In Celestial Skyway, the playable characters are stuck running down the level's road and can only move left and right between the road's four lanes (akin to the Quick Step). While running, the player can pick up powerups from Item Boxes and utilize the gimmicks native to this track.
Celestial Skyway has many environmental obstacles which the player can either jump over, roll under or move around. Running into one of these obstacles will result in the player taking damage and lose some of their Rings. Falling into bottomless pits on the other hand forces the player to restart from an earlier point on the track.
Overview
The racers begin by running up a short hill. After quickly going across some Grind Rails, they must avoid a long stretch of obstacles and enemies, going past a section where the outer two lanes branch out around the center. This happens again directly ahead, where the inner lanes have Conveyor Belts and Item Boxes, while the outer two lanes have Dash Panels placed on them. From there, the racers will go across another short section of grind rails before entering a segment of the track that begins with Dash Panels, and has hurdles covering two lanes at a time. After that is another section where the outer lanes branch out, opposite of the previous occurrence with Conveyor Belts on the outside lanes, just before a long stretch containing multiple obstacles and a set of Dash Panels that leads to the finish line.