Top Five: My Least Favorite Super Mario Galaxy Missions

Super Mario Galaxy is by far my favorite Mario adventure and having it on the Nintendo Switch is like a dream come true. If there is one Mario game I will never tire of 100%ing it is Super Mario Galaxy! That being said there’s that collection of levels that really stand out as “not as good” that I find myself dreading on repeat playthroughs- so I decided to write them down and complain about them on the internet! (Such an original Idea!)

So for this list I will be looking at the stars that are not as satisfying on repeat playthroughs for a variety of reasons and I am going to be grouping multiple stars together that are similar or the same.

Number 5: The Bell on the Big Tree

So those gimmicky motion control levels are not the most popular and while there would have been a time when Rolling Gizmos Galaxy’s “Gizmos, Gears, and Gadgets” would have easily made this list those levels have actually grown on me as some of the most challenging stars of the game. The same cannot be said for “The Bell on the Big Tree” in the Golden Leaf Galaxy.

In this level you jump into the pointer controlled bubble, ring a bell, and collect all the music notes… that’s it. It is over way too fast to be enjoyable and if you mess up and don’t collect the music notes before they vanish you can’t get the star unless you revist the mission this star is hidden in or throw yourself into a black hole to die and try again. This is probably the only motion control level that I have gone from liking to actively groaning over because it is too easy and costs a life if you mess up….

Number 4: The three Find Luigi missions

There’s three missions where you have to revisit a previous level to find Luigi after rescuing him in the Ghostly Galaxy’s first star “Luigi and the Haunted Mansion”. I mean it is a novel way to include Luigi and add hidden stars into the earliest levels of the game but overall these are probably the biggest time wasters on repeat completions as he is super easy to find and you’ll probably spend more time selecting the mission he’s hidden in than actually playing the level to find him.

Number 3: Star Bunnies in the Snow

What does 1600 star bits get you? Just a mediocre “catch the bunny” level.

I think if this was a mission you didn’t pay any star bits for I would not be as annoyed (like maybe even swap it out for the Matter Splatter Galaxy) but that’s not the case and it makes the task of 9999 star bits more annoying when you spend so much on such a lackluster mission.

Number 2: The Two Garbage Dump Stars

Anyone who has played this game knows EXACTLY what I am talking about. The Battle Rock and Dreadnaught Galaxies have a star (unlocked via star bits i might add) where you have a few seconds to use bombs to blow up pieces of garbage. This levels are incredibly frustrating as even when you learn the trick of throwing the bombs on the coin dots on the floor you still have to worry about your throwing aim- something that never feels consistent if I am being honest.

On the plus side at least this is not like Super Mario Sunshine where they would take a life off for each failed attempt for such a challenge… so at least it has that going for it.

Number 1: ALL OF SEA SLIDE GALAXY

You know a galaxy is bad when the most enjoyable star is a lackluster purple coin comet…

You like swimming through hoops and races? You don’t? TOO BAD!

The first two stars are just swimming through the course- one as a race and the other as “prove your worth by swimming through 8 rings”. The hidden star is a rehash of an earlier one off galaxy, and even the comic mario race is un eventful.

At least the purple coin star is a bit interesting with the idea of not touching the water to collect all the coins as Bee Mario/Luigi but again it is incredibly dull compared to the likes of many other purple coin comets in the game…

With all that having been said (or rather typed) I still somewhat enjoy collecting these stars if for no other reason than 1 step closer to 100% of the single best Mario adventure so it could be worse, right?