History YMMV / SuperMario64LastImpact

* DifficultySpike: [[NintendoHard The game is already hard enough as it is]], but after Bowser's stage, it becomes even ''harder'', [[UpToEleven and only goes up from there]].

** Underground Depths is an aggravating stage all around. Aside from one of the Stars requiring you to beat the [[ThatOneBoss Devil Big Bully]], the other star has one point where you have to drop down to a set of boxes that swim on lava, which you can't see until you actually jump off the ledge, because they're positioned in such a way that they're almost completely out of your camera's view (not even the zoomed-in perspective can help you out here). What makes this worse is that you absolutely ''have'' to land on the boxes unharmed because you'll lose your Fire Flower ability upon damage, which you need to light two torches that are up ahead to progress. Basically, it's a leap of faith that will put you into an UnwinnableByMistake situation should you fail in any way.

* MemeticMutation: In the [=SM64=] ROM hack community, "BETTER THAN LAST IMPACT OPIEOP" and claiming that everything was "better than Last Impact" was a common joke for a while.
** [[CameraScrew Last Impact's camera is perfect.]][[note]]Kaze claiming he had improved on the original game's camera, despite many people finding it ''worse'' became a source of jokes.[[/note]]

** The Freezies in Melty Molten Mountains easily qualify as this. They can not be defeated at all and their breath attack has a large range and will deal plenty of damage to you. The Freezies found on the level's ice side are easily the worse of the two, as its breath will momentarily freeze you in place... after which there's a chance that you're still close enough to its range that you'll be immediately frozen again.

** The color-shifting butterflies found on Sky-High Islands can only safely be defeated when they're pink, but will explode and thus damage you if you touch them while they're blue. Normally they wouldn't be significantly annoying... if only so many of them weren't positioned on tight bridges or roads so that you can't outright avoid them and where you could easily fall into the bottomless pit if they so much as hit you.

** Crystal Caves has "Underwater Race". Using the Frog Suit from a cave nearby (which allows you to swim indefinitely and with increased speed), you have to challenge a mermaid to a race. Sounds simple enough, until you see just how annoying said race turns out to be. The race begins with you having to swim into a specific entry, [[GuideDangIt which you may or may not even have known about up until now]], to a circular section, which is where you don't just have to beat the Mermaid in a lap around said circular section, but you also have to swim through red rings, which seemingly have HitboxDissonance and if you miss one, the ring that follows will not be active, forcing you to swim back just to reenter the ring you just missed, potentially costing you your position (and thus the race). You will only win the race if you get to the last blue ring AND stay ahead of the mermaid. It quite literally feels like ''Superman 64'' underwater. All of this is not helped by the camera. Just as the race begins, the camera stays on top of the water, refusing to focus on you while underwater unless you swim deep enough, which is only possible when you get to the circular swimming section. Simply adjusting the camera to a favorable position alone could cost you your position, given how you can't even ''see'' anything until then. And if you lose, [[UnsportsmanlikeGloating the mermaid laughs at you]] and you have to exit the course to try again.

** Aside from the [[ThatOneBoss Giant Spider]] mentioned above, Harried Honey Hive also has "Bee Mario Exploration" and "Bee Skyrace". The latter has you trying to jump up high platforms to ask the Bee Queen for permission to use the Bee Suit before then having to use it to jump very long distances and hop onto small platforms, culminating in a final jump that is unbelievably frustrating due to the camera angle- and getting a Game Over means you have to make you way to the queen all over again. The latter involves you using the Bee Suit to challenge a bee on the hive's outskirts. Just upon entering the race through the door that leads outside, the bee will ''immediately'' declare the race, without any "Yes" or "No" prompt. The route itself is designed in such a way that long jumps are all but required to reliably reach the next platforms up ahead, where one mistake could send you falling to your death, as well as several platforming sections along the hive's walls where you have to wall jump a lot of times, which will hinder your progress significantly should you not do so quickly enough.

