History GuideDangIt / SuperMarioBros

* While most of the ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' games are generally easy, there's always one or two Star Coins per game placed in extremely counterintuitive places that pretty much require the player to either be a psychic or use a {{walkthrough}}. Some of the worst ones include:
** Any levels with invisible blocks leading to secret areas. The worst one is probably World 5-1 in ''[[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2 NSMB2]]'' and its invisible block hidden in a bonus room, which in turn leads to the secret exit and two additional levels.
** Anything hidden behind a fake wall which vanishes when you touch it. To find the ones in a certain underwater level and Wendy's Tower in World 4 of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' is basically down to trial and error. Some are even hidden behind a fake wall with breakable blocks in the way, [[FakeDifficulty which make the wall seem solid even when it's not]].
** The second Star Coin of World 1 Tower in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2'', where the coin only appears when a P-Switch pressed in the lower part of the room is active, and the game doesn't even hint at there being an upper portion of the room. What's worse, there are also some temporary coins spawned by the P-Switch, making players think they've already found the room's reward and not think to explore some more.
** The second Star Coin in World 6-5 of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU'' is hidden ''above'' the level; you must swing on a chain and jump into the sky in a place where there is no ceiling, which warps you to a bonus room.
** The World 4 Ghost House in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU'' is one big GuideDangIt. Forget secret exits and Star Coins; this is possibly the only level in any ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' game where you'll need a guide to find the ''regular'' exit, due to the level containing lots of Warp Doors, some of them being hidden behind fake walls and/or having to be reached while a P-Switch is active.
** In the World 4 Ghost House in the first game, there's a room where four blocks on strings fall from the top of the screen when you activate a ? Switch. In order to get the first Star Coin in the level, you have to jump on one of the blocks and wait for the switch to deactivate, at which point the blocks go back up and warp you to the otherwise-inaccessible upper area of the first room. There is nothing that indicates this will happen if you ride the block upward.
** In the World 5 Ghost House in the first game, the level's secret exit and third Star Coin are in a hidden room which you can only reach if you find a set of three invisible blocks, jump onto the center block, and jump while crouching to hit another invisible block that spawns a vine up to the door.
** Finding secret exits in the ''Mario'' series can be a challenge on its own, but in ''VideoGame/NewSuperLuigiU'', two of them (one in World 1-2 and one in World 2-4) are found by ground pounding completely normal looking ground, because it turns out that ground is actually made of Brick Blocks that are obscuring a fake wall.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'':
** Some stars involve hunting for five "secrets". These secrets include hitting a random [!] Block, standing in a specific spot, and pushing a box. These things do nothing in any other mission in the level, and only by selecting the "Five Secrets" mission will they do anything at all.
** The first slide level in the game actually has ''two'' Stars. The first one you can get just by beating it normally. The second one you can only get [[spoiler:by beating it within 21 seconds]].

