to the top of the fortress in order fight the Whomp King, who's little more than a gigantic Whomp. Getting up there is a tad trickier than it was in the previous level, due to the tougher obstacles and the potential to fall to your death, but once you do, the Whomp King himself is easy to defeat. In fact, you beat him the same way you would a regular Whomp: by pounding on his back, and you have to do it three times. There's a glitch in the game where, when he goes to crush you, you can pass right

through him by doing the Ground Pound, and immediately hit his weak spot. Once he's been defeated, like the Big Bob-Omb, he explodes, revealing the Power Star. To the Top of the Fortress has you, again, climb up the fortress, this time reaching the tower that now stands where the Whomp King was. You have to climb the tower using the platforms spiraling up along its side, which isn't difficult, although every other platform slowly retracts and extends out of the tower. You also have to

watch out for the Bullet Bills that shoot out of the turret near the edge on one side. Shoot into the Wild Blue can be a bit tricky, as you have to use a cannon located off to the left of this spot where there's shallow water to blast yourself to a platform across from it (the Bob-Omb Buddy is standing right next to it). Namely, it's the platform with a huge flagpole sitting atop it, and you have to make sure you aim to where you'll reach the spot where the flagpole goes down through the platform's underside. If you mess 

up, you go flying off and lose a life, but if you do it right, you grab onto the pole and slide down to the spot where the Power Star is. It's also possible to get the star by running underneath the platform, doing a Side-Somersault up at the wall, and then Wall-Kicking from it to the platform. 

Red Coins on the Floating Isle refers to the entire stage, rather than just the small islands floating up in the sky, but you do eventually have to make your way up there. The Red Coins are found above the second moving bar along the fortress' base; above the second Thwomp on the stairs (you have to jump and climb up onto his head to reach it, and it's hard to do that without sliding off); next to the sleeping Piranha Plant you come across along the main route; along a narrow ledge near the collapsing bridge; among the regular Coins you can reach with the rotating bridge; on the

slope below said bridge; and on the floating platforms, which you can access by Jump-Kicking a wooden beam near the tower. And once you've gotten all the Coins, you have to head all the way back to the start of the level, where the Star Marker is. Fall Onto the Caged Island can be accomplished several different ways. The standard way is to flush an owl named Hoot (yeah, Nintendo was being kind of lax on clever names with that one) out of a tree at the start, then jump and grab onto him so he can fly you up to

the small cage near the floating platforms, which houses the Star. While grabbing onto him is simple enough, it can be hard to steer Hoot where you want him to go and position yourself above the cage. And if you take too long, he'll tire out and drop you, potentially to your death. It's also possible to get to the cage by using the cannon or by Long-Jumping from the top of the tower, but those methods are much trickier. Blast Away the Wall may seem simple enough, but you have to know what wall specifically

the title is referring to: the corner of the wall to the right of the rotating bridge. You have to fire yourself from the cannon to break it, revealing the Power Star, and once you do, you can make your way up there and slide down towards the Star. The 100-Coin Star is also easy to get, as there are so many opportunities for Coins here, from the Whomps to the Piranha Plants, as well as the Blue Coin Switch found near the cannon, the Red Coins, and the Coins on the floating platforms.

Jolly Roger Bay: Accessed with three Power Stars, this is the first level that has more than one section to it. The main section is the bay itself, where you start on a bit of shoreline, with a platform over to the right where you find a Bob-Omb Buddy who activates a cannon found out in the water. When you first enter the level, there's a sunken ship at the bottom of the bay, and one little detail I never really noticed until I read up on it is that the area is a bit more foggy and the sky slightly darker during this first mission than it is during the others. And after you've collected the

first Star, these atmospheric details don't return even when you replay that mission. Also, once you've retrieved the first Star, found inside the ship, it rises to the surface and is there during the other missions, one of which requires you to board it to complete. However, in its place at the bottom of the bay is a deadly whirlpool that can suck you in to your death. There aren't many enemies here, save for the Clam Shells scattered around the bottom (some of which contain a few of the Red Coins, as well as a Koopa 

Shell), and Unagi the Eel, who's often seen swimming around in a circle once you've driven him from his nest inside the sunken ship. At the bottom of the bay is a tunnel that leads to a cave containing an air pocket that's filled with Goombas, as well as columns that fall towards you if you get too close.

Plunder in the Sunken Ship has you make your way down to the ship at the bottom of the bay and enter through a small, open hatch in the back of the deck. First, you have to lure Unagi out by swimming past the opening his head is sticking out of, then either making a loop or go to the surface to get air. When you swim back down towards the ship, Unagi has swam out of the opening, allowing you to enter. Once you're inside, you find four treasure chests, which you have to open by touching each lock in a specific order. What sucks about this is, if you do it in the 

wrong order, you get shocked, and you have to restart the process each time you mess up. Seeing as how there's initially nowhere to get air, i.e. restore your health, in here, you're kind of under a time limit, but the upside is that each time you open the correct chest, you get an air bubble. Once you've done it right, the water drains, but you now have to make your way up a series of slippery platforms to reach the Item Box containing the Power Star. A good idea is to swim up to one of the higher platforms before the water completely drains. Can the Eel Come Out to

Play? forces you to directly tangle with Unagi. Returning to the spot where the sunken ship was, you find him hanging out in a cave opening in the wall and, like before, you have to lure him out by swimming past him. When he's completely out, you can see the Power Star hanging on the tip of his tail, and you have to chase him around the bay until you manage to touch it. This is harder than it may sound, as Unagi swims quite quickly, and if he returns to his cave before you get the Star, you have to lure him out

again. Once you touch the Star, you can collect it beneath the cave entrance. Treasure in the Ocean Cave is similar to the first mission, as it involves opening four treasure chests in the correct order. You simply have to swim to the cave, and then avoid the Goombas and the falling columns (one of which falls towards you right at the entrance), in order to reach the chests in the back. Fortunately, if you get hit, you can easily replenish your health by taking a dip in the water at the entrance.

Red Coins on the Ship Afloat is another misnomer of a mission name, as only the last three Coins are actually aboard the ship. The first four are found in Clam Shells along the seafloor, and the fifth is atop a stone spire near the platform with the Bob-Omb Buddy, which you can simply jump to and climb up. To get aboard the ship, you have to activate a Purple Switch that produces some wooden blocks to use as stepping stones between several gangplanks and then jump onto the deck. As the ship rocks back and forth, the Red Coins move in and out of reach. They're not

difficult to grab, but there's also a crate that slides back and forth along the deck that can injure you if it hits you. And two of the Coins are on the upper deck in the back, which you have to run along the wall to reach, a feat you can just barely pull off. That's also where the star appears, so it's best to collect those two Coins last. Blast to the Stone Pillar involves using the cannon to reach a ledge on the opposite side of the bay that houses another Star. You actually have to use the cannon to fire yourself towards a tall stone pillar next to the ledge, then jump to it. Through the Jet

Stream is only doable once you've activated the Metal Cap, as you have to use it to get a Star in the center of the whirlpool at the bottom of the bay. There are three Green Blocks found throughout the level, and even though a couple are pretty close to the whirlpool (in the cave and on the platform where you board the ship), the trick is that, once you jump into the water as Metal Mario, you slowly sink, and you can easily run out of time before you're able to reach the Star. And, once again, it's pretty easy to get the level's 100-Coin 

Star, as there's a Blue Coin Switch in the cave, Coin Rings floating in front of the cave's underwater entrance, found in the Clam Shells, onboard the ship, and elsewhere.

Cool, Cool Mountain: Like Jolly Roger Bay, this level becomes available once you've collected three Power Stars. Set on a snowy mountain that's apparently floating in the sky, this is the first really difficult level due to the not-so-great traction in the snow, how utterly slippery the terrain is in general, and the threat of falling to your death in numerous spots. Much of the path leading down the mountain is a slick, snowy slope that you have to slide on, dealing with the tricky controls that come with that part of gameplay, as well as twists, turn, and sudden drop-

offs. Naturally, many of the Power Stars force you to slide in some manner in order to obtain them, with two of them involving a pretty difficult and potentially hazardous frozen slide found in a cabin at the beginning of the course. Other hazards include some broken bridges, a small gondola that you can miss when you try to jump on it; a section that's only accessible by a cannon, forcing you to aim carefully; and some spots where the wind blows against you. So unsafe is the level itself that the only real enemies are

Mr. Blizzards and Spindrifts, neither of which are likely to give you much trouble, save for the two snowmen hopping across a bridge near the gondola. There are also some friendly penguins here, and some of the Stars involve dealing with them in one way or another. There is a Warp from the top of the mountain to the bottom, and vice versa, but you can't get every Star by using it. .

Slip Slidin' Away, the first mission, involves the ice slide found in that cabin at the start. The goal is simply to make it to the bottom of the slide, but the slide's many unguarded twists and turns make it really hard to keep from falling to your death, as does the short but narrow section at the very end, which is made up of ice cubes. There is a shortcut found within the tunnel you pass through that allows you to bypass the trickier parts of the slide, bringing you out at the end. The star appears when you walk out the door there. Li'l Penguin Lost has you reunite a baby

penguin with her mother. The good news is that she can be found right at the beginning of the level, roaming around on the ledge above the cabin; the bad news is that her mother is at the very bottom of the mountain, in front of the cabin you emerge from at the bottom of the slide, and getting her down there, on the slippery, snowy path leading down the mountain, can be quite challenging. Not only do you have to keep from sliding off the edge to your death, but if you hit a wall, you lose your grip on her, and if this happens on the slope itself, you'll likely slide away

before you can get her back. Also, if you get momentarily stuck in the snow, she'll wander off, and if she gets too far out of your sight, she'll despawn and you'll have to go all the way back up to the top and grab her again. And no, you can't use the ice slide as a shortcut, because she disappears if you jump into the cabin with her, and the Warp on the end of the broken bridge to the right of the cabin doesn't work while you're holding her. There's another baby penguin on the roof of the cabin behind the mother,

but she's just a decoy. (It always bothered me that you never find her mother as well.) Big Penguin Race has you return to the ice slide, this time to race a large penguin. Naturally, this is even more difficult than simply getting to the bottom, as the penguin really zooms along on the ice, and if he crowds you around the corners, he can easily send you falling to your death. Also, if you use the shortcut, you get disqualified, and the same goes for if you jump and manage to stay in the air for more than two seconds,

as the game will think you've skipped part of the level. However, if you slide off a turn to the right before the tunnel, you can drop down to the path below within the time limit. If you play this mission again after you've collected all 120 stars, you'll find that the penguin is much bigger, claiming he's gotten out of shape due to a lack of training lately. Racing him this way is even more difficult, as his larger girth makes him a more considerable obstacle. You don't get any further reward for beating him like this, though.

Frosty Slide for 8 Red Coins isn't as difficult to accomplish as you might think, as the Red Coins are all in spots that are pretty simple to reach. They're atop a tree at the start of the level; in a corner near the bottom of the sliding path down the mountain; at the end of the broken bridge near the previous one; near the spot at the bottom of the mountain where you warp from the top; right on the edge of the level near the previous one; atop the tree beside the cabin behind the mother penguin; at the top of the gondola's route; and on a ledge above where the Mr. Blizzards are

hopping across the bridge, which you can access by jumping off the broken bridge at the start of the level. The last two Stars, however, are rather tricky to get. In Snowman's Lost His Head, you have to guide this snowball found on a platform near the start down the mountain to where a snowman's head sits on a pedestal so the snowball can become his new body. That task in and of itself is quite difficult, as you have to stay in front of the snowball as it makes its way down the mountain, but if you get too far in front of it, it'll despawn and you'll have to go back up to the

summit to try again. Another issue is that the snowball begins rolling immediately after you speak with it, and it speaks to you when you get really close to it from any angle. In short, if you talk to it from the side, you won't be able to get in front of it and things will immediately go south. And even if you manage to guide it down to the snowman's head, if you don't stand in the right spot around the head's platform, the snowball will roll right by you. I've often found that you have to stand on the platform's left side, meaning

you have to take damage when the snowball hits you, but since you immediately exit the stage when you have the Star, it's worth it. Of course, as you can see, standing behind the platform can work too. 