** The Above The Clouds stage hidden in Sky-High Islands is by far the hardest secret course in the game. Just getting to the course requires you go to a part of the Sky-High Islands (near the giant windmill, where the rainbow coins are) and jump down a ledge to a platform/large vine that [[GuideDangIt is completely out of sight even when using the zoomed-in perspective]], your only clue being a bob-omb near the edge giving a very vague clue about something down below. As with the Undergound Depths, it is likely that you will miss the small area to land in and fall to your doom. If you manage to enter the actual course, you have to keep up with a small flying ship and use it to jump to other platforms and get the red coins. Problem is, the level combines incredibly precise platforming with the need to be quick lest the ship leave you behind, not helped by the fact that many of the gaps require long jumps and the limited Cloud Mario Power-Up to cross, and as a result it is VERY easy to slip off, or jump too far/not far enough and lose a life, or get hit by some of the flames around the level and lose the Power-Up, essentially dooming you. And of course, getting a Game Over means you have to make your way to the hidden platform/vine all over again. Overall, this level is likely to be a LastLousyPoint for players looking to get [[OneHundredPercentCompletion all the stars]].
** The Shadow Factory has an abundance of small platforms hovering over a large pit of black shadow. There are also shadow spots that move back and forth, which will [[OneHitKill instantly kill]] Mario if he even brushes past them. Despite this, the trek up there isn't too hard... but getting the red coins and the other hidden star is a nightmare, since the former are placed at the most precarious platforms and the latter at the top of a series of large, turning gears- just getting to the gears requires a precise jump, while trying to jump onto each gear without either falling off or accidentally going in between the gears is almost impossible- and one slip into the shadows means starting all over again. As if that was not enough, it is also home to [[spoiler:Dark Mario]], [[ThatOneBoss one of the hardest bosses in the game]].

* GoddamnedBats: The color-shifting butterflies found on Sky-High Islands can only safely be defeated when they're pink, but will explode and thus damage you if you touch them while they're blue. Normally they wouldn't be significantly annoying... if only so many of them weren't positioned on tight bridges or roads so that you can't outright avoid them and where you could easily fall into the bottomless pit if they so much as hit you.

* GoddamnedBoss: [[spoiler:Kamek]] in Dusky Doomed Dale dies in one hit, but is a headache to deal with due to him zipping all over the arena, the camera's wonky behavior, and him only periodically stopping to cast a spell before zooming off again. He's certainly not ''hard'', due to the Goombas he spawns being a good source of coins to patch up any damage he does, but it's a real headache of a fight all the same.

* DemonicSpiders: The Bloopers in Big Beast's Belly can be quite a pain to deal with thanks to their tendency to hover out of reach and smack Mario with fast and hard to dodge attacks.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Rashay]] is a snarky, cruel moon spirit who seeks to [[ColonyDrop force the moon to crash into the Mushroom Kingdom]], and [[OmnicidalManiac kill everyone on the planet solely for the thrill of it]]. After revealing his presence near the end of the game, he kidnaps Princess Peach and forces Mario to exchange a large amount of Power Stars for the Princess to ensure her safety. After infiltrating his Moon Cellar, where at one point Mario is forced to fling himself through painful lava for Rashay's amusement, Mario fights Rashay, only to find out that he can't be hurt through conventional means. Upon this revelation, Rashay defeats Mario and continues to viciously beat the fallen plumber even after his loss, purely out of a deranged sense of bloodlust.

** The Giant Spider boss in the cave area of Harried Honey Hive is '''notoriously difficult''' to beat without save states. Mario has to jump towards and ground pound the spider's torso region, but it's easier said than done. Not only does Mario have very little room to land on, the spider is also deceptively fast and can even dodge Mario's jumps. Miss one jump, and Mario's health can be quickly drained by the spider's attacks, which have a large area of effect. It's frustrating to the point that even Youtube and Twitch gamer [=SimpleFlips=], a professional ''[=SM64=]'' hack player and world record setter, had problems with this boss.

** Rainbow Road as a whole is one of the hardest stages in the game, but the last two stars are easy. The first one is the red coin star- all of the coins are in the big circle at the start of the level and require only some long jumps to do, while the last one is a BreatherBoss.

** The Devil Big Bully in Underground Depths is shockingly hard version of the Big Bully (which are usually considered laughably easy in the original ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'') that fires out a red wave every few seconds which will burn Mario if touched, which makes kicking it into the lava incredibly difficult.
** The Invisible Boo Gang in ''Rival a Reflection'' are ridiculously hard, and a downright ''nasty'' way to start Dusky Doomed Dale. The fight consists of you battling four waves of Boos that can only be seen through a mirror. The fight itself is hard enough due to the screwy camera and wonky nature of fighting enemies you can only see through a reflection, but the second and fourth phases are especially frustrating: the second phase introduces electric Boos that not only hurt to touch, but they move incredibly quickly and ''home in on you'', and the window of time through which you can hurt them is incredibly small. And the giant Boo at the end is prone to teleporting all over the place and is a nasty source of collision damage due to his massive body. Almost appropriately, the boss fight song here is a remix of a song used for an infamously difficult boss fight in [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} another game]].