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'':
** Grandmaster Galaxy is barely mentioned at all, let alone how to unlock it.
** Quite a few of the Green Stars.
*** Boom Bunker's Green Star 2 requires you to push the cannon all the way to the left and fire. The star takes about 25 seconds to reach from the cannon, is inaudible from that distance and requires pixel perfect aiming with a ''Wii Remote.''
*** Galaxy Generator's Green Star 2 can easily be seen far from the black tilting platform, but doesn't seem to be reachable no matter what you do. The only way to reach it is to go to the edge of the tilting platform, side-flip with Yoshi, flutter jump in the air while pointing up with the joystick, wait one second for the flutter cooldown to reset (which isn't mentioned at all), do another flutter jump, and jump off Yoshi while still holding up.
*** Fleet Glide's Green Star 2 is hidden ''inside'' a pillar to the far left and you have to delay Fluzzard as much as possible until the pillar falls and you can collect the star. You'd normally reach this part after 45 seconds, the door which you need to pass through closes if you're not there at 50, and the pillar falls after around 58.
*** Hightail Falls's Green Star 2 forces you to run off the edge of a wall, climb on it and long jump into the distance. You can't see the star until you jump off the wall, which isn't that intuitive.
** Getting the first episode of Grandmaster Galaxy simply requires getting all the other stars in the game, which is intuitive enough. Getting the second episode requires putting 9999 Star Bits in the Banktoad's bank, which isn't hinted at all.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has a few levels where you race against a clone of Mario. The game never hints that there is a speed boost you can get at the start of the races -- kinda like in ''VideoGame/MarioKart'', but with a less intuitive process: start by holding forward, then hold Z when the countdown hits 2, then press A as soon as the countdown finishes. This is in fact ''required'' in "Cosmic Luigi Forest Race" and "Underwater Cosmic Luigi Race".
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has a big open world with a lot of Power Moons, many of which are insanely tricky to find or obtain. Here are some of the craziest:
** The Moon at the start of the cave section in the Moon Kingdom is really high up on the wall above the pipe, with no obvious way of getting there. You get it by taking a Banzai Bill all the way from the end of the level back to the start, hoping it doesn't run out of steam before you hit that ledge. It also leaves you with basically no room for error.
** Quite a few Moons found by the dogs aren't marked at all until the dog starts digging, and the one with a Moon (rather than a few coins or a heart) can be a completely nondescript patch of land miles from where the dog initially appears.
** A few more Moons are found on platforms covered by fog in bonus areas, like the one accessed by having Yoshi eat a fruit blocking a pipe in the Mushroom Kingdom. Some give off a tiny glow that's easy to miss, but others are literally "drop down, trust there's ground there".
** The second Goombette Moon in the Sand Kingdom is hard to get. Normally, she'd be on a platform the player has to reach with a Goomba stack, but in this case she's at the very edge of the level far away from anything else. This means that not only is she easy to miss herself, but once you find her location, you have to bring a Goomba all the way from the other side of the level to actually get said Power Moon.
** The Moon hidden in the Cap Kingdom's block-pushing bonus level may be the trickiest one to find in the entire game. It's inside a compartment in the back of one of the blocks you jump across. Unless you randomly decide to turn back at just the right spot, it's incredibly easy to miss.
** An entire section of the Wooded Kingdom known as the Deep Woods requires jumping off a cliff, which would normally kill you. You can't teleport while in the section, suggesting that it serves as a kind of penalty area, but several moons and transformations are only available there. One of those Moons involves capturing the nearby Coin Coffer and using it to fire 500 coins at a nondescript sapling marked only by five fossilized coins (and you'll likely need more than 500 unless your aim is perfect).
** One of Mario's {{Idle Animation}}s involves sitting down if left on a seat, something you will likely only find by accident. There is one instance in the entire game where this is actually useful: "Bench Friends", the Metro Kingdom sidequest with the depressed man sitting on the bench. Doing this animation rewards a Power Moon. One could spend hundreds of hours and never figure this one.
** Piranha Plants can be Captured by throwing a rock at them so they eat it and can't eat Cappy. The only real hint for this is that Piranha Plants often have rocks near them.
** Good luck finding all the regional (purple) coins. The various hint systems can help with Power Moons, but getting hints for the regional coins requires using a [[BribingYourWayToVictory Bowser]] Toys/{{Amiibo}}.
** The various "Found with (KINGDOM) Art" Moons that require using Hint Art signposts and backtracking to find them. Many of the Hint Art Moons are easy enough to solve, but some of them are so vague that it could take days to figure them out.

** Progressing through the game is itself a little obtuse. In order to get to Corona Mountain, the final world, you have to beat the seventh episode (all Shadow Mario chases) in each world. Unlike ''Super Mario 64'', the ''amount'' of Shine Sprites you have is ultimately irrelevant and getting to the seventh episodes requires only beating the prior six episodes, meaning that the Shine Sprites found in the hub or traded with Blue Coins, as well as the eighth, secret, and 100-coin episodes, are a waste of time to non-completionists[[note]]While other worlds are indeed unlocked by the amount of Shine Sprites you've collected, you can easily collect more than enough by playing through the worlds[[/note]].
** Blue Coins, ten of which equal one Shine Sprite in an exchange with an NPC, tend to be hard to find. While they are not needed to beat the game, they will drive {{Hundred Percent Completion}}ists batty, as they will search every nook and cranny, squirt water at anything that moves or doesn't move, and do all this for every episode in every level. Oh, and there's no in-game checklist for them at all, you can only see how many you got in a level -- and if and when you do give up and resort to a guide, you'll have to pray you can remember which ones you've already gotten.
** One of the secret Shine Sprites in Pianta Village can only be found if you stand on the platform atop the tallest tree, look straight up, and spray water ''at the sun''. After you spray it, a Shine will pop out. A Blue Coin in the same area requires you to find a different spot and spray water at the ''moon''. A villager hints at these (and bear in mind that talking to villagers is optional in the first place), but only obliquely -- she only talks about the moon in Episode 5 and the sun in Episode 8.
** At least two secret Shine Sprites can only be found by spraying normal looking ''sand'' in random places with water.
** One of the Shine Sprites in each level, including the hub, is acquired by collecting 100 coins. The game fails to say that not all episodes in a level ''have'' 100 coins. You also don't have the added benefit of blue coins equaling five gold coins, since they serve a different purpose entirely in this game, and some of the regular coins are obtained in non-obvious ways such as spraying innocuous objects with water or defeating certain enemies in specific ways so they drop more coins than when you defeat them normally.

