Paper Mario: Sticker Star -- 1-2 Bouquet Gardens

This level has Koopas in it, making for an interesting battle dynamic. If you land a first strike jump attack, they'll go into their shell and you can kick it into the enemies behind it. There is an item block surrounded by two brick blocks. Leave the brick blocks intact, go up the hill and walk across the blocks to reach an item block with a Fire Flower sticker. There are two paths to the right.

The lower path leads to an area with Goombas and Koopas, as well as some Bowser tape holding down some stairs. There are Iron Jump stickers in the area. The path to the upper left leads to where the 3D Fan is. Stay out of its gusts to avoid being blown away. If you are blown to the other side, go to the back and go left to a hidden area with coins and a Shiny Fire Flower sticker. Approach the Fan carefully and quickly hit (A) when prompted to turn it off. Now that there are no gales, we find a Toad crying, kneeling what was formerly a bed of flowers. You'll need three flower stickers to help him.

I don't have three flower stickers, so I go to the next area, where Goombas are spinning a Toad around. It seems the Toad has something they want. We can either pay them 20 coins, or try beating them in battle. I'm going to battle them. They stack, merge, and morph into a 2-Fold Goomba. They attack by inching along the ground, then flapping like pages of a book. They only have 10 HP, so they're easy to beat. The Toad says he found something rare and I think I see it behind the shrubs. It's a Cat-o-Luck. As thanks for saving him, we get to keep it.

The next area has Bowser tape concealing coins and stickers. We walk further and a Goomba stops us, saying that Goombas are not to be taken lightly. Four more appear and they stack and roll into a wheel. The battle starts. Kersti mentions that dealing with lots of enemies might be easier if we could use multiple stickers at a time. This introduces the Battle Spinner, where we stop the scrolling pictures and try to match them, like a slot machine. I fail at it the first time, so Kersti lines up three coins for me. I can now use three stickers in a row (and get coins). The number of stickers you can use decreases by one each turn. After the battle, the Goombas leave. On the hill are an Ice Flower and a Fire Flower sticker.

The area to the right has an item block with three Slaphammers. The side of the hill has the faint outline of a door on it.The Secret Door leads to a room with Flashy Fire Flower, Flashy POW Block, and Flashy Ice Flower stickers. Now that we have enough flower stickers, we return to the crying Toad. We paperize and stick two Shiny Fire Flowers and an Ice Flower sticker. The rest of the flower bed bursts into bloom and makes two of each kind of sticker we planted, so I get four Shiny Fire Flowers. The Toad is overjoyed, so he gives us an HP-Up Heart, so our HP is now 25. Back to the area with the door on the hill. At the top of the hill is a comet piece. We collect the coins and the path opens up.

New Super Mario Bros. 2: 1-2

This level has a lot of POW blocks. You'll use it to access the pipe. Before you do that, take a Koopa shell and use it to hit the POW on the left for some coins. Go up the ledge to make more coins appear. In some levels, if you go to certain areas, coins will magically appear. Now we take the pipe underground. The two POWs can be used to get an item and lots of coins. Use shells to hit the POW blocks so you can get the first Star Coin. Go down the yellow pipe. Hit the P-Switch and run to get the second Star Coin. Once you get back to the main level, you'll find the infinite rising and lowering platforms. Activate another POW block to reach a black pipe with a fire sign in front of it. If you don't have a Fire Flower, one will be available after the midpoint. Once you have one, shoot as many fireballs as quickly as possible into the pipe. Lots of coins will come out the other side of the pipe, as well as a Mega Mushroom. Get it and run. You'll be able to get the third Star Coin encased in stone. Go up the blue pipe and hit the POW for the stairs.

Coin Total: 940
The game will give you a message every time you reach a coin benchmark. This time we get the message: "You've collected 500 coins! The reason my total is so high is because coins are added to your total when you exit the level because you reached the flagpole or you died. They are not added to the total if you decide to exit the level.

