New Super Mario Bros.


 * "Mushroom Houses," for lack of a better term (why go to the trouble of getting to these, just for a single item?)

Power-Ups

 * Mushroom: The Mushroom turns normal Mario to Super Mario. If hit as Super Mario, you turn back into regular Mario.
 * Fire Flower: The Fire Flower turns Mario into Fire Mario enabling him to shoot fireballs. If you're hit as Fire Mario, you turn into Super Mario.
 * Mega Mushroom: The Mega Mushroom turns Mario into "Mega Mario" for a limited amount of time. While Mega Mario, everything/anything you hit will die or break. The more stuff you destroy, the more 1-ups you get when you shrink back to normal size.
 * Mini Mushroom: Turns Mario into Mini Mario. As Mini Mario, one hit from anything will kill you, but you also can get into areas a non-Mini Mario can not.
 * Blue Shell: The Blue Shell turns Mario into Shell Mario, which is Mario with a shell on his back, like a Koopa. If you're hit as Shell Mario, you turn into Super Mario. The special attack as Shell Mario is if you run at a certain speed, you duck into the shell and roll around, destroying nearly everything in your path.
 * Green Mushroom:  Gives an extra life (1-up)

Mushroom Houses
There are 4 different kinds of Mushroom houses in the game: Red, Green, Mega, and Blue. Blue houses don't appear until you beat the game.

After entering a house (except for the blue houses) they disappear.


 * Red house: Lets you randomly get either a Mushroom, Fire Flower, Blue Shell, or a Mini Mushroom.
 * Green house:  This house has 6 "?" blocks in it. 3 contain 1-ups, 1 contains three 1-ups, 1 contains a card that doubles all the 1-ups you have currently found, and the last contains a Bowser card, which ends the game, giving you all the 1-Ups you have revealed.
 * Mega House: This house gives you a Mega Mushroom.
 * Blue House:  Lets you buy backgrounds for the touch screen for 20 star coins a piece. Only appears when you beat the game.

Secrets

 * When selecting a file, you can press  to play as Luigi.


 * Unlimited Toad Houses-Beat every single level in the game.


 * Get to World 4-Defeat the boss in world 2 as mini Mario


 * Get to World 7-Defeat the boss of world 5 as mini Mario


 * To do the above tips, you can start fighting the boss of the world as fire Mario and switching to mini Mario for the last hit (Note: to damage the boss as mini Mario you need to ground pound, jump then press 'down.')


 * to enable chalenge mode, which prevents the screen from scrolling left or down, depending on the level, press start on the map screen. From there, press L R L R X X Y Y. Enter the same code to disable challenge mode.