Level 7, Monte Village

*Note: This level is called Pianta Village in the US version of Super Mario Sunshine.

Secure the rocket pack from Water Mario and use it to get on top of the giant Shine emblem tower. There's a pipe up there that leads to level 7.

Story #1 - Cool off the Chomps with water then grab their tails. Pull and then let go to send them flying. You need to get all three into the lake in the center of town.

Story #2 Another race. Standard racing procedure works here, but at the end try and shave a split second off your time by jumping across a little blue sky if it's neck-and-neck. Another good idea is to stay left...there are generally less obstacles that way, and plus you won’t be competing with the opponent for space. Nothing sucks more than running into him and losing all your momentum. This time you'll almost have to use the Belly Flop, since that's what the other guy uses and almost any other technique is slower.

Story #3 - Go left and hang on the edge to get past the first swath of lava. Now jump into the first square hole and ground pound the grate. Move along this catwalk Tarzan-style until you reach a vertical grate. Punch it and you will go riding off towards the middle of the level. As soon as it stops, jump to catch onto the ceiling. See that? Good thing you got off... now you should only have one place to go. Press A to punch up through the grate. Wall jump out of the hole and look for the Golden Mushroom. You have to reach that shroom. If you fall in the lava, you're basically dead since you lose all control over Mario. Now, notice a bridge next to you with no lava. Get on that and walk slowly off of the edge to grab on with your hands. Now you can work your way along the side until you reach a barren ledge. From here you can jump towards the Golden Mushroom and land in a safe spot. Scale the platforms to get your pack back! Now you can flip jump and hover up to the Golden Mushroom for the Shine. If you’re having trouble, keep in mind that hazardous substance can only hurt Mario if he’s standing in them with both feet. You can stick very close to the edge of a sludge-filled platform and be perfectly safe, as long as you keep one foot on dry ground. Also note that there are many different ways to complete this story, so feel free to experiment. One interesting method, which you may find easier, is to make it to the pool of water at the back of the city. You can jump in, then jump back out and drip water onto the sludge to create a small indentation. Then get wet again and try a spin jump to clear out even more. Eventually you can clear a path all the way to the Golden Mushroom, although this method is certainly not the quickest.

Story #4 - Cool off the Chomp with water and let him move towards the end of the level. When he's close to the end of the level, pound the nail of his chain into the ground. Now he's stuck for a few seconds. Cool him off again. Now that he's close to the back, use the B button to grab his chain and drag it towards the round pool shown in the intro cut-scene. You can't go to far or he'll pull away. You'll have to stop periodically to pound the nail into the ground so you can cool him off again. When you drag him to the pool, you get a Shine.

Story #5 - Acquire a fruit for Yoshi from the small mushroom-like tree that is forward and left of the start. Jump Yoshi along the mushrooms beneath the city until you reach the orange squiggly thing. Spray it down and get Mario in the opening. Another obstacle course. This time, use the people to throw you they will throw you according to where you're standing when you talk to them. This isn't too hard once you get the hang of the way they throw you. Little guys throw shorter distances.

Story #6 - Just found the puddles of lava and wash them off. When each person is revealed, wash them off until they sparkle They're all on the ground level so this is very easy to do in the three minutes allotted.

Story #7 - Same basic Water Mario fight except now he trails fire. This makes him easier to find but harder to follow. He's still easy to beat though.

Story #8 - Red coin hunt. You should probably get the hardest coin first. Run across the bridge and as you approach the land, jump off to the side and forward. When you get under the land, hover until you reach the grate with the red coin on it. Now get back topside. The rest of the coins aren't too bad. Number two is on the leftmost branch of the huge tree to the right of the bridge's end. Three is in the grass on the left side of the board. Continue past the grass and look for the fruit tree, which has the fourth coin. Towards the back (next to the statue of an islander) is a large tree. Number five is behind the tree trunk, guarded by a beehive. Approach from the statue and go through quickly for maximum safety. The pool in front of the statue contains number six. Number seven is in a large stack of crates. Finally, the last coin is in the giant center tree. Climb the tree using the rocket pack (which is half way up the tree). Do a spin jump and rocket boost from that position to get to the top. Now you simply have to get the Shine. Watch the white puffy things. Follow their direction by travelling down one of the large leaves of the center tree. Catch hold of the one that is in the center of the leaf near the tip. When it brings you over the clouds, let go and get your Shine.

100 Coins – Choose Story 5, the one with Yoshi. Start off by going all the way back to the underground entrance next to the water temple. Go down there and follow the fencing until you come to a moving punch-wall. Get exactly in the middle of the moving wall and the punch it to pick up ten coins. Now you want to get over to those big mushrooms and all their coins. You can try to finagle your way there underground, or just go back topside and cross the starting bridge. Either way, you need to collect all of the coins down there. By now you should have 50 coins. Then get topside again and feed Yoshi his fruit. Jump up and start eating bees from the beehive...there should be three initially. Each one drops a gold coin. Then shoot down the hive, run away from the edge of the level (you’ll see why when a bee hurts you), and start eating them en masse with Yoshi. You can get a total of 25 coins from the hive, and the last bee will drop a Blue Coin. Repeat this process with the hive at the very back of the level, behind the giant palm tree trunk. If you still don't have enough, have Yoshi eat the wind creatures at the beginning of the level. Look in the tall grass for orange cactus-like creatures, but don't eat these guys--they'll only give you one coin each. Instead, have Mario stomp them while they're standing upright for three coins. If you missed one or two coins along the way, pound the temple statue’s nose to make seven more pop out. The Shine will appear above the statue’s raised hand.