** The Giant Spider boss in the cave area of Harried Honey Hive is '''notoriously difficult''' to beat without save states. Mario has to jump towards and ground pound the spider's torso region, but it's easier said than done. Not only does Mario have very little room to land on, the spider is also deceptively fast and can even dodge Mario's jumps. Miss one jump, and Mario's health can be quickly drained by the spider's attacks, which have a large area of effect. Arguably one of the most frustrating missions in the entire game. It's to the point even Youtube and Twitch gamer [=SimpleFlips=], a professional ''[=SM64=]'' hack player and world record setter, had problems with this boss.
** Mischief Masher in Gamble Game Gallery is an Enemy Rush with three waves of enemies, during which there are fire-launching orbs ''everywhere''. Most annoyingly, in two waves, there's going to be a Chuck-Ya on a tiny platform with a fire orb on it as well, which will make grabbing the Chuck-Ya and throwing it a nearly impossible task without you taking heavy damage in the process. What's worse, you won't get any coins from defeating a single enemy; instead, you'll only earn coins whenever you beat one wave. With you having a maximum of 6 health points and with the fire orbs dealing three points of damage to you, this is one task that will go on your last nerve.

** The Above The Clouds stage hidden in Sky-High Islands is by far the hardest secret course in the game. In it, you have to keep up with a small flying ship and use it to jump to other platforms and get the red coins. Problem is, the level combines incredibly precise platforming with the need to be quick lest the ship leave you behind, not helped by the fact that many of the gaps require long jumps and the limited Cloud Mario Power-Up to cross, and as a result it is VERY easy to slip off or jump too far/not far enough and lose a life. Even just getting to the course requires you go to a part of the Sky-High Islands (near the giant windmill, where the rainbow coins are) that [[GuideDangIt is completely out of sight even when using the zoomed-in perspective]], your only clue being a bob-omb near the edge giving a very vague clue about something down below. As with the Undergound Depths, it is likely that you will miss the small area to land in and fall to your doom.

** The FinalBoss, [[spoiler:Rashay]], is very difficult to defeat. The first form is a HopelessBossFight in which even getting to him requires you jump onto rapidly moving platforms that he throws at you, and he then flings you away, costing you 2 health points, before chasing after you so fast that you need to constantly Long Jump to get away from him. His final form takes 5 hits, is very fast, and hits hard. To damage him you have to jump over his head and then Ground-Pound it, which is ''much'' harder than it sounds due to his speed and quick turns.

** Stonesnake Shatters is an easy introductory level that shows off how much work went into this hack. The inclusion of FLUDD is the most notable example of this because of how surprisingly well it works despite the limitations of the N64.
** Dusky Doomed Dale is a good example for being a varied area in terms of tasks (most notably the prison break one) as well as a great level in its own right, along with memorable music.

** Big Beast's Belly is truly a sight to behold... if [[BodyHorror a rather unpleasant one]]. From its design to its textures, the effort that went into making this level as visually... [[NightmareFuel impressive]] as possible really paid off.
** Colossal Circuits really shows off how creative Kaze can be. Surrounded by a background with binary codes is an amassment of computer hardware, ranging from circuit boards to wires as platforms, hard work has been put into making this level as wonderfully detailed and textured as possible. It's an incredibly fun late-stage level that will put your jump skills to quite a test. Its music is also heavily regarded as a fan-favorite.
** Rainbow Road does a damn good job at showing how the ''Mario Kart'' mainstay would look if converted to a level in a platformer: the rainbow designs are dazzling, the music is great, and the platforming is just the right blend of challenging and fun.

** While it is the second-to-last main level and is by no means an easy course by itself, Livid Surreal Dream is fairly sandwiched between Colossal Circuits and Rainbow Road in terms of difficulty due to it being more oriented around puzzles and exploration rather than any sort of PlatformHell. The only real enemies in it (the floating hands), while rather powerful in terms of damage, aren't that hard to take down, as all you need to do is to lure them into attacking a nearby tree.

** The Thunder Lakitus in Rainbow Road also pose quite a threat. Usually, they're floating too high above you for you to be able to reach them and their thunderstorm not only is difficult to dodge, it also deals pretty quick damage and stuns you in place. Dealing with them is also incredibly burdensome when you're on an already tight pathway anyways.

* GoddamnedBoss: Kamek dies in one hit, but is a headache to deal with due to him zipping all over the arena, the camera's wonky behavior, and him only periodically stopping to cast a spell before zooming off again. He's certainly not ''hard'' due to the Goombas he spawns being a good source of coins to patch up any damage he does, but it's a real headache of a fight all the same.
** Likewise, you're not likely to die from the Giant Fish in Crystal Caves if you know just how close you can get to it and that you can stay underwater indefinitely if you let Mario's head rest right on the cage's ceiling, but luring it into the cage can be a very lengthy process. It only ''very'' slowly reaches towards you if you're close enough, but will then wildly swim out of control again if you're too far away.

