Highlights

  • Games like Banjo-Kazooie, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Super Mario Odyssey offer a plethora of collectibles, adding replayability and a challenge.
  • Finding over 1,000 collectibles in these games may seem daunting, but attentive exploration during a first playthrough can make it easier to collect missed items later on.
  • Donkey Kong 64 and Spyro: Year of the Dragon take collectibles to the extreme, with Donkey Kong 64 featuring 3,821 collectibles and Spyro: Year of the Dragon boasting a staggering 20,150 collectibles.

Packing a game full of collectibles is a clever way of freshening up the core gameplay experience by introducing an extra challenge, while also adding a ton of replayability to a game for anyone who wants to try and reach the 100% completion rate. However, while it's not unheard of for many games to have a few hundred secret collectibles for players to get their hands on, some have taken it a step further and featured many more hidden secrets that can be uncovered.

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Finding over 1,000 collectibles can seem a little daunting at first, but so long as players keep an eye out for them during a first playthrough, it won't be too difficult to come back after completing the game to sweep up any that might have been missed. It's time to take a look at the games that went a little overboard with their collectibles, and how many are included within their worlds.

Only one game per series will be included as many of these games also have past and future entries that contain over 1,000 collectibles, so this list will take into account the game with the highest number.

7 Banjo-Kazooie

Collectibles: 1,140

Banjo gliding through the sky towards musical notes
Banjo-Kazooie

Platform(s)
N64 , Xbox 360
Released
June 28, 1998
Developer(s)
Rare
Genre(s)
3D Platformer

The original Banjo-Kazooie released for the Nintendo 64 is often heralded as one of the greatest 3D platformers of all time, and while it featured some amazing environments, developer RARE made sure to fill them in with as many hidden collectibles as possible. The main collectibles in the game are the 900 Music Notes, which can be used to open up new areas of Gruntilda's Lair, but there are also the Jiggy Pieces, Honeycombs, and Mumbo Tokens.

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The game, fortunately, does a very good job at making some of these collectibles obvious, while still keeping the majority of them hidden away, encouraging the player to explore their surroundings to try and find everything they can. Banjo-Kazooie is already well-known for its difficulty, but those who want a real challenge should try acquiring all the collectibles before reaching Gruntilda at the very end.

6 The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

Collectibles: 1,185

Link standing next to a memory portal
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Platform(s)
Switch
Released
May 12, 2023
Developer(s)
Nintendo
Genre(s)
Adventure

Despite the open world of Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom being more or less identical to the one found in Breath of the Wild, Nintendo still managed to include even more collectibles in the game in the form of Korok Seeds, Memories, Shrines, and Skyview Towers. Again, none of these are technically mandatory, but finding them will still help Link out when he eventually comes to face Ganon, except for the Korok Seeds.

With there being 1,000 Korok Seeds to find, 100 more than in Breath of the Wild, most people would assume that finding all of them must result in a powerful weapon or stylish piece of clothing, but instead, Link will be gifted a pile of golden excrement. For Nintendo, this is undoubtedly some sort of sick joke, but for the player who's just spent many hours finding each Korok, it can feel more like a slap in the face.

5 Super Mario Odyssey

Collectibles: 2,082

Mario playing a guitar in a sombrero
Super Mario Odyssey

Platform(s)
Switch
Released
October 27, 2017
Developer(s)
Nintendo
Genre(s)
Platformer

To fully complete Super Mario Odyssey, players must find all the Power Moons and Purple Coins, along with purchasing a total of 40 outfits and 43 unique souvenirs and stickers that can be placed on the ship. While Mario will need to acquire a certain amount of Power Moons to progress to the next area, he doesn't technically need to find all of them, and since there are 999 of them out there to find, it makes it quite a challenge to find each one of them without a guide in hand.

