"Fire Yoshi, Vanish Luigi and Metal Wario are being kept, Balloon Mario is not as it would give Mario too much of an advantage. To make up for Mario's much greater abilities, Luigi and Wario are both going to get a new power-up or special ability in addition to their Power Flower ones. Luigi's will be a power-up from SMG and Wario's will be one of his Wario Land transformations, I'm not saying which ones though. I'll do my best to ensure there's a balance in the different star missions that require each character's abilities."
i meant that they would be used to make up for fluud being gone. it's nice that you got fluud working, but i think that making use the sm64DS 's exclusive abilities would make up for the loss of fluud and other things, while keeping the remake very fresh. for example...
area with doors requiring turbo could be broken with wario's fist or passed through with luigi's vanish ability
water areas that have you using turbo to reach them could instead require a koopa shell for surfing.
the areas requiring yoshi to melt that butter-thingy could be turned into ice for fire yoshi
areas requiring rocket could be travelled with balloon mario or wall-jumping. same for areas where piantas chuck you, but i could see a cannon working depending on the mission.
areas requiring hover could be bypassed with flutter jump, luigi's massive jumping abilities or even mario's wall jumping
areas requiring you to shoot water at something or shooting those pig-balllons could be re-worked to use yoshi's eggs
don't get me wrong, i'm happy you managed to get fluud working and i'm sure it was a lot of work, i just think this would've been a better, simpler option. but i'm not making the game. keep up the good work...
oh, you didn't answer me, i think: why exactly is corona mountain impossible? looking over at what the level has i don't see anything that can't be done with sm64's assets.