Super Mario 64 Cap Guide: Wing, Metal, and Vanish Caps

Most people treat the three caps in Super Mario 64 as bonus toys — a fun red hat that flies, a shiny metal one, a spooky see-through one. Then they hit 68 stars, go looking for the last two, and realize a chunk of the castle was locked behind switches they never flipped. The caps are not optional flavor. They are a second, quieter progression system stacked on top of the star doors, and if you ignore them you cannot finish the game.

There are three of them: the Wing Cap (red), the Metal Cap (green), and the Vanish Cap (blue). Each one lives in its own secret course, and each of those courses hides a switch. Flip the switch and every matching colored block in the game turns solid — until then those blocks are ghostly wireframes you fall straight through. This guide covers where each switch is on the Nintendo 64 original, exactly how to reach it, what the cap does, how long it lasts, and which Power Stars you genuinely cannot get without it.

The caps are the game's real progression system

The star doors are the gate everyone knows about. The castle gates you on Power Star totals, not skill — 8 for the first Bowser, 30 for the basement door, 70 for the endless stairs. The cap switches are the gate nobody warns you about, because the game never forces you through them. You can pass a red or green or blue block without a solid cap; you just fall through empty air where a hat should be.

That matters because several of the 70 stars you need to reach Bowser in the Sky sit behind those blocks, or on platforms you can only reach by flying. Skip the Wing Cap switch and "Mario Wings to the Sky" in Bob-omb Battlefield is impossible. Skip the whole set and you are capped well short of 70, let alone the full 120.

Here is the clean version: three switches, three colors, three courses. Two of the three cap courses are among the 15 castle secret stars, which is why they are easy to walk past for hours without noticing.

Wing Cap: the red switch and the 10-star sunbeam

The Wing Cap switch lives in the Tower of the Wing Cap, and you reach it the moment you own 10 Power Stars. Walk into the main castle lobby and look at the floor: sunlight now beams down through the star-shaped hole in the ceiling onto the rug in the center of the room. Stand in that beam and tilt the camera up, and the light warps you straight into the course.

Inside, you spawn already flying as Wing Mario. There is one red switch on top of the tower — hit it and the red exclamation blocks scattered through the main courses become solid for good. The tower's single Power Star comes from grabbing all eight red coins, which float in pairs in the four compass directions, each pair lower than the last. Sweep them in a downward spiral, then land on the star marker at the top.

Once the red switch is pressed, red blocks in Bob-omb Battlefield, Lethal Lava Land, and Shifting Sand Land hand you a Wing Cap on contact. There is also a red block on the castle roof, but that one is a 120-star victory-lap reward, not part of the main hunt.

Metal Cap: the green switch behind the waterfall

The green switch sits in the Cavern of the Metal Cap, and reaching it is the fiddliest of the three. You get there through Hazy Maze Cave, the basement course you unlock at 8 stars. Work your way down to the underground lake, climb onto Dorrie — the friendly plesiosaur — and ride her over to the small patch of solid ground next to a set of double doors. Ground-pound her head first if you need her to lower so you can hop off cleanly.

Through the double doors is a short hallway that ends in a pool of liquid metal. Drop into it and you fall into the Cavern of the Metal Cap. The green switch is here, and pressing it makes every green block in the game solid. The course's own Power Star is another eight red coins; collect them and the star appears at the marker near the waterfall.

After that, green blocks live in courses like Whomp's Fortress, Jolly Roger Bay, Dire, Dire Docks, Wet-Dry World, and Hazy Maze Cave itself.

Vanish Cap: the blue switch under the drained moat

The blue switch is in Vanish Cap under the Moat, and getting to it is a two-step job. First you have to drain the castle's moat. Head into the basement — which opens after you beat Bowser in the Dark World — and find the two black brick pillars near the water. Ground-pound both pillars and the moat outside drains completely.

Now go back to the castle entrance and drop down into the emptied moat. Near the waterfall under the bridge there is an opening that warps you into the course. Inside is the blue switch, which turns every blue block solid, plus a Power Star guarded by a cage — collect the eight red coins along the slide-like path and the star appears at the marker inside the cage.