While it can actually be accomplished in one of several ways, Wall Kicks Will Work has always been the hardest one in this level for me, mainly because I suck at the Wall-Kick. To reach the remote area where the star is located, you can make use of the cannon at the bottom of the mountain (the Bob-Omb Buddy is on a very small isle along the gondola's path, and jumping to and from it always makes me hold my breath), then after you've blasted yourself over there, make your way along a narrow path filled with Spindrifts, Long Jump across a gap, and Backward 

Somersault and Wall-Kick up a series of inclines. Getting up to the last incline is the hardest, as you have to jump at the wall next to it, rather than the section across from it, and aim yourself onto the ledge. And finally, you have to cross over a very narrow ice bridge to reach the platform housing the star. You can also use a Spindrift up near the start of the level to float around and over to this section, though you have to be sure about where you're going; jump off the edge of the starting point and try to land 

down there; or Long Jump from the gondola itself at the right moment. All of these methods, I find, are more trouble than they're worth, but that's just me. When it comes to getting the 100-Coin Star, the ice slide has plenty of Coins in and of itself (just a little over eighty), and there are many other Coins on the path down the mountain, but this is one level where you have to be careful about where you trigger the Star. If you collect the 100th Coin on any of the slides, that's where it'll appear, and unless you have the greatest reflexes, you'll probably have to go back up and slide down again in order to get it.

The Princess's Secret Slide: The first of the secret courses, this one becomes available once you've collected your first Power Star, and is found behind the door on the right side of the mezzanine. The door opens up into a room with three stained glass windows bearing Princess Peach's image, and the one to the right of the door leads to the level. The slide itself is much easier than the ice slide in Cool, Cool Mountain, as it's shorter, not as twisty or curvy, there are areas with guardrails, and if you fall off the edge, you're just transported back to the foyer without

losing a life. There are actually two Power Stars found here. The first one requires you to simply reach the bottom of the slide and crack open the Item Box holding it. The second one, however, is tougher, as you have to complete the slide in less than 21 seconds, which is usually about as much time as it takes to run the whole thing. If you keep the Control Stick in the forward position to slide as fast as you can, and go around the corners from the outside to the inside to maintain your speed, as well as maybe jump

forward at the start of the slide so that you go on your belly, it is possible to reach the goal at just a little over 20 seconds. There's also a shortcut you can take by jumping over the slide's left side after you come out of the tunnel at the start, landing on a further section down below, but that tends to stun Mario, and the short time it takes for him to recover can cause you to blow it.

The Secret Aquarium: In the room with the painting that leads to Jolly Roger Bay, there are two alcoves in the wall above the door. One of them houses a 1-Up Mushroom, while the other, namely the one near Toad, leads into this secret level. You find yourself inside a large tank filled with not only fish but lots and lots of Coins, including eight red ones you have to collect for a Star. The Red Coins are found in the center of four Yellow Coin rings floating in the middle and near the top of the tank, and in each corner down on the floor. There's nowhere to get air

here, and you can only exit when you collect the Star, but the Coins more than make up for that, it's not at all difficult to get said Star, and there are no enemies to worry about. In fact, this could actually be the easiest stage in the entire game, main or secret.

Tower of the Wing Cap: Once you've collected ten Power Stars, a beam of sunlight will shine down from the ceiling onto the rug in the center of the foyer. If you stand in the middle of the rug and look up at the light, you're instantly transported here, already wearing a Wing Cap. The main task is to pound the Red Switch on the central platform in order to activate the blocks containing the Wing Cap throughout the game, but, as with most courses, there's also a Power Star that can be obtained here by collecting eight Red Coins. The Coins are found in 

pairs in the middle of four Yellow Coin rings at different altitudes throughout the level, but the Wing Cap's limited amount of power and the fact that you slowly but surely lose altitude the more you fly makes this task fairly difficult. There is a Red Block containing an extra cap on the platform with the switch, but you have to use a Triple Jump to take off again, which won't give you the altitude you need to collect any of the Coins higher up, so it's pretty worthless. It's best to go counterclockwise from 

where you start the level, collecting all the Red Coins from there on, as they get lower and lower. Fortunately, like the Secret Slide, if you fall here, you just end up back in the lobby without losing a life. And trust me, there's another secret stage involving the Wing Cap later on that is much more frustrating.

Bowser in the Dark World: When you collect eight Power Stars, you're informed that you can open the Big Star Door on the left end of the mezzanine. When you do, you see a painting of Princess Peach at the end of a long hallway, but as you walk towards it, it slowly becomes an image of Bowser, and once he's fully in view, a trapdoor opens, plummeting you into the level. It's an obstacle course floating in the center of a dark, endless void in a gigantic cavern, with numerous obstacles like different kinds of tricky platforms to maneuver across (some that move back

and forth, others that act like makeshift seesaws, etc.), flamethrowers, narrow paths spanning over the long fall to your doom, and many twists and turns. The only actual enemies are Goombas and Amps, but, again, there are eight Red Coins to collect for a Power Star. Two of them are found near the start of the level, hovering in space just off of the platform, but you have to hit a Purple Switch to produce the wooden blocks necessary to reach them. From there, they're found next to a crystal embedded in a path with 

circling Amps; on a continuously extending and retracting yellow rectangle that emerges from a gray, stone block; in the left corner of a spot where two platforms that look like inverted pyramids circle each other; on an octagonal platform off of the main route; on a narrow ledge to the right of the second seesaw platform; and atop the first of three platforms hanging above the seesaws. Fittingly, the Power Star appears next to the Warp Pipe that leads you to Bowser, which you reach by pressing a Purple Switch that produces steps out of a steep slope leading up to it. 

As for the actual fight with Bowser, this first one is really easy. While Bowser may try to fry you with his fire breath, which also produces fireballs that can hurt you in and of themselves, and stun you by jumping up into the air and stomping the ground, he's really slow and not able to react well to your moves. Thus, all you have to do is get behind him, grab his tail, swing him around, and throw him into one of the spiked bombs lining the outside of the arena. If you throw him off the arena without hitting one of the bombs, he just jumps back up onto it. Once he hits one, it 

explodes, he gets blown back, crashes onto the platform on his back, and admits defeat, but declares that you'll pay for this later. He then disappears, leaving the key that opens the door leading to the Basement in his place.

The Castle Basement: Accessed through either of the two plain, wooden doors on either side of the stairs in the lobby, the large door to the Basement is found at the bottom of the stairs opposite the corridor leading to the courtyard. The Basement itself is the most non-linear area of levels, as it's composed of various rooms and hallways separated by doors. The main section, beyond the initial room with the Big Star Door, is a small maze of hallways with green-colored, metal walls, adorned by red and blue torches (and yes, they can burn you if you jump into them), and

stretches of floor with shallow, standing puddles of water. Three of the five levels that make up the area are accessed here, and there's a door off to the right that leads to a room that's initially flooded. However, if you swim to the other end, you come across a spot with two pillars that, when pounded, drain the water. Doing so grants access to a metal door that leads out into the moat, which is now completely drained as well. It stays drained for the rest of the game, which was something I never really liked as a kid, because I always liked the moat. But you need to do this in order to access the Vanish Cap Switch Course.

In the room with the portal that leads to Hazy Maze Cave is a Toad who, when you first talk to him, gives you a Power Star. It's also possible to obtain two other of the castle's Secret Stars in the Basement, but the objective to do so is really frustrating. After you've collected fifteen Stars, a yellow rabbit named MIPS suddenly appears in the Basement's main area, and if you catch him, you get a Star. You can do this again after you've gathered fifty Stars, but, both times, he proves to be a real pain to catch, as he's really fast and agile. You'll often yourself diving at him around 

corners and when he hits a dead end but, more often than not, he hops out of the way and stays just out of your reach. There's no strategy other than to just jump and dive at him until you get lucky and snag him. When you do get him, some of his dialogue is reminiscent of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, but talking about how late he is. (And yet, after you've caught him, he just sits there, instead of hopping around like mad the way he did before.) Once you've caught him both times, he disappears completely for the rest of the game.

Big Boo's Haunt: The entrance to this level is technically not in the Basement but, rather, in the courtyard at the end of the corridor opposite the small flight of stairs that head down to the Basement door. Once you've collected twelve Power Stars, a Boo appears in the corridor, and if you follow him, you'll find that the courtyard is full of them. Most of them just contain a single Yellow Coin, but one of them, a Big Boo, holds a miniature cage, or carousel. When you defeat him, touching the carousel will transport you to this level (you have to do this every time you

want to enter the level, even when you've just completed a mission, which is rather tedious), which is a big haunted house in the middle of a dark forest on a full moon night. It's actually not a very big level, but there are three floors to it, with multiple rooms that you have to explore, as well as a basement area with a haunted merry-go-round that's connected to a shack on the property. There are also some rooms in the main house where you can fall down into the basement and, while it doesn't injure you, as you land

in some water, it also means you have to find your way to the elevator, go up into the shack, and then exit it back onto the grounds and reenter the house. Also, some of the Stars here are quite tricky to get. Naturally, the level is filled with Boos, both regular and big ones (you have to battle three of the latter for Stars), along with Scuttle Bags, the Mad Piano, Bookends, and Mr. Is, as well as hazards such as flamethrowers, falling bridges, and such. 

The first Power Star mission, Go on a Ghost Hunt, is pretty simple: you have to defeat all five of the Boos found on the house's first floor, then do the same to the Big Boo. There are two Boos found in the room behind the second door on the left in the foyer, which has some bookcases, a Boo portrait, and a couple of chairs that, when you approach them, lift up off the floor and fly at you. The Boos are on the other side of the portrait, but will come out and approach you if you keep your back to it long enough. Another Boo is found in the room to the left in the back of the foyer,

in a large room where he hangs out with a Mr. I. The door to the right of this one leads to a room with a crumbling bridge that spans over a dark chasm; another Boo is on the other side of the bridge. And the door there leads to a room with narrow ledges around another dark chasm, with a Boo floating around one of them. Each time you defeat a Boo, you get a message about how ghosts don't die, and once you've gotten them all, you get a message that says the Big Boo is coming for you. He shows up in the foyer and is, in reality, not at all hard to beat. You just

have to face away from him and stomp him three times to defeat him, after which you get the Star, as well as activate a stairway leading to the second floor. However, you don't go up there quite yet, as the second mission is Ride Big Boo's Merry-Go-Round, meaning you have go down to the basement. When you get down there, either by using the elevator in the shack or jumping down one of the holes on the house's first floor, your objective is basically the same as the first mission: defeat all the small Boos to

trigger and then defeat a Big Boo. The difference is you have to do it on a constantly rotating platform, one with a flamethrower that routinely shoots out of one of the Boo portraits on the wall. The Boos typically come out two at a time and, like before, there are five in all. Big Boo is defeated in the same manner as before in order to get the Star. Secret of the Haunted Books is when you get to go up to the second floor, through the second door on the left side of the landing. This leads into a large library, where you 

have to make your way from one end to the other, avoiding the Bookends that come flying out at you. At the other end, you come upon a bookcase with three books sticking out. You have to hit them in the correct order (middle, right, left) to move the case, revealing a door; putting in the wrong order earns you a blow from a Bookend and you then have to start the code over. The door behind the bookcase leads to the Power Star.

