Corona Mountain

Corona Mountain is the final area Mario and F.L.U.D.D. visit in Super Mario Sunshine. The path to this area is opened after Mario and F.L.U.D.D. complete all of the game's Shadow Mario levels. Corona Mountain is where the final showdown against Bowser and Bowser Jr. takes place.

The volcano contains an area where Mario must jump across timed spiked fiery platforms. There is also an area where the plumber must steer a boat to the other side of a sea of lava. Falling into the lava results in instant death. If the boat collides with anything, it will sink into the lava. Surprisingly, although the boat is made of mud, no harm will come to it if the player avoids the obstacles. The final part of Corona Mountain is using the Rocket Nozzle to blast up onto clouds to reach Bowser's spa. Unlike the other areas, Corona Mountain does not have episodes and is merely an obstacle course, followed by the final battle.

To access Corona Mountain, the player has to complete episode 7 (the Shadow Mario episodes) for each of the seven main areas of the game. In other words, episodes 1-7 have to be completed (with the exception of the first area, where episode 1 can be skipped), but episode eight is completely optional.

Corona Mountain's only Shine Sprite counts as one of the Delfino Plaza sprites. It also only has ten Blue Coins.

Official Profiles and Statistics
The hot spring at the foot of Isle Delfino's mountain is relaxing, but the lava caves, which open on the plaza, are forbidden for public safety.

Name
"Corona" means "crown" in Italian, Spanish and Latin, and can also refer to the superhot plasma atmosphere that surrounds the sun. Because the rest of the locations of Isle Delfino have Italian names, the lava-filled volcano's allusion to the sun's heat may have merely been an afterthought or coincidense when "corona" was chosen for the mountain that crowned the "head" of the dolphin-shaped island.

Trivia

 * If players look at the paths and platforms, they can see that there may have been a hallway along the level.
 * The entrance of to the mountain was once covered in grass in Beta versions of the Plaza.