Don't miss that big coin

It takes relatively little time to beat the main Worlds in New Super Mario Bros. 2, but it adds many, many hours with unlockable levels, collectibles and secrets to discover. Yesterday we shared two small tips that would allow you to play as Luigi in single player and to keep those hard earned profile stars sparkling. Due to popular demand we'll share another tip with you today, and once gain it's a fun little extra, rather than a spoiler that'll help you beat the game too easily.

Rainbow Course

In some of the many adverts for this game you may have seen snippets of Mario running through stages with a rainbow background, in which it's quite literally raining coins. It's also possible to go through the main Worlds of the campaign and not find one of these stages, leaving some to scratch their heads and wonder where they can be found; it's actually a lot simpler than you may think.

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Like a lot of things in this Mario adventure, this secret actually takes ideas from much earlier in the franchise and applies it in a different way; in this case it's the challenge of ending the level with a specific time on the clock. To make a Rainbow Course appear you need to hit the end of level flagpole with certain numbers in the last two digits of time remaining. In World 1 you need the last two digits of the timer to read 11, for World 2 is must be 22, World 3 ending with 33 and so on: this pattern runs up to 66 for World 6 and continues upwards for the unlockable extra Worlds, which we'll leave you to figure out.

If you get your timing right you'll get a slightly different celebration from Mario at the end of the level, and when he returns to the map screen a new stage with have appeared at the very start of the World. When you jump in you'll find yourself in a scrolling Rainbow Course, where your only objective is to grab an obscene number of coins and enjoy the eye-popping colours; keep an eye out for a special coin with a value of 100.

So there you have it, another little trick to see some colourful levels, while collecting plenty of coins in that crazy quest for a total of one million.

If you're still on the fence about picking this up, be sure to check out our New Super Mario Bros. 2 review.