I started playing this spontaneously... Never played a SM64 romhack before, but I'm very familiar with the SM64 engine.
First I explored around a bit and found the outdoor pipe leading to
Course 3. It's a grassy river area similar to the hub.. I had a bit of
trouble at first getting that water cave star... I set the analog range
to the usual 67% but I think I might need to adjust the controller's
deadzone too.
Then I wandered into the tower and jumped into a realistic looking
painting that is on an actual paint canvas... That is the proper world
1. it's a place with a king bobomb boss and a very odd layout.. you
can't die from falling off, most of the time you'll just fall in the
water... I got the 100 coin star and a bunch of others, and I'm stuck on
the "top of the sunken ship" star on this world...
Then I went into a vase and found world 2... it's a floating resort
where it's VERY easy to fall off and die.. the whomp boss is here, and
getting around this place involves some puzzle solving and some pretty
advanced maneuvering skills...
As soon as I gained 8 stars I went through one of the 8-star doors and
entered course 5, a level with boos and SM3DW aesthetic, and I think
SM3DL music though I'm not sure... here I found a grave that you can
push to reveal a whole that leads into the hidden stage containing the
blue switch on some rotating gears.. it seems like there's more to do at
this stage but I couldn't figure it out at all... just died to exit...
got another star at course 5, then went back to course 2 and 3 and got a
few more stars there, including the 100 coin star... I'm a bit stuck at
course 2, but could probably progress more in course 3 and 5...
I could've checked out course 4 now too, but instead I explored the hub a
bit more, and found a pipe behind the tower that leads to a secret
course. This place looks like some toad village.. you can race koopa the
quick up a mountain... I raced him without even exploring the mountain
yet, and just barely managed to beat him on the first try... That
mountain path is really crazy, it's like the same difficulty as tall
tall tower, and you have to hurry.
This secret stage also has 8 red coins... including one that was
insanely hard to get to. I managed to get it by doing a divebomb at the
peak of a triple jump... I'm pretty sure that's how you're meant to get
it cuz I don't see any other possible way... also you can't get 100
coins in this stage.
9/23/2016
Made a lot more progress this time... still without any help, I 100%
cleared world 2, got all but 2 stars in world 3, and then went to world 4
and got all but 1 star in that. World 4 is a weird flooded castle-like
area... Just a bunch of building structures above water and a water
section below with a tunnel leading to an easy star and another
underwater tunnel maze leading to a star... I couldn't figure out how to
get the "Another Entrance" star and I'm certain i looked everywhere...
Oh also world 4 had the green switch palace in it. it's hidden in a
banjo-kazooie-like breakable window. it starts with a slide and then
there's a small room with red coins.. one of them is on the lava and you
need to be metal to get it. with the metal cap I was able to get 1 more
star in world 3 and the last missing star in world 2 that I was stuck
on.
Still no progress in world 1 or 5 though... 1 I just don't know what to
do, and 5 is really hard. I'm at 27 stars now.. I also tried out the
first bowser level (that you need 20 stars to get into), and got pretty
far, but decided to quit there after like my 10th death.
10/10/2016
The bob-omb that opens the cannon in the first level, it took me so long
to find that for some reason, even though it wasn't very hidden at
all...
I never noticed the blue block right next to the boo level before... and
watching raocow's video of this level showed me that it's actually what
you need to get the star from the caged up rabbit in the courtyard..
it's pretty hard to get there in time though. you have to do a triple
jump up a very high steep slope...
Then I went to that really hard snifit level that I gave up on
earlier... This time I managed to beat it without too much trouble. to
my surprise the pipe didn't lead to a bowser fight. instead it took me
to another difficult platforming area where a bowser portrait taunted me
and then I had to kill 5 giant piranha plants. when I die it starts me
off at the pipe at the end of the first area, so that wasn't too bad.
I checked out the area inside the tower (has comet observatory music).
saw two paintings, a music room where you can probably jump into the
giant music sheet, and a room with a pipe.. one of the toads there tells
me about the secret area hidden above the chandelier, which takes a
tricky long jump to get to. it's a sandy slide level. there's a red coin
star and a time trial star here... for the red coins, you sometimes
have to get off the slide and do some platforming on the side... it's
tricky but not too bad... the time trial star was easy.
After that I went back to the ghost level to give it an honest try, and I
super cleared it entirely without any help.. it was actually not that
hard once I learned my way around. this level actually helps you out
quite a bit by adding certain platforms depending on which star you are
on. it's just a matter of finding what is different from last time... I
never figured out what that caged up pipe with a tunnel was about, that
ended up being a red herring i guess?