* ThatOneBoss: Several, which can cause problems when trying to go through the unlock-able BossRush:

** The cave-dwelling Boos in ''Rival a Reflection'' are ridiculously hard, and a downright ''nasty'' way to start Dusky Doomed Dale. The fight consists of you battling four waves of Boos that can only be seen through a mirror. The fight itself is hard enough due to the screwy camera and wonky nature of fighting enemies you can only see through a reflection, but the second and fourth phases are especially frustrating: the second phase introduces electric Boos that not only hurt to touch, but they move incredibly quickly and ''home in on you'', and the window of time through which you can hurt them is incredibly small. And the giant Boo at the end is prone to teleporting all over the place and is a nasty source of collision damage due to his massive body. Almost appropriately, the boss fight song here is a remix of a song used for an infamously difficult boss fight in [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} another game]].
** Shadow Mario, at the end of the Shadow Factory. Not only is he very hard to hit without getting hit yourself, but [[MarathonBoss he can take quite a while to defeat]] since he has six hit points like Mario and uses almost all of the techniques Mario has. After taking enough hits, he will begin throwing instant-kill shadow spots at you. Many have compared this boss to [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Dark Link from Ocarina of Time]] in this regard, since it's even introduced in a similar way.

** Crystal Caves has "Underwater Race". Using the Frog Suit from a cave nearby (which allows you to swim indefinitely and with increased speed), you have to challenge a mermaid to a race. Sounds simple enough, until you see just how annoying said race turns out to be. The race begins with you having to swim into a specific entry, [[GuideDangIt which you may or may not even have known about up until now]], to a circular section, which is where you don't just have to beat the Mermaid in a lap around said circular section, but you also have to swim through red rings, which seemingly have HitboxDissonance and if you miss one, the ring that follows will not be active, forcing you to swim back just to reenter the ring you just missed, potentially costing you your position (and thus the race). You will only win the race if you get to the last blue ring AND stay ahead of the mermaid. It quite literally feels like ''Superman 64'' underwater. All of this is not helped by the camera. Just as the race begins, the camera stays on top of the water, refusing to focus on you while underwater unless you swim deep enough, which is only possible when you get to the circular swimming section. Simply adjusting the camera to a favorable position alone could cost you your position, given how you can't even ''see'' anything until then.
** Underground Depths is an aggravating stage all around. One of its stars requires you to defeat a shockingly hard Big Bully (which are usually considered laughably easy in the original ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'') that fires out a red wave every few seconds which will burn Mario if touched, which makes kicking it into the lava incredibly difficult. The second star has one point where you have to drop down to a set of boxes that swim on lava, which you can't see until you actually jump off the ledge, because they're positioned in such a way that they're almost completely out of your camera's view (not even the zoomed-in perspective can help you out here). What makes this worse is that you absolutely ''have'' to land on the boxes unharmed because you'll lose your Fire Flower ability upon damage, which you need to light two torches that are up ahead to progress. Basically, it's a leap of faith that will put you into an UnwinnableByMistake situation should you fail in any way.
** Bowser's Fiery Castle can be a wake-up call of a level, even though Bowser isn't quite as hard as the Shadow Factory's boss. The firebars are very hard to avoid thanks to how large their hitboxes are (though that's been a problem with the original ''Super Mario 64'') and one slip to the bottom means death by lava.
** Dusky Doomed Dale isn't quite an example, but two of its tasks are; "Rival a Reflection" and "Escape the Prison", respectively. The former has ThatOneBoss ''as its first star'', and the latter is an aggravating StealthBasedMission where it's incredibly easy to get spotted by the Bob-omb guards, which will cause you to lose a life. The latter mission was so frustrating that version 1.1 reduced the sight range of the Bob-omb guards.
** Aside from its ThatOneBoss mentioned above, Harried Honey Hive also has "Bee Skyrace", which involves you using the Bee Suit to challenge a bee on the hive's outskirts. Just upon entering the race through the door that leads outside, the bee will ''immediately'' declare the race, without any "Yes" or "No" prompt. The route itself is designed in such a way that long jumps are all but required to reliably reach the next platforms up ahead, where one mistake could send you falling to your death, as well as several platforming sections along the hive's walls where you have to wall jump a lot of times, which will hinder your progress significantly should you not do so quickly enough.
** Both Gloomy Ambiance stages are quite tough. The "desk" one is set in some sort of "lava" landscape where it's incredibly easy to fall and then die (given how Mario has 6 health points and lava takes away 3). The latter is preceded by a section where the darkness consumes the place, and if you don't make it in time, Mario will get consumed. It is '''very''' fast, leaving Mario with little room to mess up.
** The Shadow Factory has an abundance of small platforms hovering over a large pit of black shadow. There are also shadow spots that move back and forth, which will [[OneHitKill instantly kill]] Mario if he even brushes past them. Despite this, the trek up there isn't too hard... but getting the red coins is a nightmare, since they're placed at the most precarious platforms and one slip into the shadows means starting all over again.
** Gamble Game Gallery. From the [[VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine Piantas]] being completely unhelpful and vague, to the grueling jumps the level makes you do, to the notoriously glitchy pinball machine. Some fans find the course to be the worst out of all the levels, hands down. But two of its stars stand out as being incredibly aggravating; "Scale the Casino" and "Mischief Masher". The former is nothing but pure PlatformHell that neither the courses before it, nor even the courses ''after'' it have. You have to perform extremely high but precise jumps from tiny platforms to make it to the next ones. The final stretch to the star is a GuideDangIt situation where you wouldn't know that you're supposed to scale the very inconspicuous-looking monkey bars to make it to the star. Should you fall from any of those sections, you most likely have to begin the frustrating climb ''all over again''. The latter is an Enemy Rush with three waves of enemies, during which there are fire-launching orbs ''everywhere''. Most annoyingly, in two waves, there's going to be a Chuck-Ya on a tiny platform with a fire orb on it as well, which will make grabbing the Chuck-Ya and throwing it a nearly impossible task without you taking heavy damage in the process. What's worse, you won't get any coins from defeating a single enemy; instead, you'll only earn coins whenever you beat one wave. With you having a maximum of 6 health points and with the fire orbs dealing three points of damage to you, this is one task that will go on your last nerve.
** While Livid Surreal Dream isn't such an example, its second star, "The Bottomless Pit", can get rather nasty. It involves a pit of hexagonal shape with 5 star buttons along the walls, each with a different height. When you land all the way to the bottom of the pit, there's an exit that will instead repeat the pit all over again, giving you essentially endless tries to touch all 5 of the star buttons. But things can go pretty downhill from there, as falling damage could take away about 2 to 4 of your 6 health points depending on your falling height. It's also possible that instead of pressing any star button on your way down, you'll instead bump against the wall, which will leave Mario completely "paralyzed" as he will be unable to ground pound afterwards, which you need to safely land on the ground. There are plenty of coins on the pit's bottom to replenish your health with, but once you've used up all of them, all is eventually left to chance and you might eventually end up in a OneHitPointWonder situation if you don't press all the buttons quickly enough.

