So I just beat all of the Broodals on the Dark Side of the Moon (heh), and that second mech fight was more fun than the first. Hammer Bros. make everything better! Also, there's a Life-Up Heart right before you ride the wire into the large carrot hidden in one of the fruits. Throw Cappy and make your life easier. Gravity makes that whole sequence really tricky.

I still adore this game.

I googled the volleyball challenge and found a very easy way to get to 100. I guess I'll put in in spoiler mode if anyone wants to try to do it on their own. You'll find the video pretty easy if you google it yourself, but basically what you do is go into two player mode and just control Cappy the whole time. He moves very fast and doesn't have the momentum issues Mario has. I got it on my fist try doing it this way.

Man, 100%ing a kingdom feels like a feat. Some of these bigger ones, like Sand Kingdom, are just stuffed with things. How do you guys spend your purple tokens? I always save the ship decal for last as a sort of trophy saying I 100%ed that kingdom (or at least got all its tokens).

Great game. I can't see myself fully 100%ing it too often, though, due to the sheer thoroughness required.

@TriforceBun

I did the same. Prioritizing costuming over trophies.

Though I did also 100% it earlier this week as well. It was a feat though Nintendo certainly seems to do it fairly this time around, unlike the blue coin hunting of Sunshine.

@TheOldManFromZelda
Not sure if you're having the same type of problem as I did, but everything fell into place for me -- almost literally -- once I started using the ground pound attack more often, to reduce my floating-around-like-a-dork-time.

@r_hjort

Yeah, I'm just not very accurate with it. Frustrating.

Went back to this after days of essentially nothing but Doom and Bomberman, and oh my god it's so good. For a moment I wanted to log in here and change my score to a perfect ten. The controls are so bloody good, and some of the worlds are such brilliant playgrounds. Also, to channel my inner Carlos: The photo mode is amazing.

Just "finished" the game, aka beat Bowser. What an ending! I don't think I remember such an epic ending in a Nintendo game, outside of maybe a Metroid one. Wow. And then after, going to Peach's Castle? I felt like a little kid again. I wanted to live there.

Now off to 100% it I guess! Will enjoy every moment of doing so. I will sign up now for an Odyssey 2, if you so will it, Nintendo.

Welp, I've found all but six of the Power Moons:

1. Secret Path to Lake Lamode
2. Secret Path to Some Other Place That I Can't Remember
3. World Waper (aka find all 10 secret paths)
4. Souvenir Savant (aka buy 40 souvenirs, aka find 100% of the purple coins for a handful of worlds
5. Jumprope 100 Times
6. Volleyball 100 Times

...all of which sound really monotonous and not fun to get, so I guess this is where I call the game officially done! What a ride.

I've also heard that if you buy extra Power Moons until you have 999 of them, you get a special little ending cutscene too. And I'm also definitely not doing that.

I "finished" the game as well. A pretty neat ending, although it didn't feel quite as powerful as some past Mario endings... maybe because it felt super easy? I dunno.

BTW I knew about the power moons that get unlocked RE: the metal boxes but for some reason I had thought there were only like 5 or 6 per kingdom... the ones still blank even though Hint Toad has no more hints. But nah, it has nothing to do with those, a BUNCH of new stuff gets added! So now I'm slightly confused what all of those ones were that were blank... stuff you can do before beating the game but that Hint Toad has no hints for?! Or do those only open after you beat the game too?! I think the Koopa Races are some of them?

So yeah, on the one hand it's pretty cool that there is still a ton to do. On the other hand like half of the new moons or so per stage are literally just go to an X on the map and grab the moon. Which feels a bit like... ug, why? If this were a different type of game I'd maybe relish getting to run all over the worlds and experience them again, but I've already been all over every little corner of these worlds multiple times. Kind of wish they had just added the new challenges / pipes / etc. and not a bunch of just random collect-a-thon moons as well. It's not like the game even needed THAT many new moons!

