SM64 Stars of Reincarnation - Hardest Stars Collection

Hack played from November 7 to November 13, 2023.

Stars of Reincarnation is a Kaizo Romhack by Caasje that was released in September 2023 as the sequel to SM64: The Dark Stars. I got around to playing it after the Romhack Speedrunning League, and it quickly became one of my favorite kaizo hacks. While I believe the visuals leave a lot to be desired, the gameplay is extremely creative, well designed, and overall very enjoyable. This video is a collection of the five hardest stars of the game, in my opinion.

0:00 5: ??? (Course 1) - Red Coin Journey in the Blue World

A remake of Dark Stars Course 1, and the biggest endurance challenge of the game. This star didn't have too many hard jumps, but most of the challenge came from the star being longer than most other stars in the game. Not my favorite level, but some stars were pretty cool.

11:13 4: Course 15 - Secret Challenge

Following up the biggest endurance challenge with the biggest precision challenge! Every level in Overworld 3 has a corresponding "secret challenge", which are shorter levels with more precise jumps based on the original levels. I enjoy precision quite a bit so these stars were very fun, with the C15 challenge being the hardest. Managed to get this star pretty quickly with no deaths to the difficult ending, which was nice.

14:01 3: Forgotten Industrial Area (Course 13) - Industrial Exploration for Red Coins

Might be overrating this star a bit, but I did not have a great experience with it, having a bunch of dumb deaths late in which made this take a while. I was sick while playing this level so that might have contributed, but this was my least favorite level in the game regardless. Music was very loud and annoying as well lol.

22:24 2: Castle of Darkness (Course 14) - Depressing Coin Hunt

One of my favorite levels in the game, just very fun with a great atmosphere. Very hard star, but there were a bunch of routing options which made this star pretty fun to do attempts of (and explains why the route for this attempt was pretty weird). This star didn't take too long, but I almost had quite the death at the end of the attempt.

35:27 1: Grand Dimensions Tower (Bowser 4)

The final level of the game and the hardest by far, proving to be quite the difficulty spike. The beginning of this stage is absolutely brutal and I couldn't get that many attempts out of it, but it only took a few attempts past the beginning to get this star. Took a couple hours and overall it was pretty fun, but I do wish this star was less frontloaded overall.

These are just the five hardest stars in my opinion, but this game does have a lot more to offer, so I highly recommend checking it out if you're into this kind of kaizo. Enjoy!

These stars were streamed on my Twitch channel:   / andrewsm64  
Second Channel: https://youtube.com/@andrewsm65?si=vQ...
Romhacking.com: https://romhacking.com/user/AndrewSM64
Discord:   / discord