Seek the 8 Red Coins requires you to explore just about every part of the house (none of them are on the grounds outside or down in the basement). One of the Red Coins is in the first room on the left in the foyer, behind the Mad Piano, meaning you have to grab it and run. Two are atop the bookcases in the room with the Boo portrait, while another is on one of the ledges in the room with the pit leading down to the basement. One is in a room to the left of the top of staircase, which has some red mesh with large gaps that you have to navigate, while the room behind the

door on the right in front of the staircase has two. This room has six sarcophagi that lift up whenever you get close, and two of them have Red Coins beneath them. However, the sarcophagi can come back down almost as quickly and suddenly as they stand up, and can damage you when they do. And the room on the far right of the second floor has the last Coin on one side of a trapdoor in the floor. The Star appears on a Star Marker on the second floor's left side. Big Boo's Balcony is when you take on the Big Boo one last time. If you look up at the top of the

house at the start of many missions, you can see a Big Boo wandering around on a balcony high above the entrance. To get up there, you have to go the room on the second floor with the trapdoor and Walk-Kick up to a ledge above the doorway. This leads to an attic area, with some double doors on the right side that lead out onto the balcony. There, you defeat Big Boo like normal, but, of course, the Star can't just appear on the balcony as well. No, it has to go up to the very top of the house behind you, forcing you to Long

Jump to the right to another section of the roof, then climb your way up to the Star. It's best to crawl up the sloping roof, onto the perfectly level top, then make your way over to where the Star is. The problem is that it's hard to get the camera in a good position here, and if you slip off the roof, you have to go all the way back up there. Eye to Eye in the Secret Room requires you to have activated the Vanish Cap, and is a very time-sensitive one to pull off. You have to go back to that room with the trapdoor, make your way to the

other end, which leads to a spot where you can get a Vanish Cap. Then, you have to activate the cap, run back through the room, Walk-Kick your way back up to the attic, and run around the corner to the large Boo portrait there. On the other side is a gigantic Mr. I., whom you can defeat just like the normal ones in order to get a Star. And because the Boos each cough up a Blue Coin when defeated with a Ground Pound, as do the Mr. Is, getting the 100-Coin Star is really easy.

Hazy Maze Cave: The first level actually found down in the Castle Basement, this one is behind a door with a star on it off to the right from the painting that leads to Lethal Laval Land. The portal is a shimmering pool of black ooze found in the middle of the floor in this room. This is a personal favorite level of mine because, even though it's fairly small, there are various different paths and areas to find and explore. Fortunately, there are various signs letting you know which area you're in, as well as directions to where everything else is. From the starting point,

you can either go to the left, which leads to a chamber where there's a huge bottomless pit, with an endless supply of giant boulders tumbling down into it, or to the right, which leads to a construction site that involves some tricky jumping and climbing puzzles. There's a hallway that branches off from this chamber that also leads to the bottomless pit, as well as a door that leads to the actual Hazy Maze, which is full of toxic gas that saps your life, requiring you to either stay above it or get a Metal Cap, which makes you

temporarily immune to it. Finally, following the path from the pit that the huge boulders roll down takes you to a steel door that opens to an elevator which goes down to an underground lake inhabited by a blue Plesiosaur named Dorrie. Enemy-wise, you have Scuttle Bugs and Mr. Is as the main ones, whereas the actual Hazy Maze is full of the bat enemies called Swoops, the bullet-spitting Snuffits, and the really aggravating Monty Moles. You also have to watch out for both Flamethrowers and Fireballs in various parts of the level.

Swimming Beast in the Cavern entails heading down to the underground lake and using Dorrie to reach the island in the center where the Power Star is. Speaking of Dorrie (whom the Player's Guide calls a "she," probably because the Loch Ness Monster is also often referred to as a female), despite the sign on the shore warning you about not becoming her lunch, she is quite friendly. When I ride the elevator down to the top of the slope that leads to the lake, I always like to stand there and use the camera to look off into the distance, as she swims around in the darkness. It

looks both eerie and really cool. In any case, to reach the island, you have to swim to Dorrie and then climb up onto her back, Ground Pound to make her lower her head, then climb up onto it and jump to the island when you get close enough. This is easier than you may think, as Dorrie always turns in the direction Mario is facing. Elevate for 8 Red Coins takes place entirely within the construction area, where you have to use two different lifts to reach the Coins. One lift, accessed by hopping up some large steps, is fitted with arrows so you can control the direction you

travel in. It may sound simple enough, but you have to avoid these long bars that threaten to knock you off the lift and projectiles fired by a Mr. I on one platform. Also, you sometimes have to maneuver the lift through tight spaces between platforms and columns, and if it crashes into something, it automatically goes in reverse, forcing you to correct its trajectory. Three of the Red Coins are found within blocks floating around this lower level, and another on a platform off in a corner. On a ledge parallel to

where you first find the lift is a pole that leads up to the area where the other four Red Coins are. Here, you ride on a checkerboard lift that moves by itself, dodging obstacles like poles and small platforms hanging down in your path, as well as deal with Swoops that come down at you, while you collect the Coins. The Power Star appears back on the actual floor, and you have to be careful about just jumping down there, as you can easily injure yourself.

Since this level is also where you activate the Metal Cap, it's no surprise that you have to make use of it to reach one of the Stars. In Metal-Head Mario Can Move!, you have to hit the Green Block by the path leading down into the underground lake, grab the cap, and then rush down to the water, following the path to an underwater ledge with a Purple Switch. The Switch opens a metal gate blocking a door that leads to a corridor where the Power Star is found. You have to make a couple of Long Jumps over a series of gaps in the floor, while also avoiding Scuttle Bugs that leap

up out of the pits, to get to the Star. Navigating the Toxic Maze forces you to make your way down to the Hazy Maze and, from where you first enter it, keep to the left as you head down the tunnels. Again, there's a Metal Cap here that makes you immune to the gas, and also makes dealing with the Snuffits and Monty Moles easier. The goal is to reach the second ledge on the cave wall, go through the door there, and head down the corridor, which leads to an elevator that takes you to an otherwise inaccessible spot where the Star is found. You have to go back down into the

Hazy Maze for A-Maze-Ing Emergency Exit, only this time, you jump up to the first ledge on the wall that you come to. The door there leads to another hallway with an elevator at the end, but this one leads up to a spot above the bottomless pit. Here, there's some red wire mesh hanging above you that you have to jump up and hang on to, before making your way over to a platform with a Power Star. This is a sensitive challenge, as one wrong move can send you falling down into the pit, and there are Swoops in here that

can knock you off the mesh (as one once did to me). Watch for Rolling Rocks is very straightforward: you have to run past the large boulders running down to the pit, head to the door at the end of the corridor to the right up there, and Wall-Kick up to a ledge where the Star is. As for the 100-Coin Star, there are plenty of Blue Coins to be found down in the Hazy Maze, thanks to a Switch down there, but you have to make sure you have the path directly in your line of sight in order to effectively get them all (some are stacked up

against the wall). Once you have those, you can defeat all the various enemies in the level, as well as collect the Coins in the construction area, particularly the red ones, in order to get a hundred.

Cavern of the Metal Cap: Unlike the other two cap switch courses, this one is accessed within a main level, specifically Hazy Maze Cave. The entrance is found on a ledge in the underground lake, one that you can only reach with Dorrie's help. Beyond the double metal doors is a hallway that leads to a room with another shimmering portal, which transports you to the cavern. Like the other cap courses, you enter this with the Metal Cap automatically equipped, and head down a metal hallway with a Snuffit before reaching the actual cavern. It's really just a tunnel 

with water running through it, as well as a series of ledges and walkways, crystals growing out of the walls, and the large Green Switch in the back of the place. Like before, there's also a Power Star to be accessed here by collecting eight Red Coins. They're all found near the Green Switch, with two in an alcove before the row of platforms heading towards it, two on either side of the Switch itself, and four down in the water around the Switch's platform. You need to use the Metal Cap in order to grab the last four; otherwise, the strong current will sweep you out of the level and into the pool being fed by the waterfall on the left side of the castle moat.

Lethal Lava Land: This is the only level in the Castle Basement that you access by jumping through a painting, specifically the one of the flaming face in the back of the small maze of hallways. A series of platforms, walkways, and lifts floating in a huge sea of lava, this is definitely the most difficult level thus far, for obvious reasons. Literally, wherever you turn, there's hot, boiling lava waiting for you, and even though falling into it doesn't mean instant death, Mario's frantic jumping around could cost you a life if you don't steer him towards a platform. Many of the 

platforms have their own unique quirks and hazards that you have to contend with, including a giant Bowser jigsaw puzzle with constantly shifting pieces, and one of those giant, rolling logs you have to use to get one of the Power Stars. And the centerpiece of the level is a small volcano with a rotating ring around it, the inside of which is like a mini-level in and of itself, with a pair of really difficult tasks you have to accomplish to get two Power Stars. The enemies present are the Bullies, Mr. Is, and hopping Podoboos,

as well as hazards like Flamethrowers, Fire Bars, and, inside the volcano, sections of the wall that attempt to flatten you. There are both a Koopa Shell and a Wing Cap to be found in the main level, which make it easier to get around, as well as reach the numerous 1-Ups strewn throughout it. And there's also a warp found beneath a Mr. I on a platform near the Bowser puzzle that allows you to get to an isolated platform housing the Wing Cap.

Most of the challenge from the missions comes from actually getting to the spot where your objective lies. For instance, in Boil the Big Bully, you have to make your way to a large, wooden platform in the back of the level, best accessed by going to the left on the main path and following that route past obstacles like the Bowser puzzle, regular Bullies, a rotating Fire Bar on one platform, and another platform where the lava keeps repeatedly enveloping all but the very center of it. Once you get to the Big Bully himself, you just have to push him off his platform and down into the 

lava. When he's dead, the Power Star appears on a tall platform across from the one you're on, and set of stairs appears to allow you access to it (said stairs collapse when you walk across them, though). Bully the Bullies is virtually the same mission, as you have to make your way to another platform in the back of the level, this time by taking the right route at the start. When you reach this platform, you have to defeat three normal Bullies, and then another Big Bully in order to get the Star; this time it actually appears on the platform you're on. 8-Coin Puzzle with

15 Pieces is probably the easiest Red Coin-oriented mission in the whole game, as they're all located on the Bowser puzzle. Not only is that both easy to spot and get to, but, other than making sure you don't fall into the lava due to the moving pieces, actually collecting the Coins is really easy, too, and the Star appears on a separate platform right next to the puzzle. Red-Hot Log Rolling is where things get a tad tricky. Again taking the right route, specifically to a circular platform across from the volcano with two 

Bullies, from there, you ride a small, wire lift over to where the giant log is while avoiding some flame jets that come up out of the lava. When you reach the log, you have to roll it over to reach a ledge up against some grating, where the Star is. If you want to cheat, though, you can also grab the Wing Cap and simply fly over the grating.

