Item Crystals (also called Ice Crystals, Star Crystals, or simply Crystals) are three-layer glass crystals found throughout the Super Mario Galaxy games. Most of the time, these crystals contain items such as Star Bits, Coins, 1-Up Mushrooms, or Life Mushrooms. In some cases, Toads, Lumas, and even Goombas can be frozen in Item Crystals. Item Crystals can easily be shattered by Mario/Luigi if he uses a Star Spin, upon breaking on the Item Crystal, the plumbers may obtain the goods which were previously frozen inside. Item Crystals have fairly weak structures and can be shattered in both games with Star Spins, the effects of a Fire Flower, Rainbow Star, or Rock Mushroom, other items such as Shells, Coconuts/Watermelons, bosses such as Dino Piranha can also shatter an Item Crystal, crashing through one while using a Launch Star or Sling Star is another method to shattering an Item Crystal.
History[]
Super Mario Galaxy[]
Mario near heaps of Item Crystals in the Space Junk Galaxy.
Item Crystals are first seen in Super Mario Galaxy, in this game, they are first seen during the Star Festival. When Bowser attacks the Mushroom Kingdom with his fleet of Airships, he hails down several Meteors on the Kingdom freezing any Toads that were hit inside Item Crystals, Mario cannot do anything to free these Toads at this point however it is assumed they are freed after the universe is reset at the game's end. Item Crystals can be found all over the game and are present in almost every Galaxy and can be easily shattered with Star Spins, most of the time, they contain Coins, Star Bits, a 1-Up Mushroom, or a Life Mushroom, in some cases Toads, Lumas, and even Goombas can be frozen in Item Crystals, freeing Toads and Lumas is usually required to progressing forwards whereas freeing a frozen Goomba will break it free causing it to attack as any Goomba would, freed Goombas can be beaten for Coins or Star Bits. Some Item Crystals are also octahedron but these ones contain only power-ups such as Fire Flowers, Ice Flowers, Bee Mushrooms, Red Stars, Spring Mushrooms, Boo Mushrooms, and Rainbow Stars. There are larger Item Crystals which contain frozen Launch Stars or Sling Stars, there are also even larger Item Crystals which are much thicker which contain Power Stars, these Item Crystals require two Star Spins to destroy thus freeing the Star. There are some Item Crystals which contain nothing and mainly only block your path so breaking these is entirely optional. The quantity of Star Bits obtained will average from three to ten, and most of the Item Crystals found throughout the game will contain four to six.
Super Mario Galaxy 2[]
Some Item Crystals seen in the snow park of the Freezy Flake Galaxy.
Item Crystals are seen again in Super Mario Galaxy 2, in this game, they are similar to how they were in the previous game and once again make appearances in virtually every Galaxy however a new type of Item Crystal was also introduced. These Item Crystals in appearance seems to be overall more geometric, unlike the original ones, which are more abstract in shape. They are also non-transparent meaning it is impossible to indicate what Item is inside until the Item Crystal has been shattered. Typically, these Item Crystals contain more Star Bits than the transparent ones. These once again contain the usual Coins, Star Bits, 1-Up Mushrooms, and Life Mushrooms inside. Whilst Toads and Lumas are never seen trapped in these Item Crystals, Goombas still are, in fact, in some cases a Flipbug can also be inside these Item Crystals. Additionally, Yoshi Eggs can also be freed from these Item Crystals to use Yoshi in some Galaxies, the Boulder Bowl Galaxy also has two much larger (almost unbreakable) Purple Item Crystals. These Item Crystals can only be broken by rolling into them twice under the effects of a Rock Mushroom, the first Item Crystal contains a Comet Medal, Banktoad can be seen trying to shatter this one open (by the orders of the Toad Brigade Captain while Yellow Toad sleeps beside him) and the second one contains a Sling Star which leads to the Crystal Planet leading to Rollodillo's Lair.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Item Crystals are similar to the crystals Amps circle around in Bowser in the Dark World in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario 64 DS, but these ones are obviously unbreakable.
- It's possible the Item Crystals are actually comets that crashed into the surfaces of planets, as the comet mentioned in Rosalina's Storybook had Star Bits and other things frozen beneath the ice.