Lily Pad Ride
The Lily Pad Ride[1], also called Pipe Down #3[2], is a secret level that is accessible only through a Warp Pipe located on the southeast island in Delfino Plaza in the game Super Mario Sunshine. The pipe is blocked by an Orange Juice Generator, so to get inside, Mario must ride Yoshi and jump across several boats to get to the island. It can be difficult to enter the level since if Yoshi falls into the water, he disappears, meaning Mario must go all the way back to Isle Delfino proper to get Yoshi back and must repeat the entire boat journey over again to get back to the island.
In this secret area, Mario must ride a lily pad across a poisonous river, collecting eight Red Coins along the way. If Mario lands in the water, he instantly loses a life. The lily pad that Mario is on slowly rots away over time, eventually disintegrating. If Mario is standing on the lily pad when it disintegrates, then he will fall into the water and instantly lose a life.
If Mario reaches the end of the area but fails to get all eight Red Coins, he can walk on the sides of the river to try to get back to the starting point and get on the lily pad again. However, because the paths are quite narrow, the player needs to move cautiously to avoid falling into the poisonous water or off the stage.
There is a pipe at the end of the river which takes Mario back to Delfino Plaza, but the player must repeat the steps taken to get to the level all over again.
Trivia
- Lily Pad Ride is often considered one of the most controversial, difficult, and frustrating levels in Super Mario Sunshine, alongside the Pachinko Game. Most of the controversy around the level surrounds the time-consuming process that players must undergo with Yoshi in order to reach the level, as well as the pipe at the end that returns players to Delfino Plaza (which many players consider to be deceptive and misleading, as many erroneously believe that the pipe will take them back to the start of the level and allow them to redo the level if they miss any red coins).
- Some players have completed the level by taking advantage of a glitch that allows the player to walk underwater without incurring any damage from the poisonous water, since similarly to other levels that contain polluted water that deals damage to Mario (i.e. Noki Bay before cleaning Eely-Mouth's teeth, The Secret of the Dirty Lake in Bianco Hills, Corona Mountain, or any Ricco Harbor level prior to Episode 6's Red Coins on the Water), the only part of the water that harms the player is the surface.[3]
