Captain Toad's Adventures

Captain Toad's Adventures are a series of courses introduced in Super Mario 3D World, starring the titular Captain Toad as he goes through puzzle-based areas to obtain Green Stars. In these courses, Captain Toad is the only playable character, and he cannot jump, roll, or use any other move that Mario and his friends can use other than running. His stages also do not feature power-ups, but he can return to his normal size by collecting a Super Mushroom if hit by an enemy. If Captain Toad is defeated, one life is lost. The courses are single player only and can only be played when using the Wii U GamePad. The courses are unlocked from the start, but Enemy Battles or general map environments can make them inaccessible. The courses are available on every odd-numbered world, including World Castle, World Star and World Crown, with the exception of World Flower. Some of the levels include the Captain Toad theme from Super Mario Galaxy. The course ends when all of the Green Stars in that course are collected. This concept was later used to develop Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.

These levels make a return in the enhanced Nintendo Switch port, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, where they can now be played with up to four players.

Super Mario 3D World

 * Instruction manual description: "Guide the intrepid Captain Toad through these courses to collect five Green Stars, changing the camera angles and manipulating the terrain as you go."

Trivia

 * The concept for Captain Toad's Adventures was originally pitched to Nintendo as a tech demo featuring Link from The Legend of Zelda traveling through a series of small stages. Although rejected, the concept was reworked into Super Mario 3D World, and later into Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.