I hit the 850 Moon mark last night, but have hit several bumps in the road.
Some of the 'Master Cup' Koopa Races are seemingly impossible.
Its looking very like I'll fall short of 100% completion by about 10 Moons.
Hmm.
I'm currently at around the 650 mark.
I haven't 'cheated' by googling anything (or buying any hints from Toad) yet, but I'm just baffled as to how there can possibly be 15-20 moons left on some levels when I have seemingly picked them clean and explored every single nook and cranny.
There are also a few missing ones that I just cannot fathom, such as the single outstanding moon on the ruined kingdom level. I've searched high and low and just can't find any hint of where it might be.
Yeah, some of the races are incredibly tough. Generally I've found that success lies in finding a quicker alternate route. The bouncy race in the snow level is
extremely frustrating - in fact there's a hell of a lot of hellishly difficult bits I'm putting off for now. Some bits of this game border on trolling in how they are calculated to punish you - especially the deliberate lack of checkpoints, which seems uncharacteristically mean-spirited for a Nintendo game. Darker Side in particular is an absolute nightmare in this respect - I just don't have the energy to even try again for the foreseeable future - ditto the jump rope and beach volleyball.