I also figured out how to get the secret star in the blue switch palace.
those spotlights that appear after you hit the switch, you have to go
to those places and jump, and a number will appear. go to all 5
spotlight locations and the star will appear.
Now have 39 stars... the only ones before the inner tower that I'm
missing are the "other entrance" star in world 4 (the chuckya level),
and two stars in world 3 (the ruins level).. and honestly i have NO idea
how to get them.
10/17/2016
I wasn't expecting a pipe to lead to another hub room... this place
looks like one of those classic Mario Bros sewer levels, with pipes
everywhere and stuff... found a hidden toad here that gave me a secret
star, and also spotted an opening way high up in the wall that I have no
idea how to get to...
The inner tower area had the chandelier secret sand slide, and the
paintings and music room here lead to courses 10, 8, and 9... the sewer
room had courses 6, 7, and the next bowser course (the entrance to which
is actually a 3d model of a SMB1 fortress)...
I nearly 100%'d course 6, a swimming reef level.. but I have no idea how to get the "X Marks the Spot" star.
Course 7, the desert/pyramid level... has angry sun enemies.. they just
slowly move around on the ground and act like fire enemies.. I wasn't
able to beat Koopa the Quick here, but I did get the coin stars and a
couple others.
Course 8, is kind of a forest level with kirby music... it has a giant
hollow tree you can climb up and there's a bunch of coins/stars hidden
up there... it's very straightforward, I was able to 100% clear this
course easily.
Course 9 is the dreaded musical madness course... it looks like a Mario
Galaxy level, with random stuff floating around everywhere... but with
no gravity physics and SM64's controls this level is a nightmare... I
wasn't able to get any stars here yet.
Course 10 is a pretty neat ice mountain level. I wasn't able to explore
much of it but I got a couple stars there at least. it seems a bit
confusing to get around, and easy to get killed in, but still a lot more
fair than the music level.
10/19/2016
I 100% finished up world 7, the desert world. that koopa race was really
hard, I had to keep practicing until I could climb the big pyramid
steps efficiently enough and even then you still have to be quick at the
easy parts and long jump a lot.
I got through most of world 10, the ice mountain world... but I couldn't
figure out how to bring the baby penguin back to its mom. there's also
another star that I have an idea where it is but I didn't bother trying
yet. this level has a few bottomless pits between the main areas that
you gotta long jump between.. finding the red coins here was a nice
challenge.
Then I went and beat the 2nd bowser level. it's a retro SMW style
castle.. there are ceiling climbing parts where you gotta avoid those
electric orbs that have a really unpredictable pattern, and also lava
and bullet bills.. usually you can cheese through it by lava hopping...
in fact that was the ONLY way I ever managed to get passed the skull
raft part.
The optional star path has another climbable ceiling with an electric
orb, and no ground or lava below. at first I thought you had to climb it
and avoid the orb the whole way through to get to the star, but later
found out you can just jump ontop of the ceiling. then there's a couple
of really hard long jumps onto tiny platforms that have spikes on the
side of them. spikes work like lava... oh and the boss glitched out on
me.. the big bully just killed himself while bowser was talking and I
automatically cleared the level after that.
Tried out all the 3rd tier levels. there's a toy level, a candy level, a
lava cave level, a factory level, and a spaceship runway level... that
runway level was the only one I made any progress in so far. I got the
coin stars there pretty easily. I love the verticality in this level and
the fact that there are no bottomless pits. it's another one of those
BK style levels.
10/21/2016
I nearly super-cleared world 9 in like an hour... it was surprisingly
not that hard. I almost got both coin stars on the same run, but died
before getting to the last red coin. Once I figured out you can easily
kill the bees by short-hop ground pounding, and learned the best
methods/shortcuts to take to get to each section, it was a cinch.
there's a red block here so I guess I probably can't get the last star
until I find the wing cap switch.
Then I went to world 11, the candy/toy land, and 100% completed it. This
level is really good. it has a nice mixture of open-area BK style, with
some verticality, and some tough platforming over bottomless bits.
There was a penguin slide race here that is really easy to fall off of,
but is also really short. there's a star that just floats up and down in
front of a giant target and you gotta shoot to it with the cannon...
There's a giant toy robot that you climb up on to get one of the red
coins and a star... The one red coin I was stumped on for a while was
the one inside the toy plane, but I managed to find it eventually.
Then I went to world 13, the lava cave world... I immediately went for a
coin hunt because I couldn't immediately tell where any of the stars
were... This level is alright. it has a bunch of lava rivers that join
together into a lava lake... Some tough platforming over lava that is
very forgiving... Lots of bullies and bats and scuttlebugs... Some of
the bullies make it really annoying to get to certain platforms..
