I finally did it - I got all 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy.  It wasn’t easy, and there were a few times I thought about calling it quits. (Bouldergeist’s Daredevil Run, I’m looking at you…)  But I was absolutely obsessed with this game, so I wanted to get every single possible star.  It got me thinking about my other quests to collect everything I could throughout the Super Mario Series.  And so here they are, in reverse chronological order:

Super Mario Galaxy

This is a strong contender for the greatest game of all time, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it start to finish.  In fact, I loved it so much, that as I was playing through, I made it a point to collecting every star along the way.  And I abstained from cheating (looking up hidden star locations and things online) almost entirely, though I admit to caving a few times.  I took my time with the game and my goal of collecting all 120 stars, mainly because I didn’t want to be finished with the game.  Although after beating the game with every star, you are presented with the option of going through the game again. (I’m omitting a spoiler here for any readers who haven’t yet hit their 120 mark.)  At this point, though, I have to admit, my determination for TOTAL total completion in this game subsided a bit, as I wasn’t really that eager to get all 120 stars a second time.  I played through the first few levels, and I had already forgotten where some of them were.  Call me a quitter, but the task of getting every star a second time seemed incredibly daunting.  I still would like to do it, but I think it will take me a longtime, with me just getting a few here and there whenever I’m bored over the next several years.

New Super Mario Bros.
 
I got two out of the three stars necessary for full completion in this game - I beat the game and completed every level, but I sort of abandoned my quest to collect every Star Coin along the way.  Of all of the games that I haven’t hit 100% on yet, this one seems the most do-able, and I might go back at some point to finish it up, just, you know, because.

Super Mario Sunshine

I realized very early on in this game that collecting all 120 Shines would be impossible for me, if for no other reason that the necessity of collecting all of the blue coins.  The pairs of graffiti, where you sprayed one and the blue coin popped out of the other and you only had a few seconds to collect it were such a pain that I abandoned the quest very early on.  If anyone out there did it and though it was worthwhile, please comment below.

Super Mario 64

As I mentioned in my Buffy post, I skipped the Nintendo 64 generation.  But I did pick up the DS version of this game, and I loved it, though the thought of finding all 120 stars seemed like too much for me to handle.  I also had heard about what happens when you get all 120, and it sounded pretty anti-climactic to me.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

Check.  Beat the game with perfect 100’s on every level, and all of the bonus levels. Some of these were on the tougher side, but they never seemed totally impossible.  As opposed to say the prospect of getting all 100’s on the DS sequel, Yoshi’s Island.  (Which is not listed here, as it is not an official Super Mario game.  But jeez - did anyone out there hit perfection on that game?)

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

Despite the fact that Mario only shows up AFTER you beat this game (and even then, just for a second), this game is a member of the series, but alas, it was not in the cards for me to get a perfect mark.  In order to do so, one has to find every single piece of treasure in the game and an exorbitant amount of coins to have the genie at the end of the game give Wario his own personal planet.  I got a castle, which is the first runner-up prize, so I guess that counts for something.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

This one didn’t really have much in the way of collecting, but there were a couple of hidden levels along the way.  I found them all, but that’s nothing much to brag about.

Super Mario World

Yup - found all 96 exits. This was the first Mario game that let you know when you found everything possible.  But this was before Power Stars were hidden at the end of levels; in this game there was a pair of gates with a piece of tape going up and down.  And if you found all 96 of them, you’d get a little star next to your save file on the select screen. Not the greatest reward ever, but it offered you the definitive proof that you had found everything there was to find in the game.  And of course, once you beat the Special World, everything turned to fall and the Koopas became Marios and the Piranhas became Pumpkins.  That was sort of cool, too.

Super Mario Land

After you defeat Tatanga the first time, you can replay the game in a harder mode.  I don’t think I ever beat the game again in the harder mode, probably because you couldn’t save, and that would have required a very long Game Boy session.  As a side note, was anyone else hoping Tatanga was going to show up as a mini-boss somewhere in Galaxy?  The game didn’t suffer from not having him make a cameo appearance, but it would have been nice to see the series’ first alien show up in the game.

Super Mario Bros. 3

Remember the first time you saw this game in The Wizard?  Yeah, you do.  Your jaw hit the floor.  Hard.  It was pretty cool when Jimmy found the warp whistle, but the real thrill of this game was checking out every level along the way, even though you didn’t have to.  You’re damn right I explored every nook and cranny of this game; with such a diverse landscape of levels and power-ups, I didn’t want to risk misssing a thing.

Super Mario Bros. 2

I thought I beat every level in this game, but who knows?  Maybe I just dreamed it.

Super Mario Bros. 2 - The Lost Levels

Once us Americans FINALLY got this game in 1993’s Super Mario All-Stars, we really found out just what we were missing.  This game was a hell of a lot harder than either SMB1 or the SMB2 we got stateside, so working your way through every level was far more challenging and more rewarding. Feeling like skipping ahead with a warp zone?  Beware the negative warp zones, punishment for gamers looking to take the easy way out.  Granted it was easier for me to beat every level on the SNES version that allowed for saving, but I am proud to say that I did what Nintendo thought was too hard of a challenge for us simple American gamers.

Super Mario Bros.

The original game.  Of course I beat every level in this game - I spent enough time with it.  You don’t have to beat every level to unlock the hard version, but it’s just more fun that way.  And yes, I am including the elusive Minus World.

How about you?  What Mario Bros games did you go through, collecting all you could along the way?  Was it worth your trouble?