Super Mario 64 Secret Stars: All 15 Castle Stars Located

Do the math on Super Mario 64 and something does not add up. Fifteen courses, seven Power Stars each, is 105. The game has 120. The missing 15 are not in any painting — they are hidden in Peach's castle itself, which is why players who cleared every course still stall out in the 105 to 110 range, wandering the foyer wondering what they missed.

Those 15 are the castle secret stars: cap switch courses, a fish tank behind a hole in the wall, a slide behind a stained glass window, a rabbit in the basement, three Toads who hand them over for talking to them, and eight red coins in each Bowser level. Several of them unlock mechanics you need for stars back in the main courses.

This is the N64 original. Super Mario 64 DS reorganizes almost all of this — 150 stars, different requirements, no MIPS — so on the remake, the counts below will not match.

The 15 stars that are not in any painting

Here is the complete accounting, so you can check it against your own file:

Five of those are picked up in the castle hub itself — the three Toads and the two MIPS stars — which is exactly the group people forget exists.

The three cap switch courses

The cap courses are the highest-value secret stars because each gives you a star and turns on a power-up you need elsewhere. Every course with a red block in it is dead weight until you flip the matching switch.

Tower of the Wing Cap

Requires 10 Power Stars. Once you hit ten, sunlight comes through the foyer ceiling onto the rug in the middle of the room. Stand in the light, look up, and you are warped to a tower floating in the sky.

You arrive already flying as Wing Mario — the only place in the game where that happens; everywhere else you grab a Wing Cap from a red block and then launch out of a cannon or triple jump into flight. There are 47 yellow coins in the air, arranged partly as four rings of eight, with two red coins in the middle of each ring. Collect all eight reds and the Power Star appears. Land on the tower to press the red switch, which makes every red block in the game solid. The sunlight vanishes once the switch is hit, but the warp still works from the same spot.

Cavern of the Metal Cap

This is the only level in the N64 version entered from inside another level. The entrance is in Hazy Maze Cave, in the Underground Lake area, behind a set of double doors — climb onto Dorrie's head and steer the plesiosaur to the small patch of ground outside them. Through the doors is a short hallway ending in a pool of liquid metal; fall in and you are warped to the course.

Press the green switch for the Metal Cap. Metal Mario is immune to fire and gas and walks along the bottom of water without drowning, which is what makes several Hazy Maze Cave and Jolly Roger Bay stars possible. The exit puts you out at the waterfall on the castle grounds.

Vanish Cap Under the Moat

No star requirement, just a chore. In the castle basement, ground pound the two brick pillars to drain the moat, then head out through the newly exposed door. In the drained moat near the waterfall there is a hole that warps you into the course.

Press the blue switch for the Vanish Cap, which lets Mario walk through certain walls and grates. Draining the moat is quality of life too — it opens the castle grounds and the route to the roof.

The Princess's Secret Slide and the 21-second star

Second floor, Princess's room. The stained glass window of Peach on the right side of the room is not a window, it is a door. Jump into it.

The slide is a timed run: a long tunnel, a downward slope, a 270-degree bend, a 1-UP, a run of tighter bends, and a final room with a yellow block. Hit the block and the Power Star pops out. That is star one.

Star two is why this level shows up in every 120-star guide: finish in under 21 seconds and a second Power Star spawns in front of the yellow block. Tight, but not brutal. Slope physics hold your speed constant no matter what you do with the stick, so the input is purely steering — hard inputs just bounce you into walls and cost time. Light corrections, and cut the inside of the 270-degree bend.

If you fall off the slide you get dropped back into the castle foyer with no life lost, so there is no cost to failing the time attack over and over.

The Secret Aquarium

Ground floor, behind one of the two 3-star doors, in the room with the Jolly Roger Bay painting. Look at the wall to the right of that painting: there are two square holes up high. The left one gives you a 1-UP. The right one is the entrance to The Secret Aquarium.

Inside is one enormous fish tank with no surface anywhere — you cannot come up for air, which is the whole difficulty. There are 40 yellow coins in rings, with red coins in the centre of the rings and on the floor. The yellow coins are not optional flavour: your air meter drains the entire time, and coins are what stop your health bottoming out. Grab all eight reds and the Power Star appears.

Plan a loop rather than improvising. Take the rings in one continuous circuit, sweeping the yellow coins as you pass through each, and finish on the floor reds.

Wing Mario Over the Rainbow

Third floor. The clock room has two niches; the one on the right warps you to Rainbow Ride, and the one on the left — a light-emitting hole on the ledge to the left of Tick Tock Clock — takes you here.

You need the Wing Cap here, so press the red switch first. A Bob-omb Buddy on a pink platform next to the lower cannon opens both cannons when you talk to him. From there it is eight red coins across large cloud platforms, two of which are transparent — you can fly through them but not stand on them, which is the trap. One transparent cloud holds a red coin in the original version, and green poles hang from another.