The last two Power Stars are found inside the volcano, which you can jump into fairly easily, especially if you're riding a Koopa Shell, which is only available when you select either of these missions. Hot-Foot-It into the Volcano has you take the path to the right of where you first enter it, to a series of ledges that make their way up the volcano's interior. Along the way, you have to avoid Bullies, Flamethrowers, and hidden Wall Smashers, before hopping across a series of small platforms, walking along a very narrow ledge in front of a lava-fall, and

finally, and most nerve-wracking of all, jumping across a line of poles on some tiny, suspended platforms in order to finally get to the Star. It's the kind of jumping challenge that makes you hold your breath whenever you attempt it. Elevator Tour in the Volcano has you take a path to the left of the starting point in the volcano, one where you hop across platforms in order to reach another one of those automatic checkerboard lifts. This leads to another one that you have to jump to, and at the end of that 

lift's path is a pole you have to climb up, towards a platform with a rotating Fire Bar. Avoiding the flames, you have to jump onto that platform, then climb up another pole to reach a set of smaller platforms you use to get to the Star. What also makes these jumping tasks challenging is that the camera's range of motion inside the volcano is very limited. But the game is forgiving is that, if you lose a life here, you restart inside the volcano when you reenter the level. On the flip side, though, if you're going for 

the 100-Coin Star, you'd best enter the volcano after you've collected all there is to get in the main level, or you'll be stuck in there and won't be able to get out until you exit the level from the Pause Menu, forcing you to start the Coin collecting all over. Still, there are plenty of Coins to be found in the main level, especially while using the Koopa Shell and Wing Cap to reach spots you couldn't otherwise.

Shifting Sand Land: Found to the left of the painting to Lethal Lava Land, within a wall that initially appears to be a dead end, this desert level is akin to the previous one in that you have the main area on the outside, and the interior of the big pyramid at the center of it. Besides the music, another way in which the levels are similar is that this place is filled with tons of hazards. There are a number of enemies roaming about, especially near the start, like Bob-Ombs, Fly Guys, Goombas, and a Pokey, and there's also a lot of quicksand. The level's very edges lead

into a virtual sea of it; there are big swaths of it around the sides of the pyramid and the maze-like path of stone blocks, both of which kill you instantly if you fall into them; and whirlpool-like pits of the stuff which you can escape from by jumping up along the edge, unless you hit the bottom. There's also quicksand in some areas that sucks you down very slowly, allowing you to jump your way out of them. Tornadoes kick up in some spots around the pyramid, and while they can be useful, as they pick you up and

allow you to twirl over to areas that are otherwise impossible to reach, they can also send you into the quicksand. The aforementioned maze-like path has large moving boxes called Tox Boxes flipping along it, which are nearly impossible to get around, and they can either squish you or knock you into the quicksand. When one comes towards you, you have to make sure it comes down on you on the side that has a large opening which you can fit into. And you not only have to cross this path to get from one side

of the desert to the other, but some Red Coins and the level's one cannon are also found there (the Bob-Omb Buddy is just beyond the maze). Fortunately, there are three places here where you can get a Wing Cap, as well as a Koopa Shell, which allows you to ride right over the quicksand (just don't hit anything!), and there's also a Warp that takes you to the isolated cannon. 

There's much more to the inside of the pyramid than there was the volcano. There are enemies that include not only the familiar Goombas and Amps, but some new types called Grindels and a Spindel. Grindels are kind of like mummified Thwomps and, while they can smash you, you also have to use them to reach some higher walkways. There's nothing useful about the Spindel, however, as it acts like a mummified steamroller, running back and forth along one walkway; fortunately, there is a safe spot within the wall there. The center of the bottom floor is a huge 

sandpit that slowly pulls you down, seriously impacting your ability to move and jump, and it can kill you if you let it take you down too far. Like the volcano, there are two possible paths to take inside the pyramid, as well as several different Stars to be found, and, again, once you've entered it, you restart inside it when you reenter the level after losing a life.

The first Power Star mission, In the Talons of the Big Bird, tasks you with taking the Star from a large condor named Klepto. He constantly circles the area, but often stays around the spot where there are two pillars near the oasis on the pyramid's opposite side. You have to climb up one of the pillars (you can just run up them without any issues), wait for Klepto to get close, and then leap into him, causing him to drop the Star. You can also just fly into him with the Wing Cap. However, in other missions, Klepto will swoop down at you and try to steal your hat, and if he does, 

you have to retrieve it using the same method you used to get the Star. Shining Atop the Pyramid has you collect a Star found in alcove right beneath the pyramid's tip. There are several ways to get it. One is the normal way, where you head to the pyramid's entrance near the oasis and then make your way across the ledges running along its side, but the Flame Throwers and Fly Guys you run into here threaten to send you off into the quicksand. Using either the Wing Cap or the Koopa Shell are much safer methods. Inside the Ancient Pyramid is the most

straightforward of the Power Stars to obtain inside it. When you enter, you have to take the path to the right, use the Grindel you come across to reach the floor up above, then continue making your way to the right. The challenges along this path involve climbing a pole, making your way across the underside of some wire mesh (or jumping up to and running along its top), avoiding getting crushed by the Spindel, climbing across some stone slabs that continuously move up and down, making your way along a very narrow ledge while avoiding some Amps, climbing up to a spot where you have to cross a small walkway while avoiding a Grindel, and finally heading up a slope to reach the Star.

Stand Tall on the Four Pillars definitely doesn't go in the direction you'd expect, considering what you initially have to do. As the title says, you have to stand atop each of the four pillars found around the pyramid, and while you can just approach and run up most of them like normal, there's one in the quicksand near the path with the Tox Boxes that you have to reach with the Wing Cap. You have to stand perfectly still atop each for a second, meaning using the Koopa Shell doesn't work, and Fly Guys and Klepto can make accomplishing this trickier than you'd expect.

Once you've done it, the top of the pyramid floats up into the air and explodes, revealing a secret entrance. Entering it drops you into a lift that descends down the center of the pyramid's interior, taking you to a block of red bricks in the sandpit at the bottom. You then make your way through the small opening, reaching a room with some stone steps in front of a sarcophagus. If you climb onto the "steps," they suddenly come alive and form a boss called Eyerok. Basically, he consists of a pair of stone hands which each have an eyeball in their palms. He challenges 

you to a fight for intruding into his tomb and disturbing his rest. During the first part of the fight, one of the hands tries to either crush you or push you off the platform, into the abyss below, while the other stands there with its eye open. Sometimes, however, both hands try to attack at the same time by pounding their fists along the platform. Regardless, the eyes are where you need to attack by punching, and once you've hit one of them three times, the hand explodes. The remaining hand then attempts to sweep you off 

the platform while its eye is open, forcing you to punch really quickly. After this other hand has been hit three times, it also explodes and Eyerok admits defeat, with the Star appearing above the sarcophagus.

Free Flying for 8 Red Coins is much more straightforward and, as the title says, four of the Coins require the Wing Cap, as they're floating high in the air near the pyramid's corners. The other four are on the ground, including at the very edge of the level behind the starting point; within a wooden block beneath the stone structure near the starting point; in the oasis on the one side of the pyramid; and in the center of the path with the Tox Boxes. The Star itself appears atop the stone structure, where you can also get a Wing Cap and a Koopa Shell. Pyramid Puzzle

requires you to go back into the pyramid one last time in order to collect five special Yellow Coins, each of which materializes a big red number when touched. Since all of these Coins are found near the top of the pyramid, in and around the sand running down like a waterfall, it's best to enter by destroying the pyramid's summit in the same manner you did when collecting the fourth Star, then jumping out of the lift and onto the spot beneath the ledge where the third Star was. You then have to carefully work your way down 

three small platforms floating around the falling sand, each with a Coin (it's best to use the camera to see where each platform is before you attempt to jump down to it), before jumping into the stream of sand and collecting the final two within it. The Power Star appears at the end of the stream, before it drops down into the sandpit, and if you miss it, getting back up there is a real headache. As was the case with the 100-Coin Star in Lethal Lava Land, you'd best collect

as many Coins as you can in the outside area before going into the pyramid. Both areas have plenty of opportunities to collect Coins, and there's a Blue Coin Switch inside the pyramid that activates a stack of them out in the sandpit.

Dire, Dire Docks: This level, along with the second Bowser level, Bowser in the Fire Sea, is behind the Big Star Door you find when you first enter the Basement. Said door requires thirty Stars to open, and you have to collect the first of Dire, Dire Dock's Power Stars before you can access the Bowser level. In addition to being another swimming level and having the same music score, there are a number of similarities between this and Jolly Roger Bay. For instance, it's divided into two sections, with the opening being an underwater area with a deadly 

whirlpool, and a creature, in this case a Manta Ray, that constantly circles the area and whom you can claim a Star from. An underwater tunnel leads to the other part of the level, which is mostly above water, akin to the cave in Jolly Roger Bay: here, it's a large docking bay, where Bower's submarine is initially moored. After you've defeated Bowser in the Fire Sea, the sub is gone from the docks and never reappears, even when you replay this particular mission. Instead, it's replaced by a system of poles moving along the bay's ceiling, which you have to 

use in order to get the Red Coins. (Like the drained moat, I wished the sub remained when you replayed this mission, as I thought it was cool..) There's also a gate with Bowser's face on one end of the bay that, when the sub is gone, opens up to a warp that leads outside the castle. There's no real reason to use this, since you'll just have to make your way back to the level's portal, and if you get too close to the opening, it'll suck you in. There are more enemies here than in Jolly Roger Bay, but most of them are in the first area 

and act pretty indifferently towards you. They consist of Bubs, Sushi, Clam Shells, and the aforementioned Manta Ray. However, there are Flame Throwers in the docking bay that can prove to be a nuisance, and just like in Jolly Roger Bay, the whirlpool at the bottom of the first area means instant death if you get sucked into it.

Speaking of the sub, the first mission, Board Bowser's Sub, is pretty self-explanatory. You just have to swim through the tunnel to the docking bay, climb onto the wooden walkway that runs along its walls, and activate a Purple Switch that creates some wooden blocks you use to cross over to the sub. The Star is next to the conning tower. The second mission, Chests in the Current, has you open four treasure chests lining the bottom of the first area. Like before, you have to swim up to and touch them in the correct order to open them, and they're spread out 

from each other farther than they were before. The fourth one is the worst, as it's right in front of the whirlpool, and if you don't approach it from the correct direction or make sure the camera is situated properly, you could get sucked in. Pole-Jumping for Red Coins is probably the most tedious Red Coin mission in the game, as well as one of the trickiest. When you reach the now empty docking bay, you use the same Purple Switch from before, which now activates a second set of blocks. You use these to reach a floating platform from which you can jump 

to the moving poles. The first four Red Coins are easy to get, as one is right there on the platform, and three can be obtained by simply jumping onto the one moving pole to the left and letting it carry you into them. The other four, however, is where things get tricky, as you have to make your way to the platform straight ahead of the first one you climb up to (which also has the Star Marker), then take two different paths, made up of various sets of poles that you have to jump across. You really have to make sure the 

camera is at the best angle so you can see where the poles line up in order to jump to them without any mishap. One path forces you to do this for just one Coin, while the other path has you jump to a pole to ride into one, then jump between two panels of wire mesh to grab another pole and reach the last two. And then, you have to make your way back to the platform with the Star Marker, either by tediously going back the way you came or jumping down, hitting the Switch again, and climbing back up there.

