The game begins with Yoshi briefing Mario on the situation: Bowser has learned how to enter the realm of the Star Spirits, and thus has access to a multitude of Star Road portals that lead all over the Mushroom Kingdom. He's using the portals to transport his troops and cause chaos. Mario must stop him by accessing the Star Road himself, but he can only do so at Star-Leap Tower—and Bowser's sealed it off. To reach it, Mario must collect Power Stars to open sealed doors.
Currently Skelux is working on an Updated Re-release for the DS, called Super Mario Star World. It is set to feature radically revamped levels, improved gameplay, and up to 10 completely new areas. Additionally, a sequel, entitled Star Road 2, is in production. This game will have 240 Stars, 40+ levels, and original music.
Additonally, there is another version of this game called Super Luigi Star Road. Made by Quasmok, with permission from Skelux, the hack replaces Mario with Luigi, complete with new model, voice clips, and his moveset.
This game contains examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Some levels, such as Gloomy Garden.
- Ascended Glitch: Because of the holes that makes dodging more difficult, the glitch to go through the Whomp King in the original is almost required to beat his successor.
- Big Bad: Bowser, as usual; this time, he has broken into the Star Road and is using the portals to launch an invasion of the Mushroom Kingdom.
- Bigger on the Inside: The main tower of the castle; the power of the stars can make the inside bigger than the outside.
- Bonus Stage: The top of the tower.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Hidden Palace Finale, which is the hardest level in the game next to Mad Musical Mess. It requires well-timed triple jumps, precision platforming, all while being set high up over a Bottomless Pit for the bulk of it. (And the sections that aren't are over the courtyard, so falling down still means starting over from the beginning.)
- Deliberately Monochrome: The area you go to when you get a game over is completely colorless.
- Disconnected Side Area: Quite a few mini-levels, as well as all the cap levels.
- Fake Difficulty: As pointed out by
ExoParadigmGamer, a lot of the game's difficulty is due to much of the level design, which is often full of "Do or Die" platforming moments that aren't built with Mario 64's sensitive movement and moveset in mind or are made to counter-intuitively work against said control scheme, with some jumps requiring significant skill and reflexes to accomplish that a casual player couldn't possibly be expected to have. In particular, the ninth and eleventh main levels, Mad Musical Mess and Colossal Candy Clutter, are full of these kind of cheap design tricks and will gravely punish the player with either harsh Fall Damage or death. - Fan Sequel: To Super Mario 64.
- Floating Continent: Sky Land Resort, as well as other levels.
- Game Mod: Obviously, of Mario 64. As mentioned above, there's also an official fan-made one of this hack that allows you to play as Luigi.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The Stars.
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Nintendo Hard: After the first world, things get hard pretty quickly. - Palette Swap: Bob-Omb Buddies are blue in this game. (And some of them are black.)
- Platform Hell: Many of the game's later courses contain very precise platforming and are filled with pits and/or lots of ways to chew away at your health through Fall Damage. Gloomy Garden and the first Bowser level is where it starts getting tough and then you have nearly every level in the second half of the game which might as well be summed up as "a bunch of small platforms and risky platforming over giant lava/death pits".
- Post-End Game Content: By collecting 120 stars, you unlock Hidden Palace Finale. Completing that brings you to 121 stars. After that, 9 star replicas appear hidden in the bonus levels throughout the game note , bringing the total number of stars up to 130.
- Portal Network: Bowser exploits this with the Star Road.
- Recycled Soundtrack: All of the music is recycled from Mario games or other Nintendo-console video games, rearranged in the SM64 sound font.
- A lot of music comes from Super Mario Galaxy. The music outside the Castle is Starship Mario from Super Mario Galaxy 2. The indoors music for the Castle is the Comet Observatory theme. The File Select music is the Space Junk Galaxy theme. Gloomy Garden is a remix of Ghostly Galaxy. Cloudrail Station uses the Honeyhive Galaxy theme (the beta version used the Tick Tock Clock theme from Mario Kart DS). Star Road is a remix of Gateway Galaxy. Bob-Omb Battle Factory uses the Battlerock Galaxy theme. Starlight Runway uses Buoy Base Galaxy. The Vanish Cap theme uses the Bunnies theme.
- Bob-Omb Island uses the Green Garden theme from Bomberman 64.
- Mad Musical Madness uses the theme of the first level of Band Land from Rayman.
- Several tracks are reused from Super Mario RPG. The Star Select music is a remix of the World Map theme. Fatal Flame Falls is a remix of Bowser's Castle from the same game (sandwiched in with the "Bowser's Magma Mountain" music from Mario Party). Sky Land Resort is a remix of Nimbus Land. Pirahna Plant Pond uses the Forest Maze theme.
- Mushroom Mountain Town uses the Outset Island theme from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
- The Koopa the Quick race music is the Mario Circuit theme from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.
- Chuckya Harbor is a remix of Arctic Abyss from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. Bowser's Slippery Swamp is Bayou Boogie from the same game.
- The boss music of Bowser's Slippery Swamp is the Parasite Queen theme from Metroid Prime.
- Colorful Coral Caverns is Rainbow Resort from Kirby's Adventure. The Bowser's Rainbow Rumble boss music is the Dark Castle theme from Kirby's Dream Land 2.
- Koopa Canyon is Dry, Dry Desert from Paper Mario 64. Bowser's Rainbow Rumble is the X-Naut Fortress theme from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and the Game Over Area theme also comes from it. Hidden Palace Finale is the Overthere theme from Super Paper Mario.
- Large Leaf Forest is "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy" from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
- Retro Remix Castle is the Fortress and Castle theme from Super Mario World. Its boss music is a remix of the boss theme from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. The Creepy Cap Cave theme is the Koopaseum from Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.
- Melting Snow Peaks is the Ice Mountain Zone (Act 1) theme from Sonic Advance.
- The Sandy Slide Secret music is Desert Hills from Mario Kart DS.
- Colossal Candy Clutter is Toy Land from Chameleon Twist 2.
- The Metal Cap theme is Metal Crystal Palace from the first Super Smash Bros..
- Puzzle of the Vanish Cap is Engine Room from Space Station Silicon Valley.
- Windy Wing Cap is the first Windy Hill theme from Sonic Adventure.
- The Power-Up music is "Let's Go Lightly" from Mario Party.
- The Level Boss music is the boss theme from Super Mario Sunshine.
- And finally, Pirahna Plant Lullaby is the original Super Mario Bros. theme.
- Rom Hack: Of Super Mario 64.
- Sequel Escalation: Star Road 2 is even more expansive.
- Schmuck Bait: In the Bob-omb Battle Factory, there is a pipe with a sign that tells you that it isn't safe to enter the pipe. If you enter anyway, you jump out right into the radioactive sludge and die immediately.
- Splash of Color: The short game over level is entirely in monochrome except for Mario and the Boos in the level.