Get all eight and the Power Star appears at the star marker on the first cloud. Falling into the abyss drops you in the lake in front of the castle with no life lost, so this level is more forgiving than it looks.

Three free stars from three Toads

Three Toads in the castle each hand you a Power Star for talking to them. No fight, no platforming. Their locations on N64:

• Basement, near the Hazy Maze Cave entrance. This one does not appear until you have at least 12 Power Stars.
• Second floor, near the Tall, Tall Mountain painting.
• Third floor, to the right of the clock that leads to Tick Tock Clock.

On N64 the second and third Toads have no extra star requirement beyond reaching those floors. In the DS remake they want 40 and 60 stars respectively — another reason not to follow DS guides on an N64 file. Talk to every Toad you walk past; it is three of your 120 for free.

MIPS, the rabbit worth two stars

MIPS is Peach's pet rabbit, and he is worth two Power Stars. He shows up in the castle basement — the water-filled hallway maze near the Lethal Lava Land painting — and runs the moment you get close.

• First appearance: 15 Power Stars. Catch him and he coughs up a star, claiming Bowser gave it to him.
• Second appearance: 50 Power Stars. Same deal, second star. After that he is gone for the rest of the game.

Chasing him head-on does not work; he turns and outruns you in the open. Corner him instead — herd him into a dead-end hallway or against a wall, close the distance with a dive rather than a run, and press B to grab.

Fun detail: MIPS was, along with Mario, the first character created for the game, used in Nintendo's early Nintendo 64 test simulations and kept in the final release because the development team liked him too much to cut him.

The three Bowser red coin stars

Each Bowser level contains eight red coins that award a Power Star, separate from beating Bowser himself. These are easy to miss because most players sprint through those levels focused on the fight.

• Bowser in the Dark World — 8 stars, behind the Big Star Door on the ground floor mezzanine.
• Bowser in the Fire Sea — behind the 30-star basement Big Star Door, reachable once you clear "Board Bowser's Sub" in Dire, Dire Docks, which moves the blue portal to the back of the room.
• Bowser in the Sky — 70 stars to break the endless stairs.

You can re-enter every Bowser level after clearing it, so skipped red coins cost you nothing. Walk back in, collect the eight, leave.

The order I would actually collect them in

If you are building toward 120 and want these to slot in naturally rather than becoming a cleanup chore:

1. At 8 stars — Bowser in the Dark World red coins, on the same trip as the fight.
2. At 10 stars — Tower of the Wing Cap. The red switch unlocks Wing Cap stars in half a dozen courses, so do not delay it.
3. At 12 stars — the basement Toad, on your way to anything else down there.
4. At 15 stars — MIPS, first catch.
5. First Hazy Maze Cave trip — Cavern of the Metal Cap. You are already riding Dorrie.
6. Any basement visit — pound the two pillars, drain the moat, do Vanish Cap Under the Moat.
7. When the second floor opens — Princess's Secret Slide, both stars, plus the second Toad.
8. At 30 stars — Bowser in the Fire Sea red coins.
9. After the 3-star door — The Secret Aquarium.
10. When the third floor opens — Wing Mario Over the Rainbow and the third Toad.
11. At 50 stars — MIPS, second catch.
12. At 70 stars — Bowser in the Sky red coins.

Not sure what the star doors want? Start with the Super Mario 64 beginner guide. If the slide time attack or the Secret Aquarium are giving you trouble, the Super Mario 64 movement guide covers the slope physics and dive cancels those two lean on.

Quick Action Checklist

• Confirm the split: 105 stars across 15 courses, 15 castle secret stars, 120 total, 70 needed for the endless stairs.
• At 10 stars, stand on the foyer sun mosaic and look up to reach the Tower of the Wing Cap and press the red switch.
• Ride Dorrie in Hazy Maze Cave's Underground Lake to the double doors for the Cavern of the Metal Cap and the green switch.
• Ground pound the two basement brick pillars to drain the moat, then enter Vanish Cap Under the Moat by the waterfall for the blue switch.
• Jump into the stained glass Peach window on the right of the Princess's room, and run the slide twice — the second star needs a sub-21-second finish.
• Enter The Secret Aquarium through the right-hand hole above the Jolly Roger Bay painting, and sweep the yellow coin rings to survive the airless tank.
• Talk to all three Toads: basement at 12 stars, second floor by Tall, Tall Mountain, third floor beside the clock.
• Catch MIPS in the basement at 15 stars and again at 50 — corner him in a dead-end hallway instead of chasing.
• Collect the eight red coins in each of the three Bowser levels; you can re-enter them at any time.
• If you are playing Super Mario 64 DS, none of these counts apply — it is a 150-star game with different gates and no MIPS stars.