Cap Kingdom moons in Super Mario Odyssey: what you are actually collecting
Bonneton, the vertical ruin village that opens Super Mario Odyssey, looks like a small stop on the itinerary, but it carries more design weight than its size suggests. Cap Kingdom moons are the power moons that drive Odyssey’s progression, and Bonneton is where the player first learns how capture, vertical traversal, and par-time scoring are going to define the next forty hours of play. If you treat Bonneton as a tutorial level and skip it, you walk into the rest of the game without the muscle memory that the developers at Nintendo EPD built the early kingdoms around.
This guide covers every power moon you can earn in Cap Kingdom on a normal playthrough, plus the moons that only open up after you have beaten the final boss and returned to the wreckage of Bonneton for the post-game climb. The goal is not to give you a bare list of moon names. The goal is to explain how each moon is gated, what trick or capture it leans on, and how it fits into the broader Odyssey loop so you can plan a clean run instead of doubling back through the kingdom three times.
How Cap Kingdom fits into the Odyssey progression loop
Super Mario Odyssey is structured around nine core kingdoms, more than eight hundred power moons, and a handful of sandbox sub-areas. Bonneton is the very first kingdom, so it doubles as the on-ramp for the entire game. The designers use it to teach five things in about an hour of play:
- How to use the cap throw as a movement tool rather than a combat tool
- How capture works against a small, slow enemy
- How the par-time system judges exploration speed and rewards coins
- How the sticker shop, amiibo, and shop vendors are wired to kingdom progress
- How the post-game kingdom changes look once the main story is over
Cap Kingdom moons are split into two groups for the purposes of planning. The pre-story set is around sixteen moons, all of which are obtainable before the credits roll. The post-game set appears only after you have collected enough power moons to confront Bowser in the Ruined Kingdom and finish the wedding finale, at which point a new top section of Bonneton opens up with additional moons. Both groups use the same world geometry, but the post-game version adds construction beams, a working lift, and new boss variants that the early game does not have.
From a production standpoint, Bonneton is interesting because it teaches capture with a frog, an enemy that is intentionally low-pressure. You can jump on the frog’s head, wiggle the stick, and feel the input buffer. By the time you fight the Knucklotec in the same kingdom, the input has already been internalized, which is why the same fight feels fair in a way that the later Broodal fights do not.
The two regions of Cap Kingdom and how the moons are distributed
Cap Kingdom is built from two distinct regions, and every moon sits in one of them. Knowing which region a moon belongs to is the difference between a thirty-minute run and a two-hour backtrack.
| Region | Approximate moon count | Where it sits in the kingdom | Access requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plaza and central ruins | Around 6 pre-story moons | Entry path, main plaza, the small shops and staircases around the central well | Open from the start of the kingdom |
| Top of the ruined tower | Around 4 pre-story moons | Upper platforms reached by cap jumps and the broken staircase | Requires cap throw to break wooden boards and reach the higher ring |
| Boss arena: Top-Hat Tower | Around 5 pre-story and story moons | The interior of the giant top hat fought in the Broodal battle | Unlocked after meeting the Bonneton elders and progressing the story |
| Post-game summit (The Great Cap Express) | Around 9 additional moons | The new upper district added after the credits | Requires beating the final boss and returning to Cap Kingdom |
| Sub-area: Moon Rock and cap shrine | 2 moons | Side paths attached to the plaza | Requires ground pound or capture to access |
Two practical planning notes follow from this layout. First, the pre-story moons are not all reachable in one go, because some of them sit on the upper ring of the hat-shaped tower and depend on the cap-throw mechanic that the early plaza teaches. Second, the post-game moons cannot be collected at all until the main story is finished, so any “missing moon” count you see in your save file before the credits is meaningless. If a moon icon is grey, that is normal up to a certain point in the story; only the persistent grey moons after the finale are real.
Pre-story Cap Kingdom moons: full list and how to get each one
The following moons are all reachable before the credits roll. Order them roughly by how the kingdom flows from the Odyssey landing pad to the boss arena exit. The list merges standard moons and shop moons because the same planning principles apply.