** Yoshi can eat the bees that emerge from the beehives in certain levels. This in itself is something that a player is likely to discover. However, you can get a Blue Coin by knocking down the beehive with spray or a stomp and then having Yoshi eat all ''those'' bees as well, which is also something that's not likely to occur to the average player (in part because [[ViolationOfCommonSense knocking down a beehive seems like it would be a bad idea]]).
** In Ricco Harbor, you have to spray a normal-looking solid wall by the lighthouse in order to make a blue Shine Sprite symbol appear, which then yields a blue coin. It is not hinted at, and the only likely way to find it without a guide is by just randomly spraying the wall.
** One Blue Coin in Sirena Beach will pop out when you spray the flower garden at the top right of the hotel's exterior. Another Blue Coin in the same level requires you to ground pound in front of one of the tiny slot machines in the casino, which also causes coins to pop out when done with the other slot machines.

** "Yoshi's Fruit Adventure," the eighth level of Ricco Harbor, is easily one of the game's hardest. As the title implies, you need to use Yoshi to remove an orange juice generator that's blocking a Shine Sprite near the top of the level's construction site. Problem is, there's no way to get him up there...so you have to spray Cheep-Cheeps with juice, which turns them into moving platforms. Oh, but be sure to use the right color: a Purple Yoshi will make platforms that move vertically, while a Pink Yoshi's juice makes them move horizontally, and you have to change from Purple to Pink halfway through the mission. There are three issues with this. 1: There is absolutely ''nothing'' in the game that tells you spraying the fish with juice will turn them into platforms; 2. This is the ''only'' level in the entire game where this skill is required; and 3. Since the Shine is being protected by orange juice, which only Yoshi can remove, you ''cannot'' complete the level without somehow stumbling onto the secret. Exactly how Nintendo expected players to figure all of that out is a mystery.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'':
** Unless you have incredibly good skills with the cape, the only way to access the Secret Exit in the Cheese Bridge Area is to have a cape and Yoshi, float ''[[ViolationOfCommonSense underneath]]'' the Level Gate, then dismount and jump upwards on the ''other'' side just as you go off the screen.
** Chocolate Island 2 is a unique example: Unlike any other level in the game, there is a point in which the layout changes based on the time left when the player enters a pipe. Most players who've gone through the game and weren't going for HundredPercentCompletion probably didn't know that there were alternate sections of the level. While the Secret Exit requires you to speed through the first two sections as quickly as possible and get into a pipe with 250 seconds or more on the clock, there are several other rarely-seen sections (like the final non-secret exit one, which has DynamicDifficulty based on how many Dragon Coins were collected in the sections prior to this) that can also trip players up. Your only hint in the game is the message block at the level's start: "Here, the coins you collect or the time remaining can change your progress", which barely explains how it ''works''.

** One of the Shine Sprites in each level, including the hub, is acquired by collecting 100 coins. The game fails to say that not all episodes in a level have 100 coins. You also don't have the added benefit of blue coins equaling five gold coins, since they serve a different purpose entirely in this game, and some of the regular coins are obtained in non-obvious ways such as spraying innocuous objects with water or defeating certain enemies in specific ways so they drop more coins than when you defeat them normally.