* ThatOneBoss:

** The cave-dwelling Boos in ''Rival a Reflection'' are ridiculously hard, and a downright ''nasty'' way to start Dusky Doomed Dale. The fight consists of you battling four waves of Boos that can only be seen through a mirror. The fight itself is hard enough due to the screwy camera and wonky nature of fighting enemies you can only see through a reflection, but the second and fourth phases are especially frustrating: the second phase introduces electric Boos that not only hurt to touch, but they move incredibly quickly and ''home in on you'', and the window of time through which you can hurt them is incredibly small. And the giant Boo at the end is prone to teleporting all over the place and is a nasty source of collision damage due to his massive body. Almost appropriately, the boss fight song here is a remix of a song used for an infamously difficult boss fight in [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} another game.]]

** Rashay is very difficult to defeat. The first form is a HopelessBossFight, and his final form takes 5 hits, is very fast, and hits hard. To damage him you have to jump over his head and then Ground Pound it, which is ''much'' harder than it sounds due to his speed and quick turns.
* ThatOneLevel: Given that this hack is [[NintendoHard noticeably]] [[SequelDifficultySpike harder than]] [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 the original]], there are naturally several of these.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Rashay]] is a snarky, cruel moon spirit who seeks to [[ColonyDrop force the moon to crash into the Mushroom Kingdom]], and [[OmnicidalManiac kill everyone on the planet solely for the thrill of it]]. After revealing his presence near the end of the game, he kidnaps Princess Peach and forces Mario to exchange a large amount of Power Stars for the Princess to ensure her safety. After infiltrating his Moon Cellar, where at one point Mario is forced to fling himself through painful lava for Rashay's amusement, Mario fights Rashay, only to find out that he can't be hurt through conventional means. Upon this revelation, Rashay defeats Mario and continues to viciously beat the fallen plumber even after his loss, purely out of a deranged sense of bloodlust, culminating in throwing him at a cage so hard that the cage ''shatters'' from the impact. (Though [[HoistByHisOwnPetard this ends up being Rashay's undoing]], as it allows the Goomba Bros. to power Mario up and even the odds.)

** The FinalBoss is what Bowser would dream to be in terms of difficulty. He's fast, he hits hard, he's a MarathonBoss, and has two forms. And even after [[spoiler:the HeroicSecondWind and his OneWingedAngel moment]], he's still very difficult to defeat, since you have to jump over his head and then Ground Pound it, which is '''much''' harder than it sounds.