New Super Mario Bros.: 1-2

It's time for the first underground level. As the level is underground, it takes place on the Touch Screen, so you can't access your reserve item. We can pound the brick blocks to drop down for lots of coins. The first Star Coin is on a ledge to the right of the set of three brick blocks. As we keep going to the right, we'll find several brick blocks somewhat shaped like a tower. We can pound the top brick block to drop down to the second Star Coin. We take the first pipe to an area below and find more coins and a Koopa Shell, which we use to destroy the brick blocks under the pipe. This leads us to a new area with some Goombas and a Mega Mushroom. I got 2 1-ups from here. We go back to the main level through the pipe and use a tilting platform to reach an area on top of the rock that forms the ceiling. We run to the end to find the 3rd Star Coin and a pipe to the red flag goal. The red flag goal opens a shortcut to the fort, bypassing 1-3. It also opens access to a Toad House. To reach the regular goal, keep going right. It opens the path to 1-3.

Super Mario 3D Land: 1-2

We start the level and walk past a spike ball swinging from a chain. A remix of the Underground theme plays. We get a Fire Flower and lose it to an Ink Piranha, who spits ink blots onto the screen. We lose our Super Shroom to another Ink Piranha. Killing them removes the ink blots. We can stomp on them to take them out. On the spinning platform with the second Ink Piranha, we find the first Star Coin. We died from a Goomba.
Take 2- We get a Fire Flower and the first Star Coin. We lose the Fire Flower to a torch. We pass the four stacked Goombas by ducking into the alcove in the wall and reach the midpoint. The lone coin in the corner makes more coins. We get applause if we get them all. Along the left wall are some coins. They hide blocks, one of which has a Starman. We run around, taking out Ink Piranhas, Koopas, Goombas, and a spike ball for 1-ups. The second Star Coin is here, over a yellow moving platform. We carefully cross the narrow wooden bridge, then walk to the back wall and kill the Ink Piranhas for the third Star Coin. We get a 1-up at the flagpole.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii: 1-2 --Toad Rescue- Part 1-Fail

After returning to the map from 1-4, I received a message from one of the Toads in Peach's castle. Apparently, Bowser's minions are stuffing Toads into boxes, which is an effective delay strategy and a nice sidequest. I am to rescue the Toad from the Item Box and carry him to the goal. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite hold on to Toad. Picking up something requires pressing 1 and shaking the Wiimote, according to the onscreen instructions. What the instructions fail to tell you is that to hold onto something requires HOLDING 1 while you want to hold it, or you'll immediately throw it away. Not knowing this, I threw Toad into a Koopa, and he took damage. I tried to get rid of the Koopa, but I sent the shell accidently into Toad, killing him. It ricocheted off the wall and killed me, too. When I tried to restart the level, Toad was gone, so I exited the level, and continued on. Maybe he'll show up again.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii: 1-2 --Down in the Underground

This level has a different feel than 1-1 because we've taken a pipe underground. Instead of being bright and colorful like 1-1, we find mostly cool colors, crystals, stone, bricks, and a remix of World 1-2 from the original Super Mario Bros. This level sports platforms that tilt back and forth, which could help or hinder progress and jumps. We first meet the Ice Flower in the first block we find. I think this item might possibly be my favorite because it freezes enemies in blocks of ice, allowing you to use them as extra platforms, or you can pick them up and throw them or kick them to send them into other enemies like you would throw Koopa shells. If the ice blocks hit hard surfaces, the ice block will shatter and the enemy will be killed- a great way to get rid of pesky Dry Bones! Also, shaking the Wiimote shoots an ice ball in each direction. Blue Toad and I got Ice Flowers and continued on. Getting the first Star Coin was easy. Getting the second Star Coin was a bit more difficult, because the other players started collected the coins that were to be the block platforms to help us get up once one of us hit the P-switch. They left enough to get close to the coin, and then Toad jumped on Luigi's head to get the coin. We're getting better at this cooperation thing! Toad also used the POW block to help us get the third coin. We got all 8 coins for 1-ups and an Ice Flower. Mario and Luigi finished the level.