1. Straying from the Path
The first moon in the kingdom is awarded automatically for leaving the main path and approaching the first building. It exists to teach the player that the game will reward detouring. Mechanically, all you do is step toward a wooden barrel, but the moon confirms that the camera and capture systems are both active.
2. Found with the Cap Kingdom Art
This moon is sitting on top of one of the ruined houses in the central plaza. To reach it, you cap-jump off the nearby wooden boards. The moon is also a tutorial for how Odyssey’s collectibles double as platforming aids, since the boards crumble after one or two cap throws. A useful tip: throw the cap on the topmost board first, because the boards below lose hit points in order.
3. The invisible road of the cap
Cap Kingdom teaches one of Odyssey’s recurring tricks very early: you can stand on a thrown cap. A moon sits at the end of a path that can only be crossed by throwing the cap forward and using it as a stepping stone while the cap is mid-flight. The path resets every time the cap returns, so timing matters more than running speed. If you have trouble, run a few steps past the gap, throw, and double jump immediately when Mario’s foot is over the cap.
4. Round-the-World Trot
This is a par-time challenge. The game places a timer over the path that circles the central well, and finishing the loop under par rewards a moon plus a small coin bonus. On a clean run, the loop is well under par. The trick is to corner-cut with a long jump off the ledges instead of taking the staircase each time.
5. Spin-Toss Capture
Found by capturing a frog and rolling through a small area that has coins in it. The moon pops out when you have rolled through all the coins in the loop. This is a deliberate introduction to frog capture, and it is the same input you will use in the boss arena. The lesson is “do not dismount until the meter fills”.
6. Big Broodal Battle: Top-Hat Tower
Story moon. After you reach the top of the ruined tower and speak with the Bonneton elders, the entrance to Top-Hat Tower opens. The boss is a Knucklotec variant with two phases. The first phase is a normal ground fight. The second phase happens inside the hat, where the room turns upside down and you fight on the ceiling. Capturing a frog is the intended approach for the second phase, because Mario’s jumps will not reach the boss’s new height. The moon drops at the end of the fight.
7. Inside the Top-Hat
Available after the boss fight. The post-boss Top-Hat Tower room is now a free-roam area. The moon sits on a high platform that you can reach by throwing the cap off the glass walls and bouncing off the ricochet. This is a clean illustration of the “cap as physics object” design that defines Odyssey.
8. The bonbon altar
Cap For additional context, Kingdom has a small hidden altar dedicated to the Bonneton ghost theme. Lighting the candles around it spawns the moon. Most of the candles are on lower platforms, but two are on ledges only reachable by long jump from a moving platform.
9. Frog-Jumping Above the Fog
Located above the fog line. There is a section near the top of the hat where the screen is filled with moving fog, and the moon sits on a platform above it. The fastest approach is to capture a frog, jump from a lower ledge, and use the frog’s long hop to reach the platform directly.
10. Hidden in the rubble
Buried in a pile of stones in a side alley of the central plaza. Ground pound the rubble to clear it. The moon is a reminder that ground pound is still a free action and not just a stun move.
11. Bonneton Bell Tower
Reached by long jumping across the broken bridge near the top of the hat. The bell tower houses a small jingle, and the moon appears when you ground pound the bell at the correct rhythm. Two pounds usually work.
12. Cap Kingdom Timer Challenge 2
The second par-time path in the kingdom. Faster than the first, and the par is tighter. The reward is a moon plus a small stack of coins. Worth picking up on a story run because the coins fund the kingdom’s shop.
13. Shopping in Bonneton
A shop moon. Spend 100 coins at the Cap Kingdom store to make the moon appear. The shop also sells a sticker for the Odyssey sticker album and the region’s regional coin. Buy the regional coin first, because some moons in the post-game area require it.
14. Regional coin spending
After buying the regional coin from the shop, the Bonneton attendant offers a moon in exchange for a fixed number of regional coins. This is a tutorial for the regional-coin sink that every kingdom has, and it shows up again in Cascade Kingdom and later.
15. amiibo moon
If you tap any compatible amiibo at the Bonneton amiibo post, a moon appears. Different amiibo print different moons, but the kingdom counts it as a single slot in your moon total. The moon is repeatable on a per-amiibo basis, which is why this moon is the easiest to artificially inflate your count with if you own a collection.
