A Guide to Super Mario Bros. 2/World 3-1
Surprise, surprise! In this world, you'll come across a huge waterfall. Do you dare brave a climb to the top? A big waterfall is no problem if you hitch a ride to the top on a handy flying carpet passing by. It might be a bit tricky to convince Pidget to leave, of course. Stay in control—one wrong step and you're in the drink. Or consider this: if you drop down to the bottom—carefully—you can enter a secret room at the very bottom.
- Balanced character selection
Finally! After being kept on the side lines for two whole worlds, now is the time to bring the Princess off the bench. Her skill at controlling the duration of her jumps will help her come in handy here. Not only that, but there is a shortcut that only she can take advantage of!
Map A
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No secrets here. Now that you've transitioned out of the World of Deserts, you can take a nice stroll to the hills in the background that lead to the giant waterfall. Pass through door A.
Map B
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What do you think of going down the waterfall before you go up? This may sound crazy at first, but wait! Before you go up the cloud stairs, try going down the falls. It takes a lot of control to drop right into the center and make a perfect swan dive to the island at the bottom. If you're using the princess and find that you're veering off course, you can press and hold the A button to make her float in mid-air while you adjust her position. If you make it, you'll find a secret entrance to the island, a whole bunch of vegetables, and…
(2) Onward and Upwards! Climb the cloud stairs, but be careful. Check out who's up at the top waiting for you. It's Pidget! Use the trick you pulled in World 1-2 to get on top of him. Then see how high you can go. Keep your eyes peeled for a climbing vine. Don't delay, you only get to ride the carpet for a limited time and if time runs out, you'll find yourself falling back to the clouds. In Super Mario Advance, be sure to use the carpet to assist you with A-coin collecting.
- Cloud Hopping
All your platform climbing skills will be tested on this stage, with several groups of clouds to traverse in order to reach your goals. There's a leap of faith to make at the beginning of this stage that will land you in the best possible place to grab coins, especially if you've got Toad's awesome lifting strength.
This stage also features the second warp in the game, which will take you to World 5. Read the spoiler below to learn how to find it.
Map C
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(1) You're in the money. Inside the secret room, there's a potion hidden in the grass. If you pick it up and drop it down among the rest of the grass, you can enter into Sub-space and earn a lot of cash. Then exit back out through door B and back in again to repeat the process one more time. In the original version of the game, you won't find any Mushrooms down here, while in Super Mario Advance, if you drop the potion and create a door down here, you are in fact likely to find a new hidden mushroom. The potion may also have one other use…
- A secret warp
It turns out that if you pick up the potion and drop it by the jar next to the door that leads back to door A, and enter into Sub-space here, you can use this jar to warp all the way ahead to World 5-1.
Map D
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(3) For royalty only? If you are playing the game with the Princess, pile up Mushroom Blocks on the left side of the cloud and jump from there. You'll find secret door D, which will lead to the back side of the boss's room in map E. If you're a particularly good Luigi player, he can also make this shortcut work. However, even if you're using Mario or Toad, the truth is that you can still use this shortcut, it will just take an extra bit of dangerous work to do so. To the left of the vine are a series of small egg-shaped clouds. They're not big enough for you to stand on, but they will support a Mushroom Block. If you can chuck a Mushroom block to the left, so that it bounces off the larger egg cloud and hits the smaller egg cloud behind it and comes to a stop, you have now created a small but usable platform to leap towards. Once you're through door D, pick up some bombs to blast the wall down and run across the ceiling to the Birdo mini-boss fight.
(4) Sub-space 1. The potion on this small hill might be hard to get. Drop a Mushroom Block on the gray Panser above to stop the rain of fire. Then collect the potion and drop it on the hill or the clouds to the left to find a much needed Mushroom.
(5) Sub-space 2. Getting the second Mushroom will take as much planning as the first. You'll find the potion only be descending the ladder. However, you won't be able to climb back up while you're holding the potion. Drop the potion off to the left of the ladder so that when you enter Sub-space, you can climb up the ladder and grab the Mushroom that is hiding out on the ledge.
Advanced 1-Ups: in Super Mario Advance, the hidden mushroom in Map C may not have felt like a huge discovery, but you'll find something else that might surprise you inside of a newly placed jar right around location 5. If you step inside and climb down the ladders, you'll find a set of Sparks circling the lower portion of the jar along with an interesting ball on the platform. Though it's quite large, you can pick this ball up, toss it, and get it rolling. As it does, it should start to crush the Sparks, ultimately leading to one or two extra lives. And you can exit the jar and return as many times as you like.
Map E
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(6) Birdo Again! Birdo has gotten really sneaky now. She spits eggs in quick, tricky motions. The Princess has to move fast and dodge with skillful squats and jumps to avoid disaster. You can tell Birdo is tired when she spits out three eggs in a row. When you see the third egg fly, move fast! She's just taking a breather. Or you can jump behind her and use the two Mushroom Blocks as a weapon against her.
After defeating Birdo, grab the Crystal Ball 
and head through the hawkmouth gate.
Shortcut A-coin: whether you used the shortcut to reach Birdo or not, Super Mario Advance tests just how good of a Mario player you really are by placing the fifth A-coin near the entrance to the secret passage. If you took the normal route to reach Birdo, don't forget to jump from the top of the gate to the ceiling, and run across to the right in order to reach the last coin and complete your collection.