I feel like maybe taking a little break and coming back when it will feel a little more fresh again. But I probably won't, because the game is addicting...

@Zero

At first I also thought the "just go grab this new moon that appeared" thing was lame, but then I realized I just honestly enjoy running around this world so much that I'm actually fine with it. It's almost like I beat the game and thought to myself "Man, I wish there was some expansion pack like in Zelda" and then BOOM Nintendo gave it to me for free, lol. I'll take it. This game is a joy.

Basically I just skip around Kingdoms and it doesn't get boring. If I start to get bored in one place, I just jet off to the next and grab a few more moons.

I feel like getting like 40 or 60 or 80 moons in a world is ALREADY an expansion pack though. At this point I don't really need to run around these worlds even more without a clear focus.

All of the stuff with real gameplay involved is fun... the koopa races, new musical note things, the new metal pipes with new areas inside (and the area with the moving background and bullet bills everywhere was one of the first actual challenging ones yet, so I'm hoping the challenge is kicking up now), etc. that's all great. But just running to an X on a map that I've been over tenfold already... not so great. I could honestly do without it.

I wonder if it depends on when you "beat" it. If someone just got a few moons in each area and moved on right away and this was their first time back, that'd be one experience. But I basically got every moon I could in every area (up at around 600 right now), which included going back to the areas multiple times and basically covering every inch of every area several times over, so I'm sort of burnt out on running all over them.

Now, if they had remixed the areas a bit... added new enemies, made some platforming tougher, etc. that would make it worth it... but really it's just the same areas.

I finally made it to the area after the area that I assumed was the final area. I may see the credits before Thanksgiving

@Zero Yeah, I mostly just followed the story events my first time through before going back to worlds, and I have no regrets about that.

@Zero

I ended the game with around 200 moons, so yes, I bet that's a big difference. It still feels fresh to me I suppose!

You could always put the game away for a few months and then go back for the bonus content. That's what I did (am doing) with Breath of the Wild, and I'm excited to return to it later next months.

Well...

Fossil Falls seemed to have less "go to X and grab it" power moons than Bonneton and more that had some real gameplay behind them, and one of them even involved adding some new stuff to the overworld (I think?) So if it is more like this moving forward that'd be sweet.

I'm going to go ahead and revoke my earlier complaint about a lot of the post-"beating the game" new moons being ones you just run to and grab. I don't know if I was miscounting or Bonneton is an exception or what, but I've played a few other kingdoms now and most of the new moons have at least some small challenge / puzzle / etc. to them, and then you get a few new doors and stuff with some meatier stuff inside too. I also feel like a lot of this new stuff has more skill required too, none of it has been particularly hard so far, but I've definitely died more on some of this stuff than most of the previous content. Pretty solid!

Bowser Kingdom


The Kingdom is just trying to say Mario is Japanese. The last kingdom on the planet MUST be Japan. Nintendo LOVES Japan. Nintendo is proud to represent Japan. Mario had to go home. We MUST see Mario running around in traditional Japanese locations wearing traditional Japanese garb. We made Mario.
He belongs to Japan. He is ours. He must come home to us. We wouldn't feel right about having a game about a global adventure without representing our own home.

That's what that fucking Kingdom was about. Wake up sheeple.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

:D

@Zero
Yay. This gets me hyped.

Yup, the difficulty has picked up to much more enjoyable levels lately. I suppose I'm on the "last" Kingdom before the post game stuff. I look forward to finishing this game so I can stop judging it and just enjoy the game for what it is (this is always liberating and always increases enjoyment of games tenfold).

This game really is amazing, and it is definitely around the ballpark of 3D World which is high praise for me, 3D World is arguably my fave in the series.

I'm sure that post game will send me over the edge.

Ps. I already know what it is. I've seen spoiler pics of it and already figured it out before the game even released. But there's a difference between knowing and experiencing!