16. The thin line of clouds
Final pre-story moon. It sits at the very top of the hat, above the boss arena exit. You can only reach it by chaining a cap throw off a wall, a long jump, and a ground pound in one fluid motion. The placement is intentional: it sits exactly where the player will naturally end up after the boss, so Odyssey does not feel like it has ended.
Post-game Cap Kingdom moons: the Great Cap Express
After the credits, returning to the Odyssey airship map reveals a new landmark on top of Cap Kingdom labeled The Great Cap Express. The kingdom’s top half has been rebuilt as a working train station, and Bonneton’s ghost population has moved up into a new summit district. From a level design standpoint, this is one of the cleanest examples of Odyssey’s “world grows after the story” pattern. The geometry reuses the same skeleton but loads new content on top.
The post-game moons are denser and more puzzle-oriented than the pre-story set. The developers expect you to know every capture and every cap trick by this point. The expected moon count for the post-game region is around nine, and most of them are layered on top of each other, so you should clear them in a single sweep rather than dipping in and out.
17. Express Homeward
The first post-game moon is awarded for simply stepping onto the new train platform and interacting with the conductor. It is a freebie that confirms the post-game region is loaded correctly and that the new NPC routines are running.
18. Crossing the Express
Requires a cap-jump chain across the moving rail cars. The cars move on a fixed schedule, so the trick is to stand at the end of the platform and time the first throw to land on the second car. From there, the rest of the chain is just long jumps. If you fall off, the platform re-spawns you at the start, so failure is cheap.
19. Maintenance Worker
Hidden in a maintenance tunnel under the rail line. The entrance is on the back side of the platform, and you have to ground pound a wooden cover to drop in. The moon sits on a small ledge, and there is a regional coin inside as well.
20. Backward Staircase
Cap For additional context, Kingdom’s iconic upside-down section returns, but larger. The moon is at the top of an inverted staircase that you can only climb by running up the ceiling. The trick is to keep your camera angled so the floor stays on the top half of the screen. The developers at Nintendo EPD consistently test that ceiling sections are still readable to players who do not invert their camera, so do not be afraid to leave the camera in default mode.
21. Under the Bridge of Souls
The post-game summit has a new bridge lined with Bonneton ghost NPCs. A moon sits on the underside of the bridge, accessible only by capturing a frog and jumping from the lower river up through the gap. This is the same capture from the boss fight, and it is a deliberate callback.
22. Perched on the Lighthouse
The summit has a small lighthouse that did not exist in the pre-story area. The moon is on top of the light. The fastest approach is to capture a frog at the base and chain the long hop up the side of the lighthouse, which is shorter than climbing the spiral stairs.
23. Express River Cruise
Requires a cap throw against the current of a small river. The moon is on a platform in the middle of the water, and the only safe crossing is a series of cap-throws that stick to the riverbed. The same trick is used in the Sand Kingdom and the Moon Kingdom, so it is worth practicing here first.
24. Big Broodal Re-Battle: Top-Hat Tower
Story boss returns as a free-roam target. The post-game version has new attack patterns and slightly higher health. The recommended capture is still a frog for the second phase, but the timing window is tighter. The moon is the same slot as the pre-story boss moon, so you do not lose progress by skipping the re-fight.
25. Summit of Bonneton
Final moon in the region. The summit is the highest point of the new district, and the moon sits on a small monument at the top. It is awarded automatically when you reach the very top. This moon also unlocks a small cinematic of the Odyssey ship passing over the kingdom, which is one of the more understated pieces of motion work in the game.