** "Yoshi's Fruit Adventure," the eighth level of Ricco Harbor, is easily one of the game's hardest. As the title implies, you need to use Yoshi to remove an orange juice generator that's blocking a Shine Sprite near the top of the level's construction site. Problem is, there's no way to get him up there...so you have to spray Cheep-Cheeps with juice, which turns them into moving platforms. Oh, but be sure to use the right color: a Purple Yoshi will make platforms that move vertically, while a Pink Yoshi's juice makes them move horizontally, and you have to change from Purple to Pink halfway through the mission. There are three problems with this. 1: There is absolutely ''nothing'' in the game that tells you spraying the fish with juice will turn them into platforms; 2. This is the ''only'' level in the entire game where this skill is required; and 3. Since the Shine is being protected by orange juice, which only Yoshi can remove, you ''cannot'' complete the level without somehow stumbling onto the secret. Exactly how Nintendo expected players to figure all of that out is a mystery.

** The World 4 Ghost House in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU'' is one big GuideDangIt. Forget secret exits and Star Coins; this is possibly the only level in any ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' game where you'll need a guide to find the ''regular'' exit.

* While most of the ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' games are generally easy, there's always one or two Star Coins per game placed in extremely counterintuitive places that pretty much require the player to either be a psychic or use a walkthrough. Some of the worst ones include:

*** Fleet Glide's Green Star 2 is hidden ''inside'' a pillar to the far left and you have to delay Fluzzard as much as possible until the pillar falls and you can collect the star You'd normally reach this part after 45 seconds, the door which you need to pass through closes if you're not there at 50, and the pillar falls after around 58.

*** Fleet Glide's Green Star 2 is hidden ''inside'' a pillar to the far left and you have to delay Fluzzard as much as possible until the pillar falls and you can collect the star.

*** Galaxy Generator's Green Star 2 can easily be seen far from the black tilting platform, but doesn't seem to be reachable no matter what you do. The only way to reach it is to go to the edge of the tilting platform, side-flip with yoshi, flutter jump in the air while pointing up with the joystick, wait one second for the flutter cooldown to reset (which isn't mentioned at all), do another flutter jump, and jump off Yoshi while still holding right.

** Grandmaster Galaxy is barely mentioned at all, let alone how to unlock it. There's also no hint of where any of the Green Stars are. It's especially infuriating when you can barely hear them but they're just out of sight.
** In the fifth boss galaxy, the second Green Star can only be found by [[spoiler:shooting out of the cannon on the blue and purple sphere planet not toward the next planet, but really far and up to the left]]. The Star is [[spoiler:about 20 seconds away and can only barely be seen by its twinkle]].
** Getting the first episode of Grandmaster Galaxy simply requires getting all the other stars in the game, which is intuitive enough. Getting the second episode requires putting 9999 Star Bits in the bank, which is hardly hinted at all.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has a few levels where you race against a clone of Mario. The game never hints that there is a speed boost you can get at the start of the races -- kinda like in ''VideoGame/MarioKart'', but with a less intuitive process: start by holding forward, then hold Z when the countdown hits 2, then press A as soon as the countdown finishes. This is practically required in the races against Cosmic Luigi.

** The Moon hidden in the Cap Kingdom's block-pushing bonus level may be the trickiest one to find in the entire game. It's [[http://twitter.com/ThAshleyChannel/status/924363444744216576 inside a compartment in the back of one of the blocks you jump across]]. Unless you randomly decide to turn back at just the right spot, it's incredibly easy to miss.

** Blue Coins, ten of which equal one Shine Sprite in an exchange with an NPC, tend to be hard to find. While they are not needed to beat the game, they will drive {{Hundred Percent Completion}}ists batty, as they will search every nook and cranny, squirt water at anything that moves or doesn't move, and do all this for every episode in every level. Oh, and there's no in-game collection tracker for them at all, leaving you no clue whether a level's cleaned out or not -- and if and when you do give up and resort to a guide, you'll have to pray you can remember which ones you've already gotten.

** Shine Sprites are acquired by collecting 100 coins in each level, including the hub. The game fails to say that not all episodes in a level have 100 coins. You also don't have the added benefit of blue coins equaling five gold coins, since they serve a different purpose entirely in this game.

** Blue Coins, ten of which equal one Shine Sprite in an exchange with an NPC, tend to be hard to find. While they are not needed to beat the game, they will drive {{Hundred Percent Completion}}ists batty, as they will search every nook and cranny, squirt water at anything that moves or doesn't move, and do all this for every episode in every level.