The Starry-Night Skies

The Starry-Night Skies or the Night Skies is a supposedly removed level from the final version of Super Mario 64. Hardly much is known about this level. It is believed this level was cut along with the larger group of levels when Mario 64 was a much larger game.

Missions
According to the few who have unlocked the Night Skies, they have only gotten 4 stars and the 5th star have yet been collected by anyone known.

The missions so far are known as:


 * 1) STORK OF THE STARRY NIGHT
 * 2) ABANDON SHIP IN THE SEA OF STARS
 * 3) THE  WISHING STAR WELL
 * 4) RED COINS AMONG THE STARS
 * 5) THE ETERNAL NIGHT STAR

Stork of the Starry Night
Stork of the Starry Night is the first mission of the Starry-Night Skies level and is very similar to the first mission in Shifting Sand Land. The goal is to get the star from Stork. Unlike Klepto, the Stork does not try to steal Mario's cap, but it will try to race Mario to the Power Star to reclaim it.

Abandon Ship in the Sea of Stars
The second mission of Starry Night Skies. The player must find a flying ship, near the edge of the map. Unlike other boats, the abandoned ship is infested with Boos. The player must defeat all boos to reveal a Big Boo, and beat the Big Boo to claim the power star.

The Wishing Star Well
Unlike other missions in the game, the Wishing Star Well requires that the player collect coins throughout the level to give to the Star Well. The player needs a total of 75 coins in order to get the star from the well.

Red Coins Among the Stars
In this mission, the player must collect eaight red coins scattered about the course. The sheer size of the stage combined with the sparseness of the red coins makes this one of the more time-consuming red coin missions in the game. The star spawns at the highest point in the stage.

The Eternal Night Star
It is unknown if this mission is unfinished or just really hard to figure out. The level starts with a message, telling the player that there is a secret they must find. This is the message.

"Did you know that there is a secret among the night skies? A precious and beautiful secret. A secret that I cannot forever keep. Keep your spirits high and look forward to the dreamy sky.. Here is a hint.

'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, for in the dark night sky of beautiful gems, the Eternal Star forever lies.'

All signposts messages in this stage are also replaced with a slightly altered variant of this message. It is unclear what the player is supposed to do or where the player is supposed to look. The music also changes to a more somber tone. The star has yet to be found.

Geography
The very few who have claimed to come across the level have stated that the level is unfinished but is one of the bigger and more ambitious levels. Some also claimed that the level has a unique feel, using tons of unused assets and a level theme reminiscent of the Yoshi Island's Music Box intro.

The level would be mostly impossible to navigate without the wing cap, as the player has to fly to different cloud platforms. Ships are also presented, as seen in Rainbow Ride, and different structures the player can navigate through. One such structure, such as the "Wishing Well" is the main focus of mission 3.

One interesting thing to note about this level is that King Whomp reappears. Even though King Whomp is a boss in Whomp Fortress, he serves as a mini-boss in the Night Sky level, which holds a red coin instead of a power star.

Because of the theme of the level, the stork that appears, the painting, and the music, it is believed that this level is a homage to Yoshi Island, which was released a year before Mario 64.

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt as these all came from anonymous people. We only have the word of a few people who have suddenly unlocked the level in their copies of the game.

Unlocking the Starry-Night Skies level
The condition to unlocking the Starry-Night Skies is still unknown. The most likely case to why it seems this level isn't in many other copies is that the player has not found a way to unlock it. One source says that they only manage to unlock it by clearing a secret bonus level within the castle known as "The Trial."

"The Trial" has been described as a level that looks like an extended version of Peach's Castle in a maze-like structure.

Another Source has said that they manage to unlock Starry-Night Skies after getting all 120 power stars and talking to Yoshi. After doing so, they somehow find a level warp behind the waterfall, which leads to another area similar to the front yard of the castle with Dorrie swimming around a platform.