There's a shell riding section that I gave up on for now, and still a
few other stars I have yet to find.
Then I went to try out the 3rd Bowser level... it's really fun! The star
path has some really tricky jumps you have to make by jumping while
sliding down a slope to use that momentum to get across. I gave up at
the Bowser path for now...
Other than the stuff I'm missing, all I have left is world 12 (the train
level I think), world 14 (the factory level?), and the rest of world 15
(the space shuttle level)... I'm now at 89 stars.
11/03/2016
I just spent like 5 hours on this game today... After going to get the
Got all the remaining stars that I could find. Now at 118..
Cloudrail Station was kinda fun... although it has even more bees than
Music Land, it's a lot easier to explore than that level... In the
middle is a train on some big train tracks you can walk on... and
there's some kinda big floating platforms with enemies and coins hidden
in cloud dust... and there's also giant floating flowers and thwomps
that act as elevators... The 100 coin star was stupidly easy... The red
coin star was a bit tricky though.. the rest was a bit tough but went
really well.
Finished the Lava Cave level... I managed to get into that shell surfing
tunnel after a few more tries, and on my first attempt of getting
through there, luckily I managed to get to the star... there was a
really insane metal cap part where you had to lava-hop up a tower with a
lava waterfall inside it...
Then I did all I could in Bob-omb Factory... this is the hardest level
in the game easily... It's ridiculously easy to fall off due to an
enemy/boulder ambush or just sloppy playing.. and the 100-coin and red
coin star here is fucking nuts... This one part you have to hop across
an insta-death acid pool using only tiny lopsided drums as platforms,
and the drums sink when you're standing on them.. I kept having to
double-jump in place while carefully turning mario and the camera around
so I could get set up for the next jump...
The last star in bob-omb factory... "Engine leak" or something.. I have
no idea how to get.. There's a sign that says there's a hidden entrance
into this level from Gloomy Garden, but gives absolutely no other clues
besides that... Also when I selected this star, there were some extra
flamethrower obstacles that weren't there before.. but that might just
be because all the previous stars I got on this level were when I
selected the first star, and I kept getting other stars besides the
first one.. so that flamethrower stuff probably means nothing and was
supposed to be there on the other stars I got.
Then finally... The spaceship runway level... there were some really
weird stars in the basement section of this level with just some simple
platforming rooms over insta-death pits.. I had an unusually high amount
of trouble on the first star, the "follow the glittery path" one.. the
rest weren't too much trouble though.
Then I went and beat Bowser, and got his star... the star at the end of
the bowser fight warped me back to the hub, except now it's nighttime
out, there's Galaxy music, and Princess Peach is there where Yoshi used
to be at the beginning of the game. Also a bunch of Toads are standing
around the hub and have different things to say... one of them gives me a
hint about the last secret star that I'm missing... "the pipe to the
top of the star tower lookout is hidden somewhere very windy."
You can't go into any levels during this part of the game.. the only
thing you can do is grab the 2nd last secret star which is at the area
where the 3rd level pipe used to be... and that warps you out and back
to the normal version of the hub...
I know that when you get 120 stars, you have to go back to that postgame
hub area and look up at the stars from that star island to get to the
extra levels... but now I'm stuck at 118 stars and have no idea where to
find the last 2.
11/19/2016
I managed to find the last 2 stars on my own... The secret star I got a
hint that it was in the sky hub area, and I noticed there was a toad I
haven't figured out how to get to yet... I got to it by long jumping to a
block with coins on it and it was just barely possible from there...
And the last star I was missing in Bobomb Factory... lmao it turns out
it was super easy. It was at the top of that area near the pipe. I
thought I got that star already...
Tried out the secret hidden palace level... it is absolutely insane, the
kind of wall jump maneuvers you need to use here... I had to use save
states just to figure out how to do each part with experimentation and
trial+error... and I got to the last wall jump section before the star,
but I tried everything I could and it just seems impossible... there
must be some technique I don't know about because it's just not possible
otherwise. The closest I got was with a triple-jump walljump, but then I
need some way of turning around and grabbing the ledge after the last
walljump, but I don't think that's possible...
okay I give up, I'll just watch a video of someone completing this level instead...
damn... looks like you DO have to grab the ledge behind you after
walljumping... that's insane I have no idea how to even do that.
There are also 9 "star replicas" that can be found after you get this
121st star... they are hidden in various levels. the sign at the end of
this bonus level tells you the levels you can find them in... I'll just
watch a video of that I guess.
jeez, yeah, none of these look fun to get at all. I'll just consider the game finished now.
No comments:
Post a Comment