Super Mario Odyssey is easily one of the crowning glories of Nintendo’s revival with the Switch, and Sand Kingdom is one of the biggest you’ll find in the entire game, so our guide and walkthrough videos should help you to get more out of it. It’s got a desert full of Power Moons and a lot of space to improve your Mario moves in ahead of the challenge of the rest of the game.
You get to Sand Kingdom after making it through the main objectives in Cascade Kingdom and getting enough Power Moons to fire up the Odyssey. When you touch down, you’ll see Bowser’s big heffalump footprints in the sand and it turns out he’s here to steel a big old ring to give to his kidnapped bride-to-be, Princess Peach.
You’ll start out in Tostarena Town, which has a Mexican theme with Dia de los Muertos overtones, but it doesn’t take long to see that things have gotten a little messed up. In addition to the frozen parts of the landscape that prevent you from picking up certain Purple Coins and getting to some locations on the map, there are also the Broodals sailing the skies and stinking up the place. Your job is to get on the trail of Bowser, fix some of the messed up stuff in Sand Kingdom and give the Broodals their first taste of wedding planning defeat.
Sand Kingdom Objectives
The first thing you’ll need to do in Sand Kingdom is to make your way up to the ruins to get the Moon atop the highest tower. This is a big and extended hike upwards past Goombas and Bullet Bills, taking in major 2D sections and involving some very well timed jumps, so expect it to take a good amount of effort.
Once you’re past this, you’ll need to ride the moving platforms over to the Moe Eye area of the map and collect all of the Moon Shards to activate more moving platforms. These will let you travel to the inverted pyramid and enter the now open door, which will start the arduous climb up to the top to face Hariet Broodal.
When you take her out, a hole will appear underneath the pyramid and you’ll be able to jump on in to find an underground ice area with Goombas, Bullet Bills and plenty of slippery platforms to make it past. At the end of all this, you’ll get to the Deep Underground section where you’ll come face to face with an epic boss that uses its huge fists to attack you, which you can see in the video below.
Once you clear the crystal boss, you will complete all of the main objectives and then you’ll have access to much more of Sand Kingdom without the ice blocking your path. From here, you’ll just need to collect enough Power Moons to fire up the Odyssey once again and you’ll be able to move on to the next kingdom. You can follow along with our Sand Kingdom walkthrough below to make it through the main objectives and grab enough Moons to progress in Super Mario Odyssey.
How many Power Moons are there in Sand Kingdom?
There are a total of 89 Power Moons in Sand Kingdom, but you’ll only have access to 69 of them until you complete the game and break the cube that contains the remaining 20 Moons. In addition to the last 20, there are a number of others that you won’t be able to get until either completing the game or getting much further into it, including the Sand Kingdom Hint Art and Moon #68.
When you work this out, it leaves you free to pick up as many as you can find easily before moving on to the next kingdom, without worrying too much about finding all Moons in your first pass. This will keep you on track and focused on the main campaign, which will then leave you with the challenge of heading back to each kingdom after you’ve stopped Bowser to find the rest of the Moons.
In addition to the forty Power Moons, there are also 100 Purple Coins to pick up in Sand Kingdom. They’re literally all over the place, and the ice will prevent you from getting a good number of them to start with, but as soon as you make it through the main objectives you’ll be able to pick them up much easier.
Find enough Sand Kingdom moons to power the Odyssey walkthrough video
Once you make it past the final main objective, you’ll need to switch your attention to Moon gathering and there are a lot of options to go for here in Tostarena. In total, you need to pick up 16 Power Moons to fire up the Odyssey and our walkthrough video above will take you through 25 of them, so you should have more than enough Sand Kingdom Moons to get the airship off the ground again.
Tricky Sand Kingdom Moons to pick up
The high dunes and old ruins of Sand Kingdom hold a number of tough Moons to find, including one of the most challenging technically in the whole of Super Mario Odyssey – Sand Kingdom Moon #76. It’s hidden inside a stone block at the top of a high platform to the west of the Goombette at the ruins. You can check out how to get the Moon with our video above, but in general it entails using a perfect combination of Bullet Bill captures and jumps to get to it.
The rumble room Moon can be a bit confusing, as there’s no prompt to ground pound when you’re standing on the right spot. It’s fairly easy to follow the directions of the Joy-Con rumbles, but you just need to do a ground pound when you think you’re standing on the right tile. You may need to do this a few times on tiles in the general vicinity, but it won’t take you too long to get the Moon.
Sand Kingdom Moon #68 is fairly tough too, because it requires you to chase the Taxi Guy to other Kingdoms before he returns to Sand Kingdom to give you the Moon. The video above will show you everywhere you need to go to find him. The Hint Art Moon will also need you to head outside Sand Kingdom to Bowser Kingdom’s Crazy Cap store. Just count the flagstones on the ground referenced in the hint and you’ll get the Moon.
To collect the Goombette Moon just head on back to the Goombas at the beginning of the ruins area, get a stack of four and walk them up to face her. The Crazy Cap Moon can be found by heading around the left side of the store to duck into a secret entrance to the employees area where the Moon is.
There are three Power Moon acorn seeds to locate in Sand Kingdom and they’re dotted around the map, so they can take some finding to bring them all back to the plant pots near to the fountain in Tostarena Town. The first is next to the plant pots, so it’s pretty easy to find, but the second is out on a hidden ledge on the western edge of the map and the third is tucked inside a wedge in the eastern wall of the ruins. If you’re having trouble finding them you can follow along with our video above.
Finally, the Sand Kingdom painting can be hard to find, because it’s tucked away on the middle of the desert on the north east area of the map. To get to it easily, warp over to the top of the round tower look down on the desert to the north east below. You should see a tall pillar and at the bottom of this you’ll see the painting. Head on down and warp through to grab another Moon. It won’t count towards your Sand Kingdom Moons tally, but it’s still worth picking up at this stage, because there’s no way to be sure of where it leads until you get to it. Ours took us to the isolated island in New Donk City, so it counted to the Metro City count, but yours could take you to another Kingdom entirely.
You can also check out our other Kingdom guide with the link below and you can leave comments below if you’re struggling to get any more Sand Kingdom Moons.
Cascade Kingdom guide
Sand Kingdom guide
Lake Kingdom guide
Wooded Kingdom guide
