About the Green Stasr, actually, they are
camouflaged Star Medals, and not your objective that ends the levels after you explored and travel a bit around the stages before you
got it like in SM64 / SMS / SMG1 / 2 formula and then, as I said, since it's not construct in the same way as these games, it's maybe not a «great culmination» of them, but an improvement over the new formula and new franchise introduced in 3D Land (which they explained that more or
less was a new franchise in 3D Land Iwata Ask).