Blue blocks then show up in Big Boo's Haunt, Dire, Dire Docks, Snowman's Land, and Wet-Dry World. The Vanish Cap is the only thing in the game that lets you walk through wire-mesh fences and a few solid walls, which is exactly why a couple of caged stars are impossible without it.

Using each cap before the timer runs out

Each cap behaves completely differently, and two of them are on a hard 20-second clock. Play to the strengths and you never waste a run.

The Wing Cap is the odd one out. It is not really about a timer — it is about staying airborne. Once you are Wing Mario you can re-launch with a triple jump in place, which is the trick that makes the flying secret courses survivable. Dive to pick up speed, then pull back to trade that speed for altitude. Try to climb from a dead stop and you stall.

Metal and Vanish are both about a specific 20-second job. Grab the cap as late as possible, do the one thing you came to do, and do not sightsee. For the Metal Cap, that usually means walking a straight line across a lakebed or through a jet of fire. For the Vanish Cap, it means already standing at the fence when you grab the hat, so you phase through before the timer eats half your window.

Which stars actually need a cap

Not every cap use is mandatory, but these are the stars that are flat-out locked without the right hat:

• Tower of the Wing Cap — the course's own red-coin star. No switch, no star.
• Wing Mario over the Rainbow — the secret flying course reached from a light-emitting hole on the ledge to the left of Tick Tock Clock on the third floor. Its lone star, the eight red coins, needs sustained flight.
• Mario Wings to the Sky (Bob-omb Battlefield) — fire yourself out of the top cannon wearing the Wing Cap to reach the rings and the star. This one is on the mandatory path to 70.
• Cavern of the Metal Cap — the green course's own red-coin star.
• Metal-Head Mario Can Move! (Hazy Maze Cave) — the star behind the gate in the underground lake. You become Metal Mario, sink, and walk the lakebed to reach it.
• Vanish Cap under the Moat — the blue course's own red-coin star.
• Big Boo's Haunt and Wet-Dry World — both hide caged red coins and objectives you can only get to by phasing through fences as Vanish Mario.

Beyond the strictly-required list, the caps are the fast way to a pile of other stars: flying trivializes several high-platform and red-coin objectives, and Metal Mario is the safe way through fire and toxic gas. There is even a known trick where you grab the Metal Cap and Vanish Cap back to back in Hazy Maze Cave to be invulnerable and intangible at the same time.

What DS and 3D All-Stars change

As always, check which version you are holding before you follow any star count.

• Super Mario 3D All-Stars is the N64 game under the hood, so every requirement above holds — 10 stars for the sunbeam, the same switches, the same courses. It runs on the later Shindou revision, so the caps behave exactly as described here.
• Super Mario 64 DS rewires the whole thing. The Tower of the Wing Cap needs 14 stars instead of 10, the caps are tied to specific characters and Power Flowers rather than universal hats, and Luigi gets his own intangibility instead of relying on a Vanish Cap. Treat DS as a separate game with separate rules.

If you have not sorted out the basics of castle progression yet, start with the beginner's 30-star route and flip the red switch the instant you hit 10 stars — it is the single highest-value detour in the early game.

Quick Action Checklist

• At exactly 10 stars, stand in the lobby sunbeam, look up, warp to the Tower of the Wing Cap, and press the red switch.
• Grab the tower's eight red coins in a downward spiral for its Power Star.
• Ride Dorrie to the double doors in Hazy Maze Cave's underground lake, cross the hall, drop into the liquid metal, and press the green switch in the Cavern of the Metal Cap.
• Beat Bowser in the Dark World, ground-pound the two basement brick pillars to drain the moat, then enter the opening by the waterfall to press the blue switch.
• Treat Metal and Vanish as 20-second jobs: grab the cap already lined up on the task, do the one thing, get out.
• Stay airborne as Wing Mario by diving for speed and pulling back for height; re-launch with a triple jump in place.
• Come back for Mario Wings to the Sky, Metal-Head Mario Can Move!, and the caged Vanish Cap red coins once all three switches are on.
• On Super Mario 64 DS the numbers and the whole cap system are different — do not follow N64 requirements there.