The best strategy is to stay along the outside and then work your way inward. Also, try to keep moving even if you miss a few coins you wanted to grab.

I did it on my fifth or so try with one second remaining.

The Ghostly Purple Coin stage was rather daunting at first b/c I thought all the coins totaled up to 100 but there are more like 150 or 200 coins out there. You just have to be very good at using the blue pull stars. Go around the outside and then work your way in the middle where there are long lines of purple coins. You should be able to make it with five or ten seconds to spare if you do it well enough. Took me a while to get it down. Then after you get 100 the star will appear in the center.

Luigi's Purple Coins uses a similar strategy. Work your way around the stage clockwise using long jumps and double jumps using the spin technique for precision landings. Eventually you'll take out the middle but remember to leave space to get back to the beginning so you can grab the star. Time really isn't an issue once you get rolling. Just be careful.

After getting all 120 stars, I really think that the slow, untimed Purple Coin collect-a-thon stages were the toughest/most frustrating.

This is because they could last 10 minutes or so and if you trip off the edge at 99 coins, you have to do it all over again. At least with the timed stages you were guaranteed a short replay time.

The only time I had any problem with an untimed stage was in Freezeflame, when I had only one health left and was stuck on a platform completely surrounded by the freezing water. I spent like five minutes calming myself down and plotting out the shortest course to dry land since I had killed about 45 minutes finding all the damn coins.

I fucking LOVE THIS GAME! I had my first try on this game yesterday and I totally fell in love with it. I haven't laughed so much at a (new) game in years! Thank you Nintendo!

I totally agree. The timed stages went by quick so they were in a way easier than the untimed ones. I had a couple of instances as well where I had 99 coins and something happened so I ended up dying. That really brought my blood to a boil.

I just beat the game today after taking my time and savoring the goodness. Despite the final battle being easy, it was still fun as hell, just like the rest of the game. Pure gold.

Now, I have to collect 53 more stars to advance to 1337 status... ugh, those trial galaxies are going to fucking kill me.

The Trial Galaxies? Have you unlocked them yet?

I found them to be the most fun galaxies, and they're not that hard. I wish there were more rolling and bubble ghost stages. In fact, it would have been incredible if Nintendo included an extra 10 stages of each and had them be extra stars (past 120) to unlock more things. This is what Monkey Ball's Wii physics/controls should have been.

Plus, those bubble stages make me wish for a Wii Bubble Ghost remake.

I beat this game (120 stars) last night and must say I’m rather disappointed. 2/3s of the game is simply repeating missions on a harder difficulty and it doesn’t help that they blatantly copy galaxies and bosses. While this game was enjoyable I’d say it's equally as mediocre as Mario Sunshine. I felt like everything in this game has been done before and better in both past Mario games and other platformers.

I wouldn't say it's mediocre. But I did feel at the end of it that I wanted more and that the game severely lacks the playground environments that 64 and Sunshine have. I really do hope they come out with either another Mario platformer or some extraordinarily new and fun platforming IP in the next year or so.

I'll grant that the levels are pretty tightly focused on whichever star you're going after. I kinda miss the way Mario 64 would point you towards the next star in sequence, but you could just about get them all out of order. I'd have liked more of a sandbox approach to each level.

Still, I'm finding very little to complain about thus far. The underwater camera and the tendancy of the controls to freak out when you flip upside down are about my only real gripes. I'm 44 stars in, and the game is going to have to completely suck from here on to disappoint me. But I never played Sunshine, so maybe I'm just easy to impress.

They gave us more of Super Mario 64's open-ended progression in Super Mario Sunshine, and all people do is bitch about that game. So they went back to Super Mario Bros. 3.

I see nothing wrong with the logic they used to return to more linear stage designs.

I'm now... on my... GREEN play through with about 28 stars. I played a good bit with him and I thought he'd be more superpowered as MUCH. Apparently not... if anything its a bit of a little hindrance when some levels are built with Mario jumping mechanics in mind.

So I plowed through to see if I can find a level that makes it hard to have him playing as. So far I haven't except the cosmic comet level, and I noticed you can get him... cosmic? Or something? Its crazy.

Yes, cosmic Luigi is much tougher than cosmic Mario due to the fact that he likes to long jump, use flips, and take shortcuts. I've had some close races and I actually lost twice. I never was beat by cosmic Mario.

I picked this up today and haven't really stopped playing at all. I can definately see the influences from the Jungle Beat team.

I got the game on saturday night, and after an awesome cramphandstravaganzathon, I just finished the game with 120 Stars. And loved every second of it.
I thought Rolling Gizmo Galaxy was going to be a major pain in the ass, but it wasn't that bad. The toughest stars for me would have to be the purple coins in Dreadnought and Toy Time, and the daredevil comets in Ghostly and Melty Molten.

Fuck, seriously? I lost at least once to every last cosmic Mario race, at least to get to know the course. The Gold Leaf and Sea Slide actually gave me trouble. I don't want to imagine what Luigi's going to do to me if he's more difficult.

Haven't been playing much lately, I'm at 108 stars, will have them all soon, I'm sure.

I can't see how you can lose to Cosmic Mario. He doesn't take shortcuts and he makes a lot of unnecessary moves that slow him down. You can easily dust him by taking a few shortcuts and long jumps. I might have come close only one time because of a stupid move but that's it. Cosmic Luigi is tough but he usually makes at least one bad decision that could give you a tiny advantage. It's not much though.