How Cap Kingdom moons compare to the other early kingdoms
It helps to see Cap Kingdom’s moon count next to the other kingdoms that open the game. The numbers below are the totals the game credits you with after a full clear, and they include both the pre-story and post-game sets.
| Kingdom | Approximate moon total | Difficulty tier | Main capture focus | Post-game region |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cap Kingdom (Bonneton) | ~25 | Tutorial | Frog | The Great Cap Express |
| Cascade Kingdom (Fossil Falls) | ~40 | Easy | Goomba, Glydon | Two more sub-areas |
| Sand Kingdom (Tostarena) | ~89 | Medium | Bullet Bill, Pokio, T-Rex | Post-game ruins open |
| Lake Kingdom (Lamode) | ~42 | Easy | Goomba, Cheep Cheep | Sub-area extension |
| Wooded Kingdom (Steam Gardens) | ~76 | Medium | Sherm, Tank, Rambi | Sub-area extension |
| Lost Kingdom (Forgotten Isle) | ~35 | Easy | Bowser statue, frog | Limited |
| Metro Kingdom (New Donk City) | ~81 | Hard | Goomba, Tank, Raccoon | Festival expansion |
| Snow Kingdom (Shiveria) | ~55 | Medium | Penguin, Ty-foo | Post-game area |
| Seaside Kingdom (Bubblaine) | ~59 | Medium | Cheep Cheep, Uproot | Sub-area extension |
| Bowser’s Kingdom (Ruined Kingdom) | ~65 | Hard | Goomba, Pokio | Story-gated |
| Dark Side | ~25 | Hard | Broodal | Final |
| Darker Side | ~1 | Brutal | Cap-only | Endgame |
The table is not a full moon checklist, but it gives you a sense of how Cap Kingdom’s small size is intentional. It is the only kingdom where the post-game region is roughly the same size as the pre-story region, and that ratio is a clue to how the designers wanted to pace the first hour of the game. Bonneton teaches you to expect that every kingdom you visit after the credits will have a new layer on top of the world you already know.
Common questions about Cap Kingdom moon collection
These are the questions that come up most often when players hit a soft lock in Bonneton or are trying to push their count past the pre-story total. The answers are based on the in-game moon tracking, the Odyssey save file behavior, and the way the kingdom reuses its geometry across the pre- and post-game states.
How many Cap Kingdom moons are there in total?
The pre-story Cap Kingdom contains around sixteen moons. The post-game Cap Kingdom adds around nine more. On a fully completed save file, the count is in the mid-twenties. The exact number depends on whether the player counts shop moons, regional coin moons, and amiibo moons as one slot or as multiple, but the in-game tracker reports the same number regardless of how the moon was earned.
Why is the Cap Kingdom moon count stuck even after I explored everywhere?
Two things cause this. First, the post-game moons are gated behind the credits. If you have not finished the wedding scene and returned to the airship, the upper district of Cap Kingdom is not in your world. Second, a handful of moons in the plaza require ground pounds on specific rubble piles. If you are missing one or two moons and you have already finished the story, walk the central plaza slowly and ground pound every pile of stones. The rubble blends in with the rest of the geometry because the same texture is used for both.
Do I need Cap Kingdom moons to leave the kingdom?
No. Odyssey does not lock the airship on moon count per kingdom. The only gate is the global moon count, which the game tracks separately. The number of moons you collect in Bonneton does not affect when you can fly to Cascade Kingdom, and you can leave as soon as you have defeated the Top-Hat Tower boss and watched the kingdom exit cinematic.
Are Cap Kingdom amiibo moons unique?
No. Each amiibo prints a moon, but only one moon slot is reserved for that source. If you want a clean total, you can ignore the amiibo moon entirely, and the in-game tracker will still report a complete Cap Kingdom. This is one of the small ways the developers gave completionists an out, because the amiibo roster has grown since Odyssey shipped.
Do the moons reset between runs?
No. Odyssey has no new-game-plus mode. Once a moon is in your save file, it stays there, and the tracker increments from that point forward. If you delete your save and start a new file, the moons reappear in the world as if the kingdom had not been cleared.
Planning a clean Cap Kingdom run
Because the kingdom is small but layered, a clean run has three phases. A good rule of thumb is to keep the phases separate rather than mixing them, because the post-game region is easier to navigate when the plaza moons are already out of the way.
- Phase 1, pre-story sweep: Land, clear the central plaza, climb the hat via cap-jumps, and fight the boss. Pick up the shop moon and the regional coin sink moon before leaving. Skip the post-game summit for now.