Through the Jet Stream is much simpler, as you have to, again, swim over to the submarine pen, to a spot on the bottom where a metal grate has bubble rings flowing out of it. You have to swim through five rings in a row or, at the very least, hover above the spot and let the rings come to you. If you miss getting five in a row, the process restarts, but it's not hard at all. When you've gone through five and triggered the Star, you have to activate the Metal Cap on the walkway and use it to reach the Star, as it appears right above the grating and the jet stream pushes you back if you try

to swim through it. The Manta Ray's Reward involves a similar task, but it's a lot trickier, as you have to follow the Manta Ray in the first area and swim through the rings he leaves behind. Like the previous Star, you have to swim directly through five rings in a row in order to succeed, and if you mess up, the process restarts and you have to wait for the Manta to start producing rings again. You also have to be sure not to touch the end of his tail, as you'll take damage (his rings give you oxygen and health, though), while also keeping an eye on the whirlpool so you don't

accidentally swim into it. And the Star appears right above the whirlpool, so you again have to watch what you're doing. Collect the Caps requires you to have activated the Vanish Cap, as you need it to reach a Star contained in a metal cage on one end of the second area. Despite the mission title, you can collect this Star with just the Vanish Cap by grabbing it, jumping into the water, and swimming for the cage. But if you're not too confident in your ability to swim to the cage before the Vanish Cap runs out, you can 

grab the Metal Cap as well and walk along the seabed towards the cage. And as you can probably guess, the 100-Coin Star requires you to use those poles to reach the Red Coins, as well as activate a Blue Coin Switch on one platform in the back of the docking bay, in addition to collecting the Coins found in the first area, on the seabed in the submarine pen, and the walkway.

Vanish Cap Under the Moat: When you drain the moat, you gain access to this course, through an opening in the moat's bottom to the far right (before it's drained, there's some grating over the opening). The first part of the level is the top of a large, gray slide, with various platforms and ledges running down it. At the bottom is a path that bends around to the right, and goes through a series of seesaw platforms and those moving checkerboard platforms, leading to the Blue Switch. Like the Tower of the Wing Cap and The Princess's Secret Slide, while 

there is a drop into a dark void here, you don't lose a life if you fall down there but, rather, are just thrown back out of the opening. It is still possible to die here, though, as the jumps from those platforms along the big slide can hurt you, and there are also Amps and Flame Throwers to deal with. Again, you can collect a Power Star by getting eight Red Coins, the first four of which are on those platforms on the slide. What sucks about them is that there's no way to get back up the slide, so if you miss one, you have to start the 

level over. The next three are along the last part of the path, with two on either end of the second seesaw, and one above the second set of checkerboard platforms. The last one is right by the Blue Switch, and the Power Star appears within a cage that you pass through using the Vanish Cap, found in a box to the left of the Switch.

Bowser in the Fire Sea: Again, this is accessed behind the Big Star Door in the basement, the same as Dire, Dire Docks. Once you've completed the first mission there, the watery portal that leads to that level will be pushed further back into the room, allowing you to access the opening in the floor that leads here. The stage itself is very similar to Lethal Lava Land, as it's made up of a series of various types of platforms you use to traverse your way across a huge lake of lava; the difference is that you have to make your way up three levels in order to reach the portal 

that leads to Bowser. The tasks here include riding a wire mesh platform that dives into the lava, forcing you to jump along others; run across platforms that slowly descend into and then rise from the lava; climb up and jump off poles that do the same; run across sloping mounds and collapsing bridges; climb across grates; and make your way up platforms that slowly move up and down. In addition to the obstacles of Flamethrowers, there are also Goombas, Bob-Ombs, Bullies, and Amps that you have to contend with. At

the same time, there are a fair number of Spinning Hearts and 1-Up Mushrooms to keep you going. As for the Red Coins, while some of them are easy to find and get, there are others that are trickier, such as two that require you to go off the main path; another that's found by getting onto an elevator, then quickly getting off it and jumping down to where the lift was sitting (I had completely forgotten about that one when I replayed the game recently); and waiting on the platforms that rise and fall for one of the Coins to appear within reach. And when you activate the Power Star, it appears atop a wall that you have to Wall-Kick or Triple Jump to.

Even though you still only have to throw him into one of the bombs to defeat him, the second battle with Bowser is quite a bit trickier than the first. It's mainly because he moves faster and turns at about the same speed as you, making it tougher to get behind him and get a good bead on his tail. On top of that, he starts the battle by jumping up into the air and landing with enough force to tilt the arena to where you slide towards him, and he also does this when you throw him off the platform without hitting a bomb. If you

get close to him, he warps around the arena, as well as charges at you if you put a lot of distance between the two of you. The latter actually gives you the best opportunity to get behind him, though, because if he runs right up to the edge of the arena, he'll stop long enough for you to grab his tail. The best method is to run to the edge where one of the bombs is, wait for Bowser to charge, then Backward Somersault behind him, grab his tail, and fling him into the bomb. Once you've beaten him, he gives you the key to the castle's Upper Floors and dares you to make your way up to the Tower for the final confrontation.

Upper Floors and Tower: While not quite as complex to navigate as the Basement, as all of the levels here are contained in one general area that's separated by two Big Star Doors, the third and final section of the castle still has some stages that can be tricky to locate. This definitely applies to the Second Floor, which you reach when open the door on the mezzanine in the foyer and head up some spiraling stairs. A circular room that mainly acts as something of an art gallery, this spot contains both the level

paintings you've already entered, and those that lead to two new ones. There are also two doors on opposite ends of the room from each other that lead to another two. However, except for one of them, there's a gimmick involved in entering each of these levels. This trend continues on the Third Floor, which is blocked by a Big Star Door that requires fifty Stars to open. Here, you enter a much smaller, round room, with a big grandfather clock directly across from the entrance, and two nooks on either side of the room, 

which lead to both the final regular level and secret one. There's also a Toad on both the Second and Third Floors that will give you a Power Star when you talk to him. On a platform right above the entrance is another Big Star Door that, despite claiming to require seventy Stars to activate, opens anyway if you walk up to it before you collect them. However, this leads to the "Endless Stairs," where you can try to climb them all you want, but you'll never gain any ground (unless you perform a certain glitch at the

bottom of the stairs, but you can look that up for yourself). Once you have the seventy Stars, you can climb them like normal and reach the final Bowser level.

Snowman's Land: The entrance to this level is found behind one of the two doors on the Second Floor, specifically the one inside a bit of an alcove in the wall. This leads to what's called the Mirror Room, for obvious reasons (it's a really cool touch that you can see the reflection of the Lakitu operating the camera in the mirror), and the portal is in the wall to the left of the mirror. While there's no actual painting there, there is a reflection of one in the mirror (it's the same painting as Cool, Cool Mountain), and so, you just 

jump into the wall. Obviously, it's another snow level, one that I find to be a bit easier than Cool, Cool Mountain, mainly because there's nowhere you can fall to your death here. Set in a wide snowfield with a giant Snowman as the centerpiece (the Snowman is a living being, by the way), there's a contained frozen maze to the left of the starting point; some spots where you run into random gusts of strong wind, specifically around a small ravine to the right of the starting point; a pond beneath a frozen platform that 

will damage you in a similar manner to lava if you fall into it (getting caught directly beneath the platform pretty much ensures instant death); a larger pond that will gradually sap your health if you stay in it for too long; an ice block dispenser at the base of the Snowman that threatens to push you into the freezing water; an igloo on a ledge next to the dispenser, which leads to a maze-like sub-level; and a path atop the dispenser that allows you to climb up the Snowman. However, when you come to an ice bridge in front of the Snowman's face, you need to 

use a large penguin who's walking back and forth across the bridge as either a shield or transport; otherwise, the Snowman will blow you away with his breath, causing you to lose your hat. The hat's not hard to find if you do lose it, but if you exit the level without it, odds are that a Mr. Blizzard will be wearing it when you return. Speaking of which, there are a good number of enemies here, like Fly Guys, Spindrifts, Money Bags, Amps, and, in the igloo, Goombas. There's also an arctic version of the

Bullies, called a Chill Bully, whom you have to defeat for a Star. And while there is a cannon found near the starting point, I often forget about it since the Bob-Omb Buddy is in the igloo, and there's no practical purpose for it, anyway, except possibly to blast yourself to the top of the Snowman.

Snowman's Big Head, as you can guess, requires you to climb up to the very top of the Snowman's head in order to reach a Power Star. Again, when you reach the top of the walkway and the ice bridge, you have to use the penguin in some manner to cross without being blown off. And when you make it to the other end of the bridge, you still have to be careful about climbing up onto the top of the Snowman's head, as the pathway you can walk along there is very narrow and you can slip off. Chill with the Bully is exactly

like the missions in Lethal Lava Land where you had to send the Big Bullies into the lava, right down to the very method you use to push the Chill Bully off the platform and into the frigid water, after which he produces a Star. Also, he won't walk onto the snow bridge that leads onto the platform, even when you're standing right there, which makes it easy to jump behind him and knock him into the water. The only thing that can make this task difficult is how slippery the platform is. In the Deep Freeze has you navigate 

the small ice maze near the starting point, a task that may seem difficult at first, considering how cramped this space is and how it can be hard to tell where you're supposed to go or jump to, but is actually pretty simple once you know what you're doing. Whirl from the Freezing Pond requires you to head to the large pond by the Snowman and use one of the Spindrifts roaming around there as a boost to get over the ledge on the other side. The best Spindrift to go for is the one wading in the water at the end of the ice block conveyor belt, but any of them will 

suffice if you can get them close enough to the ledge. What sucks is, if you mess up and kill all the Spindrifts without getting over the ledge, you have to exit the level and reenter to try again. Once you whirl over the ledge, you find two Item Boxes; the one on the left houses the Power Star. 

The other box up there contains a Koopa Shell, which comes in handy for the final two Stars. Case in point, Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins. While two of the Red Coins can be acquired without the shell, as they're on either side of the Chill Bully's platform, you need to get over the ledge behind the pond again in order to collect four of them, found on the path right in front of the box containing the shell. (You also have to make sure not to crash into a Mr. Blizzard who pops up in your path here.) And the 

final two Coins are beneath the Chill Bully's platforms, which you absolutely can't reach without the shell. Into the Igloo also requires the shell, as it's really hard to reach the ledge with the igloo without it (it is possible to reach it by jumping off the bridge in front of the Snowman's face, but that's a tricky jump). As small as the igloo is on the outside, to the point where you have to literally crawl to enter it, it proves to be quite large inside. The Power Star is visible as soon as you enter, encased in ice on a platform in 

front of the entrance, but to get it, you have to go into the back, where you can assess a Vanish Cap. This spot can be hard to find, as you have to walk through a tight space between two sections of wall, and then jump over the top of another wall in order to reach the block with the cap. Once you have the cap, you have to quickly rush back to where the Star is, and while being able to pass through things makes this easier than it would probably be otherwise, it feels like this cap runs out faster than normal. The cap also enables 

you to get at the stacks of Coins contained within some of the ice walls, which is very useful to do when going for the 100-Coin Star. There are also plenty of Coins found outside, with most of the enemies giving up three or even five when defeated.

Wet-Dry World: Found by jumping through a painting with a Skeeter on the Second Floor, this level, set in a flooded, deserted village, has an interesting gimmick in that the water level when you first enter depends on how high you were when you jumped through the painting. In addition, there are switches called Crystal Taps that you can use to raise or drain the water up to wherever a given Tap is sitting, and, needless to say, some Stars require specific water levels in order for you to reach them. 

Also, if you get very close to the top of the painting when you jump in, the water level will be at a height that can't be obtained otherwise. In addition to the main area, there's an underground section called "Downtown," found at the end of a long tunnel to the right of the starting point. There's a huge wire mesh cage surrounding the top of the tunnel, and to get over it, you have to either jump through the painting to trigger that high water level, or use the cannon found in the exact opposite end of the level to blast yourself 

high enough to sail over it. Either method is tricky, as getting to the Bob-Omb Buddy in order to activate the cannon is difficult due to where he's stationed, and if you use the high water level method, you have to quickly find a Crystal Tap to drain the water Downtown before you run out of air. Incidentally, this stage is another part of the game that many find to be uncanny and unsettling, given how it's a deserted place that was apparently inhabited at one point but now, there's not a living soul about, apart from the enemies you run into (many of whom are not even 

really living beings). The background of the main section suggests it's one part of a very large, ancient city (that's actually an altered photo of the city of Shibam in Yemen), and Downtown definitely has an eerie vibe, since it consists of abandoned living areas. The enemies include Skeeters, who either rush at you when they're on the water's surface or charge when they're on the ground, Heave-Hos, Chuckyas, Amps, and Flame Throwers.