** Crystal Caves has "Underwater Race". Using the Frog Suit from a cave nearby (which allows you to swim indefinitely and with increased speed), you have to challenge a mermaid to a race. Sounds simple enough, until you see just how annoying said race turns out to be. The race begins with you having to swim into a specific entry, [[GuideDangIt which you may or may not even have known about up until now]], to a circular section, which is where you don't just have to beat the Mermaid in a lap around said circular section, but you also have to swim through red rings, which seemingly have HitboxDissonance and if you miss one, the ring that follows will not be active, forcing you to swim back just to reenter the ring you just missed, potentially costing you your position (and thus the race). You will only win the race if you get to the last blue ring AND stay ahead of the mermaid. It quite literally feels like ''[[VideoGames/Superman64]]'' underwater. All of this is not helped by the camera. Just as the race begins, the camera stays on top of the water, refusing to focus on you while underwater unless you swim deep enough, which is only possible when you get to the circular swimming section. Simply adjusting the camera to a favorable position alone could cost you your position, given how you can't even ''see'' anything until then.

** Big Beast's Belly is truly a sight to behold... if [[BodyHorror a rather unpleasant one]]. From its design to its textures, the effort that went into making this level as visually... [[NightmareFuel impressive]] as possible really paid off. But it's in its third star, "Twist Up the Foodchain", where the level shows its true colors: After pulling out a helpless shark out of the beast's stomach acid, you have to go back to the inside of the beast's mouth (the level's entry point, by the way) and attack its ''uvula'' to make its stomach acid rise high enough for you to grab the star that is at the top of its teeth.

** The Thunder Lakitus in Rainbow Road also pose one hell of a threat. Usually, they're floating too high above you for you to be able to reach them and their thunderstorm not only is difficult to dodge, it also deals pretty quick damage and stuns you in place. Dealing with them is also incredibly burdensome when you're on an already tight pathway anyways.

** Even worse are the Little Mousers in Gamble Game Gallery. They're so small and fast that it's frustratingly hard to even land on them. Truly an exercise in annoyance.

** The second encounter with the Goomba Bros. on the courtyard overworld isn't entirely difficult, but the blue Goomba with his spring-loaded boxing glove will drive you up a wall. He walks away rather quickly from you as you approach him, while his boxing glove will launch every time you're in range, which will not only deal quick damage to you, but will also drag this fight out even longer.

** Crystal Caves has "Underwater Race". Using the Frog Suit from a cave nearby (which allows you to swim indefinitely and with increased speed), you have to challenge a mermaid to a race. Sounds simple enough, until you see just how annoying said race turns out to be. The race begins with you having to swim into a specific entry, [[GuideDangIt which you may or may not even have known about up until now]], to a circular section, which is where you don't just have to beat the Mermaid in a lap around said circular section, but you also have to swim through red rings, red rings which seemingly have HitboxDissonance and if you miss one, the ring that follows will not be active, forcing you to swim back just to reenter the ring you just missed, potentially costing you your position (and thus the race). You will only win the race if you get to the last blue ring AND stay ahead of the mermaid. It feels like ''[[VideoGames/Superman64 Superman 64]]'' underwater... [[SarcasmMode fun]].
*** As if all that wasn't bad enough, the camera here will drive you crazy. Just as the race begins, the camera stays on top of the water, refusing to focus on you while underwater unless you swim deep enough, which is only possible when you get to the circular swimming section. Simply adjusting the camera to a favorable position alone will cost you your position, given how you can't even ''see'' anything until then.
** Underground Depths is an aggravating stage all around. One of its stars requires you to defeat a shockingly hard Big Bully (which are usually considered laughably easy in the original ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'') that fires out a red wave every few seconds which will burn Mario if touched, which makes kicking him into the lava incredibly difficult. The second star has one point where you have to drop down to a set of boxes that swim on lava, which ''you can't even see'' because they're positioned in such a strange way that they're almost completely out of your camera's view. What makes this worse is that you absolutely ''have'' to land on the boxes unharmed because you'll lose your Fire Flower ability upon damage, which you need to light two torches that are up ahead to progress. Basically, it's a leap of faith that will put you into an UnwinnableByMistake situation should you fail in any way.

** Aside from its ThatOneBoss mentioned above, Harried Honey Hive also has "Bee Skyrace", which involves you using the Bee Suit to challenge a bee on the hive's outskirts. Just upon entering the race through the door that leads outside, the bee will ''immediately'' declare the race, without any "Yes" or "No" prompt. But it's the route itself that makes the race a very frustrating experience, with long jumps all but required to reliably reach the next platforms up ahead, where one mistake could send you falling to your death, as well as several platforming sections along the hive's walls where you have to wall jump a lot of times, which will hinder your progress significantly should you not do so quickly enough.