- Phase 2, story flight: Move on to Cascade Kingdom and continue the main story. Cap Kingdom is not worth returning to until the post-game unlock triggers, because the new upper district is the only thing that changes.
- Phase 3, post-game sweep: After the credits, fly back to Cap Kingdom. Use the new train station to access the upper district, and chain the express moons, the lighthouse moon, and the bridge moon in one pass. The summit moon is the natural last stop.
If you follow this structure, you should be able to clear every Cap Kingdom moon in roughly 90 minutes on a first playthrough, and in under 40 minutes on a return visit with the capture inputs already learned.
Frequently asked questions
What is the very first Cap Kingdom moon I can pick up?
It is the moon called Straying from the Path. It is awarded automatically for stepping off the main path near the first building. It serves as a soft tutorial confirmation that the capture, cap, and camera systems are all active.
How do I get to the moon on top of the lighthouse in the post-game area?
Capture a frog at the base of the lighthouse and use the frog’s long hop up the side of the building. Climbing the spiral staircase works too, but the frog route is faster and skips the small enemy encounters along the way.
Can I get the post-game moons before I beat the final boss?
No. The Great Cap Express and the post-game summit are not in the world until the credits roll. Even if you have already collected the global moon total needed to trigger the final boss, you cannot enter the post-game Cap Kingdom area until after the wedding scene has played and the airship map has been updated.
Why does the moon tracker keep counting after I defeat the boss?
Odyssey’s tracker adds the boss moon the moment the boss is defeated, then opens the post-boss Top-Hat Tower area. The next moons are not gated by the boss fight itself, only by the geometry, so the tracker keeps moving as you explore the now-open interior of the hat.
Is there a shop moon in the post-game Cap Kingdom?
Yes. The summit station has its own shop, and the post-game shop moon is awarded when you spend the required coin total. The post-game shop also stocks unique clothing items and a regional coin refill, so it is worth visiting on any cleanup run.
Do Cap Kingdom moons count toward the 500-moon story requirement?
Yes. Every moon in Odyssey, including the Cap Kingdom set, contributes to the global count that gates the final boss. The game does not weight moons by kingdom, so a Cap Kingdom moon is worth the same as a Sand Kingdom moon for progression purposes.
Are there any moons I can only get with a specific capture?
Yes. Several Cap Kingdom moons are gated behind a frog capture, including the boss-fight second phase, the under-bridge moon, and the lighthouse shortcut. If you do not have a frog available in the local area, walk along the riverbed near the plaza. Bonneton’s frogs respawn quickly.
What happens if I leave Bonneton before picking up a moon?
Nothing bad. The moon stays in the world, and the next time you arrive at the kingdom, the moon is in the same spot. The only time you lose access to a moon is if the post-game state is the only state in which it exists, in which case you cannot pick it up until the credits roll regardless of how many times you visit.
Does the moon count differ between 2D and 3D sections of the kingdom?
Cap Kingdom does not have a 2D section in the same way that later kingdoms do, but the boss arena’s ceiling-fight phase is treated as a discrete 2.5D space for design purposes. The moon awarded in that phase is counted in the kingdom total, not as a global 2D bonus.
Are the Bonneton ghost NPCs tied to any moons?
Not directly. The Bonneton ghost NPCs are part of the kingdom’s ambient life and are tied to a small cutscene rather than a moon, but interacting with them is the fastest way to find the post-game stairs to the summit. The first ghost you meet in the plaza will turn toward the new exit after the credits, which is a low-key hint that the upper region is open.
For a broader look at how Odyssey’s moon economy and post-game flow connect to other kingdoms, the breakdown of the Cascade Kingdom and the Sand Kingdom regions sits well alongside the Cap Kingdom experience and shares the same design philosophy. Players who enjoy the clean, small-scale teaching loop of Bonneton will find the same structure in the Diablo 4 on PS5: The Guide to Features and Unique Things overview, which uses a similar first-stop, tutorial-style layout. For anyone planning a return to a sandbox kingdom after the credits, the open-world pacing in Skyrim Alternate Start: Ditch the Cart and Live Another Life is a useful reference for how a post-game layer can change the meaning of an already-known map.