The first mission, Shocking Arrow Lifts!, can be completed in various ways. The intended way is to head to a stone structure near the walkway where you start, accessed through the use of a Purple Switch; hit the Crystal Tap to raise the water level up to it; swim over to a floating wooden platform; use it to reach the orange, brick platforms; and then, ride the Arrow Lifts over to the ledge with the box housing the Power Star. It sounds simple enough, as the lifts move in whatever direction the arrows point in, but they're

so small that you can slip off, and there's also an Amp circling around this spot, as well as a Flame Thrower on the ledge with the box. It's also possible to Long Jump over to the ledge; raise the water level to where you can swim right under the box and jump up to break it open; use a Warp found at the bottom, when the water is at its lowest point, to reach the top of the tall platform housing the cannon and drop down to the ledge; or, with the water at its highest level, Ground Pound the box from the platform with the cannon.

Top o' the Town is easy to complete if you enter and raise the water to its highest level; otherwise, you have to use the Heave-Hos and Triple Jumps to reach the highest part of the level, specifically the section to the left of where you head Downtown. Once you're up there, you have to get around the Chuckya, jump onto the long, narrow board that spans over to some platforms floating high above the town, and cross it while avoiding the two Amps flying right above it (I find it's best to switch to Mario-Cam and press down on the C-Buttons for the best viewpoint). Upon

reaching the first platform, you have to avoid the Flame Thrower there, jump to a spinning platform, and finally jump to the one with the box housing the Star. Secrets in the Shallows & Sky has you search the level for five secret spots, raising the water to various levels in order to reach them. When you find one, it's indicated by a large, orange number that appears. You have to drain the water to its lowest point to reach three of them, which are found over on the left side of the level's lower section, and accessed by pushing two crates you find (one into a wall and another against 

the wall), as well as by breaking a box over in the corner. On the third level, there's another box found on a small pillar with an Amp and some Coins circling around it that has the fourth secret, while the fifth is in a box on top of the chain-like elevator shaft, which you reach by activating a Purple Switch. And then, after all that, they make the Star appear all the way back at the starting point.

Express Elevator-Hurry Up! also requires the water to be at its lowest level, as you have to smash the block found at the lower left corner of the bottom of the chain-link elevator shaft, then make your way up to the third level of the area (you have to do this using the Heave-Hos to throw you up onto the ledges) so you can reach the top of the shaft. Inside, the Star hovers above one half of a wooden panel that sticks out through the shaft's side, and the way to get it is quite tricky. You have to stand on the opposite side of

the platform on the exterior, and when it lowers, jump down to the ground below, run through the opening, and when the platform stops, quickly jump onto it before it starts moving again (you have to do either a Backward Somersault or Wall-Kick to reach it). Once you're on it, you can just ride it up to where the Star is. Go to Town for the Red Coins, obviously, requires you to head to the Downtown area. Once you're down there, you have to drain the water all the way to its lowest point, as most of the Red Coins are hidden in

blocks you can't break open while you're swimming (the one that isn't inside a block you can just swim to before draining the water), using the Crystal Tap below the entrance. You have to use various kinds of jumps, like Triple Jumps and Wall-Kicks, or jumping from the tops of trees, to get to them, as most of them are on rooftops and on either side of the gray stone wall surrounding the plaza. Fortunately, they give you a break and have the Star itself appear in the plaza. Quick Race Through Downtown! again requires you to head down there and drain the water. Once

that's done, you go to a spot on the opposite end from the entrance, where you collect the Vanish Cap. The moment you're transparent, you have to run back the way you came, hit the Purple Switch hidden in this small alleyway to the left of the Crystal Tap, and then run to the end of the area's left side (you can pass through the walls around the plaza) to reach a large cage where the Star is found atop some platforms. The Purple Switch activates a block you can use to climb up to where the Star is but, if you run out of time, you can still get up there by Wall-Kicking, 

although the camera angle makes it really difficult. The Downtown area is a good place to collect Coins for the 100-Coin Star, as is the Blue Coin Switch found in the main area up above, and the Coins you get from the Skeeters and the Chuckya.

Tall, Tall Mountain: The painting behind the staircase on the Second Floor is so small and innocuous-looking, with the mushrooms and the mountain path next to them, that you'd probably never guess it leads to one of the hardest levels by far. The main reason why is because there are so many places where you can easily fall to your death, including gaps directly in your path and narrow bridges you have to walk across. There's also a set of mushroom platforms that can be difficult to jump onto (which, of

course, is where some of the Red Coins and a Warp can be found); a path leading to the level's cannon that's virtually impossible to reach without using the Warp; another one of those big rolling logs you have to use to cross a gap; a slope with those same kind of big iron balls first seen in Bob-Omb Battlefield; and a very hazardous slide through the heart of the mountain that can trick you into going into a literal dead end. There are also often multiple paths you can take while scaling the mountain, and some are more 

difficult than others. There are a plethora of enemies here, too, like Goombas, Bob-Ombs, Monty Moles, Chuckyas, Fly Guys, and a couple of new ones who only appear here. One is Fwoosh, a living cloud whom you come across near the top of the mountain. While you can just run by him, if you give him the chance, he'll blow you off the ledge and back down to the start of the level. He'll also send your hat flying, and you won't be able to get it back until you exit and reenter the level. When you do, a monkey called Ukkiki, found near the big, rolling log, will have it, 

and you have to grab him in order to get it back. He'll also steal your hat if you grab him while you have it on you. Fortunately, he's much easier to catch than MIPS, and he's also instrumental in collecting one of the Power Stars.

You have to face all of the level's hazards during the first mission, Scale the Mountain. While making your way up to the top, you also have to decide which route to take early on, either by scaling some platforms near some Monty Moles or running past them, to the spot where you have to first cross a bridge, then use the big log to cross a large gap. Past the log is the slope with the iron balls you have to get around, but if you jumped up the platforms earlier, you can go down a much safer path that just has 

some Bob-Ombs. Both eventually lead you to a gap in front of a waterfall that you have to Long Jump across, after which you come across the Fwoosh, and then head on until you find a narrow bridge in front of the waterfall, before finally reaching the top of the mountain and the Star. You have to climb the mountain again for Mystery of the Monkey Cage, but this time, you find Ukkiki waiting for you at the summit. If you chase him around and grab him, he says he'll give you something nice in exchange for 

letting him go. When you do, he leads you back down the path, to the bridge, and when you talk to him again, he jumps onto the small cage housing a Star that's hovering out in front of the waterfall. It falls, down to the spot near the rolling log, and you have to jump down, following the waterfall, in order to reach it. Scary 'Shrooms, Red Coins is where you have to jump across those Mushroom Platforms near the beginning to collect four of the Coins, while the rest are on the platforms along the wall next to the Monty Moles. The latter are much simpler to get, as you just 

have to jump up the platforms, but when you activate the Power Star, it appears on a large mushroom platform just off to the right of where the Monty Moles are. It's not hard to jump to, and it's big enough to where you likely won't slip off the edge when you do, but it can be nerve-wracking after what you just went through.

Mysterious Mountainside is where you have to find and complete the course's hidden slide. The slide isn't too hard to find, as it's accessed by jumping through a shimmering section of the mountainside just beyond the Fwoosh, with a line of Coins in front of it. However, completing it is another matter, as this puts the ice slide in Cool, Cool Mountain to shame in terms of difficulty. It may not look too imposing, with those cutesy star and moon decorations in the background, but it has very sharp turns, no 

guardrails, and a spot where you absolutely have to take a right turn instead of continuing on the path you've been riding on from the start; otherwise, you'll head to the actual dead end I mentioned before. And even after that, there are more sharp turns, including one inside the tunnel you pass through before the final stretch to the exit, which has a large jump in the middle of it. Fortunately, you're not trying to beat any kind of record or having to race someone here, so you can take it slow on the trickier parts. And, while you do lose a life if you fall of the slide, when you reenter 

the stage, you start back at the slide, instead of having to climb the mountain again. At the end of the slide, you leap down a hole that drops you on a ledge where the Power Star is. This ledge is actually just above the very edge of the level behind the starting point, and it can be reached with a Backward Somersault from the ledge right above it, higher up along the mountain path.

Breathtaking View from the Bridge again requires you to make your way to the top of the mountain, to the narrow bridge in front of the waterfall. You've probably noticed before that there's a Star in an alcove behind the waterfall, and while it is possible to jump from the side, from the bridge itself, or from the ledge above, the easiest way is to use the Purple Switch on the path leading to the bridge to create a block in front of the alcove that you can use as a stepping stone. Blast to the Lonely Mushroom has to

be the hardest Star to get in this level, as you only have one shot each time you attempt it. As you guessed from the name, it involves using the cannon but even that can be a hassle in and of itself. First, the Bob-Omb Buddy is located on an easy to miss ledge beyond the bridge where the Chuckya is, and second, his cannon is at the end of a narrow ledge beneath the spot right before you run into the Monty Moles. You have to use a Warp found on the smallest of those mushroom platforms with the Red Coins to get here (I

once managed to jump down to that spot but, every other time, I fell), and once you're in the cannon, you have to be sure you're angled right or you'll go flying off to your doom. According to the Nintendo Power Player's Guide, aiming the cannon until the very top of the mushroom is at the bottom of the scope is the best way to fire to ensure you hit the Star. You can also Long Jump off the rolling log to reach the mushroom, as you see here, although that's tricky as well. And, for the 100-Coin Star, it's best to first try for all the Coins on the slide, which include a bunch of Yellow ones and some Blue ones, then go for others found outside, for reasons I've stated before.

Tiny-Huge Island: Found behind the door on the Second Floor to the left of Wet-Dry World's painting and the right of Tall, Tall Mountain's (this door is not in an alcove), there are two different portals to this level, corresponding to its gimmick. One is a giant painting at the end of a long hallway, through which you enter the level normal-sized, while your surroundings are gigantic, as are some of the enemies; the other is a small painting where you enter the level giant-sized, with the level being much smaller and the

enemies either tiny or non-existent. (The third painting in that room is just for decoration.) There are also Warp Pipes in the level itself that allow you to go from one version of it to the next, and you sometimes need to go back and forth between them in order to activate the Power Stars. The layout for the level is basically the same regardless of which version you're in, although details tend to change. On the Huge Island, you have two stretches of water on either side of your starting point, but since the one to the left has

some platforms that are too far apart and too large to get onto, not to mention the Bubba swimming around, it's best to go through the hole in the wall in front of the starting pointing to get to the other stretch of water. This small bay has a beach to its left and a lone isle with a signpost on it that you can only reach with the cannon, but there's nothing important on it anyway (if I recall, it's some message about how the person who wrote it isn't responsible for anybody who makes themselves dizzy running around the sign). At 

the other end of the bay is a stretch of land with a cannon, leading into a valley with strong winds that can blow you off the platform or bridge you're currently on, but can also help you reach some otherwise inaccessible ledges. Beyond the valley is a spot with a bridge leading to a hill that some big, iron balls are rolling down. At the top of this hill, where the balls are being dispensed, you can either head on up to the very top of the island or to a field, where if you've selected his mission, you meet up with Koopa the Quick again. The ball dispensing spot is also where you can drop down to the platforms in the one stretch of water at the start.

