Star Road (Super Mario World)



Star Roads appear during Super Mario World. These are stars on the map that connect various points in Dinosaur Land to Star World. They are placed to provide shortcuts across the world, though beating all of Star World's levels is necessary to get the full effect of their shortcut-oriented purpose. All the Star Roads can be found by beating a level with a second exit. If the player goes to a Star Road in Star World without beating the level in Dinosaur Land that leads to it, the road will be showing on the map but Mario or Luigi will not be able to move forward towards the unbeaten Dinosaur Land level.

In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Star Road plays an integral role in the plot as the place where all wishes are turned into Shooting Stars before being granted upon collision with the world. During Smithy's journey to Bowser's Keep, his ship Exor crashed into Star Road, shattering it into seven Star Pieces. As wishes could not be granted until the road was repaired, a person identified only as "a higher authority" sent the star warrior Geno to collect the Star Pieces, thus repairing the road. In the end, Geno was able to fulfill his duty and Star Road was presumably left in order, although it did appear to be covered in stitches after the accident. Interestingly, when it is seen in Super Mario RPG ' s ending, the Star Road looks immensely similar to Super Mario World ' s Star World, being a giant, floating star found high above clouds in a screen featuring the Moon to the upper-left. Also of note is the fact that not even Mario (who had seemingly used the Star Road during his Super Mario World adventure) managed to recognize the name "Star Road" when Geno first spoke it, indicating that the Star Road featured in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars may have been a different Star Road.