** Gamble Game Gallery. From the [[VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine Piantas]] being completely unhelpful and vague, to the grueling jumps the level makes you do, to the notoriously glitchy pinball machine. Some fans find the course to be the worst out of all the levels, hands down. But two of its stars stand out as being incredibly aggravating; "Scale the Casino" and "Mischief Masher". The former is nothing but pure PlatformHell that neither the courses before it, nor even the courses ''after'' it could possibly have. You have to perform nearly perfect jumps from tiny platforms to make it to the next ones. The final stretch to the star is a GuideDangIt situation where you wouldn't know that you're supposed to scale the very inconspicuous-looking monkey bars to make it to the star. Should you fall from any of those sections, you most likely have to begin the frustrating climb ''all over again''. The latter is an Enemy Rush with three waves of enemies, during which there are fire-launching orbs ''everywhere''. Most annoyingly, in two waves, there's going to be a Chuck-Ya on a tiny platform with a fire orb on it as well, which will make grabbing the Chuck-Ya and throwing it a nearly impossible task without you taking heavy damage in the process. What's worse, you won't get any coins from defeating a single enemy; instead, you'll only earn coins whenever you beat one wave. With you having a maximum of 6 health points and with the fire orbs dealing three points of damage to you, this is one task that will go on your last nerve.
** While Livid Surreal Dream isn't such an example, its second star, "The Bottomless Pit", can get rather nasty. It involves a pit of hexagonal shape with 5 star buttons along the walls, each with a different height. When you land all the way to the bottom of the pit, there's an exit that will instead repeat the pit all over again, giving you essentially endless tries to touch all 5 of the star buttons. But things can go pretty downhill from there, as falling damage could take away about 2 to 4 of your 6 health points depending on your falling height. There's a risk that instead of pressing any star button on your way down, you'll instead bump against the wall, which will leave Mario essentially paralyzed as he will be unable to ground pound afterwards, which you need to safely land on the ground. There are plenty of coins on the pit's bottom to replenish your health with, but once you've used up all of them, all is eventually left to chance and you might eventually end up in a OneHitPointWonder situation if you don't press all the buttons quickly enough.

** Kurma Koopa, the boss of Sky-High Islands, is fairly challenging, but nothing especially frustrating. However, one single moment qualifies him as this: After you hit his head for the second time, when you're blown on his back and you lose control of Mario, there's a very good chance you'll get launched right on a Paragoomba, which you'll then bounce off from... straight out of the platform to your death, through little fault of your own. Basically, if you don't ground pound Kurma's head in a specific way, you'll get launched to your inescapable death, simple as that.

* BestBossEver: The final battle against [[spoiler:Rashay]] is very impressive for a FinalBoss in a ''Mario 64'' romhack, being a tough boss with [[SequentialBoss two forms]], cool cutscenes, and AwesomeMusic.

* AwesomeMusic: The soundtrack mainly consists of remixes of other video game tracks, though the game has some original tracks of its own, like the beautiful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG3agPsc0_M Above the Clouds]], the haunting [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNvD0sK9sa4 Dusky Doomed Dale]] or the epic FinalBoss theme, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUwAXDd45wc Last Impact.]]

** Underground Depths is an aggravating stage all around. One of its stars requires you to defeat a shockingly hard Big Bully (which are usually considered laughably easy in the original ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'') that fires out a red wave every few seconds which will burn Mario if touched, which makes kicking him into the lava incredibly difficult. The second star has one point where you have to drop down to a set of boxes that swim on lava, which ''you can't even see'' because they're too deep down for your camera to be able to adjust itself to. What makes this worse is that you absolutely ''have'' to land on the boxes unharmed because you'll lose your Fire Flower ability upon damage, which you need to light two torches that are up ahead to progress. Basically, it's a leap of faith that will put you into an UnwinnableByMistake situation should you fail in any way.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Rashay]] is a snarky, cruel moon spirit who seeks to [[ColonyDrop force the moon to crash into the Mushroom Kingdom]], and [[OmnicidalManiac kill everyone on the planet solely for the thrill of it]]. After revealing his presence near the end of the game, he kidnaps Princess Peach and forces Mario to exchange a large amount of Power Stars for the Princess to ensure her safety. After infiltrating his Moon Cellar, where at one point Mario is forced to fling himself through painful lava for Rashay's amusement, Mario fights Rashay only to find out that he can't be hurt through conventional means. Upon this revelation, Rashay defeats Mario and continues to viciously beat the fallen plumber even after his loss, purely out of a deranged sense of bloodlust, culminating in throwing him at a cage so hard that the cage ''shatters'' from the impact. (Though [[HoistByHisOwnPetard this ends up being Rashay's undoing]], as it allows the Goomba Bros. to power Mario up and even the odds.)