As for the Purple Coins, these can be a lot more obscure to find, but they can be well worth it since they can be used to purchase some special costumes and accessories for Mario by visiting the shop in each respective kingdom. To avoid confusion, it should also be noted that these "Coins" can take different forms depending on the kingdom, so while they will look like Pyramids in the Sand Kingdom, they can also take the shape of a top hat, a snowflake, or even a piece of fruit.

4 Jak And Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Collectibles: 2,213

Jak and Daxter in a small grassy area
Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Platform(s)
PS2 , PS3 , PS4 , PS Vita
Released
December 4, 2001
Developer(s)
Naughty Dog
Genre(s)
Platformer

The primary collectibles that Jak and his plucky companion Daxter will need to find in the very first game are Precursor Orbs, but since there are 2,000 of them scattered throughout the game, picking up all of them on a single playthrough is an excruciatingly difficult task. While these orbs are used as the currency for the game, only 1,530 can be spent to achieve all the Power Cells, meaning that the extra 470 are simply lying around for anyone motivated enough to try and achieve a 100% completion rate.

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The Power Cells aren't quite as difficult to achieve, but players will need to collect 101 of them to earn the secret ending, which is a much greater and more worthwhile reward than the one earned by finding the Korok Seeds. Then there's the Scout Flies, which are at least a lot easier to spot since they love making a racket when Jak gets near them, and are always found flying around inside large red boxes.

3 Donkey Kong 64

Collectibles: 3,821

Tiny Kong in Donkey Kong 64
Donkey Kong 64

Released
November 24, 1999
Developer(s)
Rare
Genre(s)
Platformer

Donkey Kong 64 centers around finding secret items and collectibles. Just like all games in the Donkey Kong series, the game is already known for being brutally difficult, but if players are brave enough to try and find all the regular bananas, Golden Bananas, KK. Crowns, Banana Fairies, Banana Medals, and Boss Keys, then they'll be in for the real challenge presented by Donkey Kong 64. On top of all this, there are also a few Blueprints and extra special coins that can be found through specific means.

If the player does manage to uncover every secret in the game though, they'll be treated to some extremely fun rewards that will make it all worth it in the end. For example, if one of the Kongs finds a Banana Fairy, then their inventory for a specific item will increase, and if all of them are found, a special scene will even play at the end of the story.

2 Spyro: Year Of The Dragon

Collectibles: 20,150

Spyro gliding through hpp[s in the sky
Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Platform(s)
PS1
Released
October 23, 2000
Developer(s)
Insomniac Games
Genre(s)
Platformer

Insomniac had implemented so many Gems into the third Spyro game that it became a pretty big complaint among longtime fans since finding 20,000 Gems across multiple levels seemed like it was going a little overboard. The adaptive difficulty system of the game also meant that finding every Gem in a stage could often be made needlessly difficult, and this isn't even mentioning the Dragon Eggs.

There may be far fewer of these collectibles compared to the Gems, with there being only 150 eggs in total, but a few of them can be brutal to earn. One of the hardest is definitely the second egg in the Fireworks Factory which switches Spyro to a first-person mode that is incredibly hard to control. There's also the Yeti Boxing minigame, which is the hardest challenge in any Spyro game in the eyes of many players.

1 Rayman Legends

Collectibles: 1,000,000

Rayman and his friends
Rayman Legends

Released
August 30, 2013
Developer(s)
Ubisoft Montpellier
Genre(s)
Platformer

Rayman Legends admittedly is a little ridiculous with its collectibles, and more specifically, the small dancing Lums which Rayman and his pals can find flying throughout the game. With that being said, there are at least several ways that these can be earned. For example, while the game will reward the player with a few thousand of them every time they complete an area, there are also online challenges that can be completed to earn a few more, with the amount awarded dependent on the player's Awesomeness Rank.

The reason people strive to reach a whopping 1 million Lums is because there is a skin in the game that costs this amount, so anyone wanting to fully complete the game will need to be saving up for a very long time. The skin itself is a little strange as it is just a naked Rayman with nothing but a small green leaf to cover him, so it's not exactly the most exciting reward for putting in such a staggering amount of effort.

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