Secret 1 - Get back to the obstacle course in 7-5. The main difference this time is that you can get use your water pack to cross all the gaps (except the one guy who throws you upwards). Get the red coins and get that Shine (not to hard once you start using the water pack).

Secret 2 - Play 7-8 and use the rocket (on the center tree) to get to the very top of the center tree. You may have to do a spin jump or U-turn jump just before blasting to get to the top. Stand on the platform at the top and spray water at the Sun.

Final Level, Corona Mountain

In order to access the final level, you must beat the seventh story in all seven main levels. In other words, beat Water Mario in each world. This means you can theoretically beat the game with 50 Shines (seven from each world and one from the airport at the beginning), but most people will probably be at 70 or 80 before activating the final sequence. Anyway, just use the rocket nozzle to get to the cave at the back of the hub city, after you’ve chased Water Mario up there the first time.

Corona Mountain is structured differently than other levels, in that it’s much shorter and doesn’t contain any Shines or stories. It’s mainly just a road to the final boss. To start off, put your pack in hover mode and land on the next platform right after the spikes retract. Obviously, you’ll want to jump off again as soon as possible. Repeat for the next spike platforms, until you get to an area with fire platforms as well. You could do this the hard way and use the spray nozzle to put out one fire at a time, then get on a spike platform and quickly put out another fire, then repeat until you’re through. But you want the easy way, right? Just keep jumping high (use U-turn or spin jump if you’re worried, although neither is necessary) and linger over each fire platform with the hover jets to put out the fire. It’ll stay out for about ten seconds, plenty of time for you to move on. Repeat this procedure, combined with your spike platform timing, until you get to safe ground. Break the crate here for a one-up, refill your water in the stream, and jump onto the boat.

Here’s where the fun begins. The boat works on the same principles as a lily pad, except that it’s much harder to control. Feather your sprays backwards so it doesn’t move too quickly, because you’ll want plenty of time to make steering adjustments. To steer around objects, move Mario to the front of the boat and spray hard to either side. Don’t be afraid of using too much spray...the boat is heavy and turns slowly. When you’re satisfied with your direction, carefully spray backwards again to keep moving forward. There isn’t much strategy to making it through this part; success is mainly a factor of your boating skills. If you want some free practice, there’s a boat in Mare Bay that you don’t have to worry about sinking. If the boat hits any obstruction at all, it will quickly start to sink. Switch to hover and get out fast, if there’s any safe land nearby. After steering through a few pillars and cave structures, you’ll come to a large island. Disembark here unless you want to try for some of the blue coins in the surrounding moat of lava.

Fill up your water in the streams and grab the rocket nozzle from the red box. Move under the big shadow and let her rip. It’s a cloud! Ugh, it’s lots of clouds. Zoom your camera out and way up so you can see the next clouds above. Watch their movements and use the rocket nozzle to keep climbing up to each new level. Try for the 1-up if you like; since it’s in the middle, you don’t have much danger of falling down into lava. When you finally get to the top cloud, rocket jump one more time to reach the final boss.

Final Boss: Bowser and Baby Bowser

For a final boss encounter, this isn’t really too difficult. Keep moving at all times so as to dodge Baby Bowser’s missiles, but otherwise ignore him. He can’t be hurt. Run the opposite direction of Bowser’s fire breath until you reach one of the platform’s outcroppings. Follow it down to an unusual icon on the floor. Curious players may have already seen it on top of the hub city’s lighthouse; it’s a super butt stomp pad. To break it, do a rocket jump straight up (you may want to jump before discharging the nozzle, if only to avoid any oncoming missiles) and then press and hold L at the top of your trajectory. Mario will come down harder than normal, hard enough to break those special pads. The outcropping will crumble from the impact, so get back to the main ring fast! Getting back by regular methods may be tough, since the floor is fragmenting and falling quickly. One method you may find easier is to charge up another rocket jump as soon as you land, and use that to land back on the ring. Just be careful; land short and you’re down the pit, land far and you’re in the pool of green stuff, which will take away life and can be hard to escape from.

I’m sure you can guess the method from here: just keep super-stomping the rest of the pads. As you get closer to destroying them all, Baby Bowser will start shooting off even more missiles, and Bowser will sometimes cause the green stuff to overflow out onto the ring you’re running on. Do your best to avoid these attacks, but if you do get hit, try not to panic and you’ll probably be okay. You’re much more likely to die from falling than from the life meter running out. When you smash the final pad, the whole structure will flip and send Bowser and son flying away. That’s it. No second form or anything like that. Enjoy the ending. After the credits roll, the game will ask you to save. For some reason, the default choice here is to NOT save, so make sure you move over the choice on the left and press A. Your Shine total will go up by one for that big Shine that Bowser was hoarding the whole time. Saving here also enables the Hawaiian shirt, which you can read more about in the Secrets section.