* BreatherLevel: Despite being located in the third hub world which is full of fiendishly difficult levels, Luna Park is rather simple. Both of its stars are easy to get with few enemies and a lack of bottomless pits makes the somewhat tricky platforming a lot less stressful than it normally is.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Rashay]] is a snarky, cruel moon spirit who seeks to [[ColonyDrop force the moon to crash into the Mushroom Kingdom]], and [[OmnicidalManiac kill everyone on the planet solely for the thrill of it]]. After revealing his presence near the end of the game, he kidnaps Princess Peach and forces Mario to exchange a large amount of Power Stars for the Princess to ensure her safety. After infiltrating his Moon Cellar, where at one point Mario is forced to fling himself through painful lava for Rashay's amusement, Mario fights Rashay only to find out that he can't be hurt through conventional means. Upon this revelation, Rashay defeats Mario and continues to viciously beat the fallen plumber even after his loss, purely out of a deranged sense of bloodlust.

** The Freezies in Melty Molten Mountains easily qualify as this. They can not be defeated at all and their breath attack has a large range and will deal plenty of damage to you. The Freezies found on the level's ice side are easily the worst of the two, as its breath will momentarily freeze you in place... after which there's a chance that you're still close enough to its range that you'll be immediately frozen again.
** The Thunder Lakitus in Rainbow Road also pose one hell of a threat. Usually they're floating too high above you for you to be able to reach them and their thunderstorm not only is difficult to dodge, it also deals pretty quick damage and stuns you in place. Dealing with them is also incredibly burdensome when you're on an already tight pathway anyways.

** The cave-dwelling Boos in ''Rival a Reflection'' are ridiculously hard, and a downright ''nasty'' way to start Dusky Doomed Dale. The fight consists of you battling four waves of Boos that can only be seen through a mirror. The fight itself is hard enough due to the screwy camera and wonky nature of fighting enemies you can only see through a reflection, but the second and fourth phases are especially frustrating: the second phase introduces electric Boos that not only hurt to touch, but they move incredibly quickly and ''home in on you'', and the window of time through which you can hurt them is incredibly small. And the giant Boo at the end is prone to teleporting all over the pace and is a nasty source of collision damage due to his massive body. Almost appropriately, the boss fight song here is a remix of a song used for an infamously difficult boss fight in [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} another game.]]

*** As if all that wasn't bad enough, the camera here will drive you crazy. Just as the race begins, the camera stays on top of the water, refusing to focus on you while underwater unless you swim deep enough, which is only possible when you get to the circular swimming section. Simply adjusting the camera to a favorable position alone will cost you your position given how you can't even ''see'' anything until then.

** Bowser's Fiery Castle can be a wake up call of a level, even though Bowser isn't quite as hard as the Shadow Factory's boss. The firebars are very hard to avoid thanks to how large their hitboxes are (though that's been a problem with the original ''Super Mario 64'') and one slip to the bottom means death by lava.

** Gamble Game Gallery. From the [[VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine Piantas]] being completely unhelpful and vague, to the grueling jumps the level makes you do, to the notoriously glitchy pinball machine. Some fans find the course to be the worst out of all the levels, hands down. But two of its stars stand out as being incredibly aggravating; "Scale the Casino" and "Mischief Masher". The former is nothing but pure PlatformHell that neither the courses before it, nor even the courses ''after'' it could possibly have. You have to perform nearly perfect jumps from tiny platforms to make it to the next ones. The final stretch to the star is a GuideDangIt situation where you wouldn't know that you're supposed to scale the very inconspicuous looking monkey bars to make it to the star. Should you fall from any of those sections, you most likely have to begin the frustrating climb ''all over again''. The latter is an Enemy Rush with three waves of enemies, during which there are fire-launching orbs ''everywhere''. Most annoyingly, in two waves there's going to be a Chuck-Ya on a tiny platform with a fire orb on it as well, which will make grabbing the Chuck-Ya and throwing it a nearly impossible task without you taking heavy damage in the process. What's worse, you won't get any coins from defeating a single enemy, instead you'll only earn coins whenever you beat one wave. With you having a maximum of 6 health points and with the fire orbs dealing three points of damage to you, this is one task that will go on your last nerve.
** While Livid Surreal Dream isn't such an example, its second star "The Bottomless Pit" can get rather nasty. It involves a pit of hexagonal shape with 5 star buttons along the walls, each with a different height. When you land all the way to the bottom of the pit, there's an exit that will instead repeat the pit all over again, giving you essentially endless tries to touch all 5 of the star buttons. But things can go pretty downhill from there, as falling damage could take away about 2 to 4 of your 6 health points depending on your falling height. There's a risk that instead of pressing any star button on your way down, you'll instead bump against the wall, which will leave Mario essentially paralyzed as he will be unable to ground pound afterwards, which you need to safely land on the ground. There are plenty of coins on the pit's bottom to replenish your health with, but once you've used up all of them, all is eventually left to chance and you might eventually end up in a OneHitPointWonder situation if you don't press all the buttons quickly enough.