On the Tiny Island, you have to go to the left and make your way across the platforms, as the opening in the wall in front of the starting point is now too small. When you reach the platform with the Warp Pipe at the end, you can either literally jump up to the ledge when the iron balls are being dispensed or, behind the platform, is a Purple Switch that creates a temporary path to a floating platform in the distance. This platform may seem pointless, as it has only a single Yellow Coin, as well as a Warp back to the

main island (this Warp is one-way), but one of the Power Stars appears here when triggered. Like the stretch of water at the beginning, the valley is now just a series of platforms you can jump across, although you can still lose a life if you fall into the chasm there. And it's only here on Tiny Island where you find the Bob-Omb Buddy, who opens the cannon on Huge Island.

The nature of the enemies also changes depending on which island you're on. On the Huge Island, you come across big Grand Goombas, who give you Yellow Coins if you merely stomp on them, but will each give you a Blue one if you Ground Pound them. In a similar vein, giant Piranha Plants, called Piranha Flowers, which spit fireballs, appear on the platform at the end of the bay to the left of the starting point. On Tiny Island, you come across Micro-Goombas, which can't hurt you at all, and also die instantly when they hit you. They can, however, knock you back, towards a potential deadly fall in some spots, and give up a Yellow Coin no matter how they're

defeated (you don't get anything if one just runs into you and kills himself). Small Piranhas can still spit fireballs, but also be killed with any attack as well. Going back to Huge Island, you run into Fly Guys, Chuckyas, and Koopa Troopas. The enemy Lakitu makes his first appearance here, as does Bubba, the giant fish with sunglasses who can swallow you. Most of these enemies are absent on Tiny Island (Bubba is replaced with normal fish), although a regular Koopa Troopa does appear on the ledge where you meet Koopa the Quick on Huge Island. This is one Koopa whose shell you can't steal, due to how small he is, and he dies with just one jump. And not only can those iron balls still hurt you when you're big, but there are Flame Throwers on Tiny Island.

Though achieving a specific mission's goal often entails going back and forth between the different versions of the island, the goals themselves are often quite simple. The first one, Pluck the Piranha Flower, requires you to go over to the platform to the left of the start and fight the five giant Piranha Flowers there. You simply have to enter the island through the small painting, make your way over to that platform, jump into the Warp Pipe, and come back out on Huge Island and fight the giant, fire-spitting flowers. The

second mission, The Tip Top of the Huge Island, is basically the same as the first mission on Tall, Tall Mountain, requiring you to fight your way through the level's enemies and challenges until you reach the summit (the Star is actually in an Item Box at its base). Rematch with Koopa the Quick has you challenge him to a race on his home turf. Said race is shorter but harder than the first one: starting from the field near the top of the island where you meet Koopa the Quick, you race back through Windswept

Valley, to a flagpole next to a Warp Pipe. What makes this one harder is that you have to avoid those iron balls while running down the ledges and then cross the bridge where the wind blows against you. Also, Koopa is much faster than he was before, and you need to get a big head start right away with some Long Jumps or you likely won't make it (Long Jumping in Windswept Valley is not a good idea). And like with the cannons in Bob-Omb Battlefield, trying to use the Warp Pipes is seen as cheating. Five Itty Bitty Secrets is akin to the one mission in Wet-

Dry World, where you have to find five specific spots on Tiny Island. They're found on the other side of the opening in the wall at the start; where the cannon is; on the small, curving bridge above the stretch of beach in that same area; at the head of the iron ball dispenser; and at the very top of the island. The Power Star appears on that distant platform you have to use the Purple Switch to reach.

Wiggler's Red Coins requires you to reach a cave called Wiggler's Basement in order to find the eight Red Coins. The cave is at the end of the crooked bridge above the sloping beach area, and getting up to the ledge where you can reach the bridge can be done either by jumping down from the end of the bridge at the base of the mountain summit, firing yourself up there with the cannon down below, or taking the shell from the Koopa Troopa down on the beach and riding it up the slope to the ledge. Even when you reach the 

ledge, you have to be careful about crossing the bridge, because it's very narrow. Once inside Wiggler's Basement, you have to jump across various platforms to reach the Coins and, like before, it's all about adjusting the camera and making good use of Mario's various types of jumps (using the Wall-Kick is all but required to get up to the top of the highest pillar). There are some Flame Throwers here too, and not only do you lose a life if you fall here, but this is one instance where the game doesn't let you start back

here when you reenter the level. If you look up at the ceiling while in here, you can see Wiggler himself walking around atop the wire mesh. He's the focus of the final mission, Make Wiggler Squirm. To fight him, you first have to make your way up to the summit of Tiny Island, Ground Pound the pool of water there, causing it to drain through a small hole, and then go back down to the Warp Pipe and reemerge on Huge Island. Once you come back out, you can head back to the summit and jump through the hole, which leads down into Wiggler's home. There, Wiggler complains

about how you've flooded his house, after which you jump down from the platform you're on and battle him. Like the other bosses in the game, he's actually not that hard, though when you first jump down, the awkward camera angle can make it hard to keep him in sight. All you have to do is jump on his head three times (jumping on the other segments of his body does nothing), and while he does get faster after each hit, and also jumps and charges at you after the second one, he's easy to avoid, and there are Coins you can use to restore any damage you take. When

you defeat him, he shrinks down to the normal size of a Wiggler, then drops down into his basement, among his Red Coins, while giving you the Power Star. Speaking of Coins, Ground Pounding the Grand Goombas and defeating the Koopa Troopas on either version of the island for their Blue Coins is essential to getting the 100-Coin Star here, as is raiding Wiggler's Basement.

Tick Tock Clock: The last two main levels of the game are, as expected, frustratingly difficult, pushing both your jumping and camera operating skills to the limit. This one, naturally, is accessed by jumping into the face of the grandfather clock on the Third Floor, and can best be described as an obstacle course leading up through the clock's interior. What makes it so difficult is a combination of numerous frustrating jumps, tricky camera angles, a deadly fall to the base of the clock, obstacles like swinging pendulums, and

various types of moving platforms you have to work your way across, like conveyor belts, flipping blocks, rotating bars, bars that lunge out from the wall, and rotating platforms shaped like wedges and hexagons. But the real gimmick here is that the position of hands, specifically the minute hand, when you enter the clock face determines the speed of the gears and platforms inside the level. If the minute hand is on 3, everything moves slowly; on 6, everything moves randomly; on 9, everything moves really fast, and on 12, everything is stopped altogether. Stopping the

clock is the easiest way to make your way up through the level, but two of the Stars can't be reached unless it's in motion. Enemy-wise, there are some Bob-Ombs near the start, and a Thwomp who guards one of the Stars up near the top, but the more annoying ones are Amps, Flame Throwers, and an irritating Heave-Ho who can fling you off a platform about halfway up.

Roll into the Cage can be done at any speed, and requires you to scale the clock's interior, jumping across flipping blocks and rotating hexagonal platforms, dodging pendulums, avoiding bars that jut out of the wall, and heading up the walkway along the wall, until you reach a spot where a conveyor belt leads into a cage containing a Power Star. Reaching the Star simply requires jumping to the conveyor belt from the hexagon jutting out from under the platform. The Pit and the Pendulums can also be done

at any speed, and has you journey beyond that cage where the first Star was, to a spot where you climb up a pole being circled by an Amp, then to the left, past the Heave-Ho, until you come to a narrow, twisting walkway where two giant pendulums are swinging back and forth. The Star is on the other end, and you have to avoid getting pushed off, as well as crushed by a block that rises and falls in the middle, to reach it. Get a Hand requires that the clock be in motion, and you have to head up to a platform early on with a

Flame Thrower on it, where one of the clock's two hands swings by. When it reaches you, you can just ride it over to the alcove where the Star is, with the only obstacle being an Amp moving around in your path. It is also possible to jump down from the platform above the alcove; in fact, that's the only way to get the Star if the clock is stopped. Stomp on the Thwomp is the other mission where the clock has to be in motion. You have to head back to the spot you went for the second Star, only to this time ride a yellow lift above the pole, jump to a rotating 

hexagonal platform, then leap to a pathway that leads up to some flipping blocks. You jump up the blocks to a platform that leads to a spot where four bars in a row jut out of the wall, and beyond them is a series of conveyor belts you have to jump up to reach a long, curving walkway. You next have to get across some rotating bars, reach another long walkway, which takes you up past where the Thwomp is, jump to some flipping, triangle-shaped blocks, and finally to a platform where you have to wait for another hand to come around and give you a lift to where the

Thwomp is. There's a Flame Thrower on this spot that you have to watch out while waiting for the hand, and a conveyor belt leads to the Thwomp. Once you reach him, you just have to jump atop the Thwomp's head and let him lift you up to the Star.

Timed Jumps on Moving Bars leads you to the start of the path that led up to where the previous Star was found, only when you climb the pole and jump to the hexagonal platform, you instead jump onto the roof of a cage off to the right. There, you have to jump across these three bars that pop out of the wall in order to reach the inside of another cage housing a Star. Stop Time for Red Coins, as the name suggests, is best done with the clock stopped. All of the Red Coins are found among a series of rotating bars up along the

wall behind the starting point and when the clock is stopped, you just have to jump up the frozen platforms and collect them all. If the clock is in motion, doing this is virtually impossible, even when it's moving slowly, unless you drop down from above, and even then, it's not easy. And when the Star appears, it's high above the Star Marker, forcing you to jump from one of the bars to reach it. It also doesn't matter if the clock is in motion or not when you go for the 100-Coin Star, as just about all of the Yellow Blocks contain a plethora of Coins, and there's also a Blue Coin Switch up near the second Star.

Rainbow Ride: As difficult as Tick Tock Clock was, I can definitely say that this, the last of the game's main courses, is the hardest by far. The entrance is to the right of the grandfather clock, in an alcove in the wall, and you can only reach it by jumping up onto the higher platform next to it. In this level, you ride on a series of flying carpets, along various rainbow paths, to various places floating up high in the sky, namely to, depending on which path you take, either a big floating ship called the Rainbow Cruiser or a 

gigantic house called, fittingly, the Big House. There's also a separate path you reach by Long Jumping from the back of the starting point (which also provides a shortcut to a spot farther up the main path), and a big concrete maze that you come before the route that leads to either the Cruiser or Big House. Of course, getting to any of those destinations in one piece and doing what you have to do is a nightmare, as there are so many obstacles: spinning platforms, seesaw platforms, swinging platforms, donut blocks, spots 

where the carpet passes through obstacles that you have to jump and/or climb over, flamethrowers (there's one right at the start), and spots with strong winds, just to name a few. That's to say nothing of how, like Tick Tock Clock, this level really tests your jumping and camera skills. And also like in that level, some of the enemies here, like Goombas and Bob-Ombs, are pretty innocuous, but there are others who do add to the difficulty. Once again, there are Amps in the most inconvenient places, as well as an annoying Fly Guy on one of the paths, aggravating Flame

Throwers here, and the evil Lakitu, who's not only a pest when he throws Spinies at you, trying to drop them on your carpet, but can also mess up your jump if you accidentally hit him while he's hovering above you. And when do what's required to get to the sixth Star, there's a Chuckya up there who would love to screw you over and throw you to your death. Believe me, I lost a lot of lives when I first got to this level, and it's still challenging even today.

