Good luck with Dreadnaught. I didn’t feel that one was as much skill as rote memorization of the path of coins. Stages that require skill still have room for personal flair. You can choose how to get the 100 purple coins on Luigi’s level. Dreadnaught was the same coins in the same cart path over and over again. Each are maddening in their own way, but skill levels are more fun.
I got all the Stars as both Mario and Luigi.
I wasn’t going to play Luigi- but I had so much fun as Mario, I wanted to play it all again.
That was, however, when the game came out.
Oh yes… Luigi’s Purple Coins… I don’t know how long that took me. But I’d put it at a couple weeks. I don’t know what that would translate into hours spent: Two children under 3 means I really only get their naptime to play games. Sometimes at nighttime if I’m really into a game (I was for this one) and The Wife has nothing she wants to use the TV for.
But usually I would get through a handful of levels in a day. Man oh man did that level get into my head.
(Interestingly- second time as Luigi- I breezed right through it.)
Of course it helps that Luigi gets some serious advantages to jumping. While he stops for crap, he still cuts corners like his brother and this level is all about keeping in motion, not stopping.
Luigi’s Purple Coins, to me, was about mastering the long jump. Which- I’m convinced- even when you do it exactly right, has Vegas odds on it.
That’s my experience too. I tried and failed LPC more than 40 times last night, and I’d say about 50% of my failures were because what should have been a long jump turned into a regular jump or a ground pound. Including once where I had 96 coins, was on my way back to the beginning, and on the final long jump to get back, I died. Arrrgh.
I dunno how successful I’ll be in describing this in text, but let me try. This is a strategy I developed that allowed me to get 100 coins pretty easily on the last 2 tries.
When you start, go to the green square farthest right, and leave the closest square and the one in front of it for your final return. Go forward (11 o’clockish from where you started, if you imagine 12 o’clock to kind of be a 45 degree angle aiming towards the 1-up; I picture the board in my head to be kind of a diamond shape) and jump across the gap. Pick up the coins in the area, then get the coins floating over the corner, then head back towards where you started. Get the coins in the little area that’s off to the right of where you started, and this is the hardest part of the whole stage. Long jump across to the yellow blocks, and then long jump again where you get all the coins in the jump, then jump to the green squares. You should now be in the corner that would be directly to the right of where you started if the board was a square. Now run around 180 degrees and long jump back through the parallel string of coins, and then turn right and jump onto the mainland. If you survived this far and got most of the coins you’ve passed, then you’re so far ahead you’re going to win. Head up towards the 1-up, gathering as many coins as possible on the way, and then just make your way back towards the start while jumping around for stray coins. Before you get there, you should hit 100 and the start will appear. You left yourself a path back, so it should be cake. Luckily, time is not an issue on this board. I finished with over 1:40 left. I hope this wasn’t too confusing, and it helps. Let me know if it does. Good luck.
The trick for grabbing the coins hovering in the corners is to jump and perform a spin attack to gain extra height/distance.
Thanks Cisco. I’ve already got a path that sounds similar to yours that I got from some youtube videos. My problem isn’t that I get trapped with nowhere to go, my problem is that I either screw up an eminently makeable long jump, or panic on those stupid yellow tiles and fall off because I didn’t jump before it rotated too far.
Yeah, like I said, the whole board depends on the long jump in my strategy, and that thing is damn buggy. At the crucial part you need it to work like 5 or 6 times in row, and I think there’s an element of straight up luck in that. And even when it works there are some tricky angles due to the positioning of the camera. I figured out exactly what I needed to do probably 10 tries before I was able to execute it. As for your other concern, just be like Douglas Adams and Don’t Panic. I think the clock is just to fuck with your head on this board. I didn’t go fast at all and I had more than half my time left when I finished.
120 
Still missing one, bud 
(not that it’s hard to get or anything)
I’m guessing the 121st star is for finishing the game with Luigi? And the boards are exactly the same? I dunno . . . I noticed that Luigi handles a little differently, but if that’s all that’s different I’m not in a big hurry to replay the whole game. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but there were some levels that I was just thrilled to be done with, and don’t want to repeat any time soon.
If I remember correctly, the 121st star is simply doing the level where you defeat Bowser again. This then unlocks the game to allow you to play as Luigi.
I already did that and I still only have 120.
Go to the comet where the green stars are at. There should be a new sling star on the opposite side.
I don’t know for sure. I didn’t get the 121st until after getting 120 with both Mario and Luigi.
120 Mario + 2 Luigi. Finished Luigi’s Purple coins on my 45th try last night.
I just checked, and it’s not there. According to some walkthroughs at gamefaqs.com, it doesn’t open until you get 120 on both Mario & Luigi.