After completing the bonus World Star in Super Mario 3D World, I continued on to the second bonus world, World Mushroom. This world is a fairly short world, with only eight levels. Each is a new take on an earlier level, and there are no stamps to collect in this world.
World Mushroom-1: Night Falls on Really Rolling Hills starts out with only 30 seconds on the timer! It’s clear you have to hurry, and picking up clock icons to give you more time is a must. You really don’t have time to explore and find all the stars on one run, so you’ll probably need multiple attempts to find everything.
World Mushroom-2: Spiky Mount Beanpole requires you to ascend a very tall structure in search of five key coins. Fortunately, this level has a reasonable time limit, so it’s more relaxing than the frantic running in the previous stage. Once you find all five key coins, you’ll have to return to the starting point before you can advance to the exit.
World Mushroom-3: Deep-Black Jungle Drift, as the name implies, takes place in a dark jungle. You’ll wear a light box (the spotlight power-up) as you ride rafts through haunted wetlands. Many Boos can be found here, which can be defeated by shining the spotlight on them for a few seconds. This is actually a pretty easy level.
World Mushroom-4: Trouble in Shadow-Play Alley is a colorless 2D level in which you only view silhouettes of practically everything in the level. You’re only given 100 seconds to complete the level, so again, you may feel rushed. But the level is fairly short, so it’s really just a matter of figuring out how to get the stars in time.
World Mushroom-5: Back to Hands-On Hall takes place in the same Japanese setting as World 6-3. Much like that stage, this one also makes heavy use of the touch screen on the gamepad. You’ll use your finger or stylus to swipe the screen to open doors and bang gongs. It’s not a bad level, but I lost a lot of lives using the propeller power-up, trying to get the second star.
World Mushroom-6: Gigantic Seasick Wreck has you walking across a broken ship, while avoiding the gusting winds of the cloudy Ty-Foo enemies. They’ll blow you overboard if you’re not careful. There are also some Bullies that will try to push you around. However, there are multiple mega mushrooms in this stage that let you turn the tables on the bad guys.
World Mushroom-7: Broken Blue Bully Belt is a challenging level that has some very tricky jumps. Platforms rise and sink over some blue lava, while enemies pop up and other spiky hazards spin around to make things even more difficult. There is a tanooki suit power-up here, but practice is going to be required to get through this stage.
World Mushroom-Cube has ten stars up for grabs. Each room has a ten-second time limit and a different group of enemies to defeat. Clearing each room earns you a star and a trip to the next room. It’s helpful to have a power-up here, particularly the cat suit. But it’s not that difficult regardless.
This still isn’t the end of the game, because World Mushroom leads right into another area, World Flower. So I’m not done yet!