Cruiser Crossing the Rainbow requires you to make your way to the aforementioned Rainbow Cruiser, taking the flying carpet at the start to these four large, rotating platforms, then taking the carpet to the right of them and riding it up until you come to the fork with carpets that you to either the Cruiser or the Big House. During this path in and of itself, you have to avoid small, blue platforms in your way, as well as jump across some short, stone walkways. And if you didn't get rid of the Lakitu down around the rotating 

platforms, he'll come up to where the two carpets are to annoy you some more. The carpet on the left part of the fork leads to the Rainbow Cruiser, but first, you have to get around this slowly spinning platform, with long wooden beams sticking out of its side that the carpet circles around. You have to jump over these beams at several points or they'll sweep you off the carpet (there's also a flamethrower on the platform's bottom point, but I don't think I've ever been burned by it). Once you're past that platform, there are more 

blocks in your path, including one with a slanted top next to a set of Donut Blocks that can knock you into the side of one of them and stun Mario long enough for the carpet to pass completely beneath him. Once you reach the Cruiser, you just have to walk across the planks leading to it and grab the Star on the bow (there are some Bob-Ombs on the deck but they're of no concern). The Big House in the Sky has you take the path to the right in that fork, and I would say this one is even more challenging. Here, the carpet passes through some large obstacles that you either have to

quickly jump on top of or to the nearby Donut Blocks, then quickly use them to reach the tops of these blocks before the carpet leaves you behind or it disappears (which happens if you stay off of it for too long). Once you're past them, you ride the carpet through the Big House, then out past a balcony, back around the side, through some more platforms that the carpet passes through (one of which has an Amp circling around the top of it), into another window, down into the middle of the house, and finally up to its roof, where the Star is. The fireplace in the house 

acts like a flamethrower when you get close and, if you get knocked off the carpet, you have to use a Warp found on the balcony to reach the top of the maze, then go back down to the spinning platforms and ride all the way back up to the house.

Like in Tick Tock Clock, all of the Red Coins are found in one spot. However, the mission to collect them, Coins Amassed in a Maze, is not nearly as easy. The maze itself is simple to get to, but you have to use various types of jumps, like Backward and Side Somersaults, Long Jumps, and Wall-Kicks, to reach all of the Coins, while also watching out for Flame Throwers, as well as spots where the ceiling is really low and can mess up your jumping. It's also a good idea to keep the camera angle straight on from the 

side, or you could misjudge where the walls end while jumping and end up outside the maze. Fortunately, the Star appears at the bottom once you've gotten all the Red Coins. Swingin' in the Breeze is the first of two Stars found in the area behind the starting point. Once you Long Jump there, you have to make your way across an obstacle course of swinging platforms, seesaw platforms, donut blocks, flamethrowers, and moving platforms until you reach a set of steps with Goombas milling around

it. When you get there, you can jump up them, then head left to another swing and a flamethrower, before reaching the Star. Tricky Triangles! is found beyond those steps that led to the previous Star, across some donut blocks, a sloping wooden platform, and past a flamethrower, to a Purple Switch in front of a series of pyramid-shaped platforms. The Switch causes the platforms to invert themselves, becoming flat on top. However, they don't stay flat for long, so you have to jump on them efficiently and quickly to reach the

Star. Somewhere Over the Rainbow is the final official mission of the game, and is another one where you only get one shot with a cannon in order to reach the Star. First, the Bob-Omb Buddy is in the maze, at the top of a long vertical shaft in the back of it that you have to Wall-Kick your way up. Second, once you've talked to him, you have to make your way back to the Rainbow Cruiser and to the stern, where the cannon is found. Third, you have to aim at the center of the rainbow ring and fire so that you fly through it and grab onto the pole on the distant floating platform.

This is where you have to watch out for a Chuckya that's roaming around on that platform. While you can get rid of him, I think it's best to just ignore him and crack open the box containing the Star. Even collecting the 100-Coin Star here is difficult, due to how spread out the Coins are, and also because there's a Blue Coin Switch in the back of the maze that produces a line of them at the top of that shaft. You basically have to Wall-Kick your way up there without making any mistakes to reach all of the Coins in time.

Wing Mario Over the Rainbow: Found in the alcove on the Third Floor to the left of Tick Tock Clock, through a hole in the floor with light coming out of it, this final secret level could be the hardest Power Star to collect in the entire game. It's akin to Tower of the Wing Cap, in that you have to use said cap to collect eight Red Coins spread out from each other high in the sky, but this time, they're found amongst a series of clouds, many of which are connected by rainbows and located at various heights.

While some of the clouds are solid, enabling you to stand on them, there are two that are transparent and which you pass right through, and two pink platforms that each house a cannon, though only one of them has a Bob-Omb Buddy. The first Coin is found on the large cloud you start out on, the second on the lone cloud to the left, and the third and fourth are on a cloud and a pink platform down below. You have to use the cannons to gain enough height and momentum to reach the other four, which are found in

the middle of a transparent cloud up high, on top of the largest cloud, at the level's highest point, and on a green pole on the cloud's underside. That latter Coin really is best saved for last, as you can drop down to a cloud below it that has another Wing Cap, then fly back to the starting point, where the Star appears. What makes this level so difficult is a combination of its size and the clouds' different heights, which can make it easy to get lost, as well as the Wing Cap's limited availability. Even though there are plenty of Red Blocks with spare Wing Caps, it's still possible to

lose one in mid-flight because of how far you have to fly, or if you spend too much time looking for where you need to go. And like the other secret levels, you don't die if you fall here, but instead of dropping you back outside the level's entrance, you drop from the sky and land in the lake by the castle. In other words, you then have to make your way back up to the third floor in order to try again, which is really aggravating if you keep messing up. Ironically, if you lose all your health (which only happens if you drop from great heights too many times), you are tossed back outside the entrance.

Bowser in the Sky: Once you've collected seventy Power Stars and broken the spell of the Endless Stairs, you can make your way up to the Tower and the portal to the course that leads to the final confrontation with Bowser. Like the other Bowser levels, the path to reach him is a tricky obstacle course, this time floating up high in the sky, with dark-colored purple, blue, pink, and reddish clouds in the background. The obstacles include sliding platforms that threaten to push you to your doom, 

long platforms that tilt over when you stand on one side of them, ramps that you can run straight up as long as you maintain your momentum, seesaw platforms, spinning platforms, rotating sets of platforms, a spot where you have to activate a Purple Switch to create some stairs, a long, twisting platform, a section where you ride a lift through a bunch of floating blocks in your way, flamethrowers, and even a spot in the final stretch with a strong gust of wind. There are plenty of enemies here, too, 

including Goombas, Bob-Ombs, Whomps, Chuckyas, Amps, and even the small, fireball-spitting Piranha Plants from Tiny-Huge Island. And the Red Coins that generate what, if you've been collecting them in order, is the game's final Power Star, are both really tricky to get and, in some cases, easy to miss. The first one is found near the start and you have to push a large block, akin to those in Wet-Dry World, to the left in order to reach it; in the corner of a stone pathway, near the first Small Piranha; on a small ledge off to the side of the platform that the seesaw is 

standing on; floating above the highest point of the long, bending platform you run across; floating above one of the highest floating wooden blocks in the lift's path (the block is at an angle, meaning you have to watch out or you could slide off to your death); near the center of a spinning platform after this; atop a pole between two moving platforms; and beneath the platform housing the Warp Pipe that leads to Bowser. Like in the first Bowser stage, the Star appears behind the pipe.

If the first two Bowser battles felt a tad too easy, including the second, the third one is anything but. While the method for defeating him is the same, you now have to throw him into three bombs to defeat him. The fight itself is much tougher, as when Bowser (who randomly has a multicolored palette) jumps up and stomps the ground, he sends out shockwaves that damage you if they touch you, and, in addition to his previous fire breath attacks, he now has an attack where he shoots a stream of fire into the air, which

comes back down as several fireballs, colored red and blue. The blue ones then each split off into three Podoboos that you have to avoid, in addition to Bowser himself. While some of these fire attacks do create Coins you can collect to replenish your health, they also take a long time to dissipate. Like in Bowser in the Fire Sea, he initially moves really fast, and you have to get him to charge at you and flip behind him in order to get a shot at his tail. Fortunately, he becomes slower after each successive hit, and if you 

move quick enough, you can grab his tail the minute he lands back on the platform after hitting a bomb. But if you throw him and miss one of the bombs, he'll destroy a chunk of the platform when he jumps back up. This is a prelude to what happens after you score two hits, as he destroys the edges of the platform, turning it into a star-shape and making it difficult to line up your shots with the remaining bombs (there are five this time instead of four). Once you've flung him into three bombs, Bowser, like before, admits defeat (the details of his final dialogue box depends 

on whether you've collected all 120 Power Stars) and disappears, leaving behind one last, big Power Star. When you run to it and grab it, Mario accesses a Wing Cap and, with three jumps, takes flight, leading into the cutscene that closes out the game.

Mario lands on the Castle Grounds (the moat is suddenly full of water again) and the final Power Star rises up to the stained glass window of Princess Peach above the entrance. After a flash of white light, the Princess herself materializes in front of the window and floats down to the bridge, landing in-between two of her Toad retainers. Mario runs up to her and, like a gentleman, removes his hat, as she comes to. She thanks him for restoring the Stars' power to the castle, says they have to do something special for him, and,

after she kisses him on the nose, which he's more than happy to accept (he gives a give "peace" sign to the camera and exclaims, "Here we go!"), she decrees that they should bake the cake she promised him at the very beginning. Everybody heads inside the castle, with Mario stopping briefly to look at the camera, before the credits roll over a montage of all the main levels, with many of the shots having Mario himself in them. Some of the levels get featured twice, as their mini-areas are also spotlighted, like the

ice slide on Cool, Cool Mountain and Wiggler's home on Tiny-Huge Island, and you also see Bowser's sub in Dire, Dire Docks, with Mario standing atop the conning tower, the inside of the Secret Aquarium, and The Cavern of the Metal Cap. The credits end on Mario, Peach, and the Toads waving goodbye, while the Lakitu cameraman flies off, and the game itself concludes with a shot of the cake, as you hear Mario personally thank you for playing. (This is one of those game "End" screens where you have to reset the system, something I've never liked.)

Collecting all 120 Stars may not be necessary to complete the game, but it does unlock some extras. The cannon next to the lake on the Castle Grounds opens up and you're able to blast yourself up to the castle's rooftop, where you find Yoshi (along with some 1-Up Mushrooms and a Red Block containing a Wing Cap). If you complete the game after you've collected all the Stars, you can see Yoshi on the castle's roof during the final wide shot at the end of the credits. And when you head back to the Castle

Grounds upon getting all of the Stars, you can hear his loud footsteps up on the roof (which also adds a bit to that spook factor I mentioned that this area has). In any case, when you find Yoshi and talk to him, he congratulates you on your victory and also delivers a message from the game's developers, who say they want to encourage you to keep playing. Thus, you're gifted with a hundred lives, as well as a special Triple Jump. Afterward, Yoshi jumps off the roof and disappears. But, the thing is, as cool as both of these rewards are, they're completely meaningless since

you've now done everything there is to do in the game. Now, if some hidden levels or new challenges in the main ones became available...

Right after Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario 64 was, without a doubt, the most important gaming experience I've ever had in my whole life. For a nine-year old at the time, it was a fun, immersive adventure, the likes of which I'd never experienced before, with a look that I just loved, imaginative and fun worlds to play around in and explore, memorable characters, especially a lot of the enemies, great music tracks, and a feeling once it was over that I'd been on quite a journey. The character graphics may look dated by today's standards, some of the controls are a bit awkward, and the camera system was definitely something they hadn't yet worked the bugs out of, but, despite those and some other, minor, complaints, I still have a great time whenever I pop it in. It probably is largely nostalgia but still, even though there have been many other significant video games that I've played over the years, a number of which have improved upon what this did, none of them have been able to give me the same kind of experience that I had with Super Mario 64 as a kid, and I doubt any will. Ah, good times.