Mr. Gimmick/Level 3

Walk right and hit the fox enemies that fall out of the trees. The easiest way to dispatch of them is to just fire a star along the ground; more often than not it will hit one but occasionally the fox will jump back into the trees. Usually, they will drop a Bomb when you defeat one, which you'll need to get the special item here.

When you get to the water portion, jump to the first patch of ground and wait for the rocks to rumble down the side of the cliff on the right. Two of them will fall into the water but the third one will reach the part of ground you're on so you'll have to jump over it or jump back to the left. Once that's over with, climb the cliff and jump across the small platforms.

Wait for a moment or two when you jump to each of the small platforms for a log to fall down. A group of Ohagi enemies will start jumping across the small platforms after you. You can continue jumping to the right or just hit the Ohagi enemies as they get close to you. Once you're on the opposite side of the waterfall, head right until you reach the antlion enemy at the bottom of the slope.

Hopefully you have a Bomb handy as it's the only item that can defeat the antlion. Stand on the edge of the slope and jump and throw the bomb down. It should blow the antlion to bits, granting access to the Hidden Item Stage through the tunnel below. Grab the special item quickly since a bunch of arrows will shoot at the platform it's on and then continue down to exit.

Grab the Orange Medicine on the platform to the right and then head left until you reach the top of the waterfall. You have to quickly jump across or the logs will take you to the bottom, where the platforms were, or possibly kill you. On the other side there will be two electrode Ohagi enemies waiting and path through the ground further ahead.

You have to proceed carefully through the cave since there are cheap hits and deaths aplenty here. Walk left until you're standing just to the right of the grey rock. When the grey rock falls the piece that breaks off should miss you. Jump onto the platform over the spikes and jump up again to avoid the arrows that the cannon fires from the left.

Jump up the slope to the curious looking item on the ground. That's a mine. Don't step on it or you'll be sorry you did. Instead, jump over it and the explosion that will likely follow after you clear it. This next part can be tricky so listen up. You have to slide down the slope and jump when you reach the part where it's less steep, to the patch of ground ahead. After that, you have to quickly jump again to avoid the grey rock overhead.

On top of the slope is Ponta (ぽん太), one of the five toys from the intro sequence who is said to be the forest's guardian. For some reason, it acts as a mini-boss rather than the stage boss and will throw something it likes to call “Acorn Bombs” (“どんぐりばくだん”) at you. It will also block your shots with the leaf it's holding. Stand midway on the small part of flat ground between the slope and the spikes and jump and shoot a star toward it. The star should bounce off the slope and hit the enemy on the head. A couple more shots like that and it will be defeated, leaving behind a Orange Medicine. Alternatively, a well-timed star jump can get Yumetarō over Ponta and into the hole it's blocking, avoiding the fight.

Drop into the hole ahead and continue forward until the first grey rock falls. The next group of grey rocks are harder to avoid since there are a whole bunch of slopes leading down toward them. The second one can be avoided by jumping onto the top of the slope there and then again when it falls.

In order to avoid the next two, you have to carefully jump over the slope, slide down a tiny bit and then jump back to the right to avoid getting hit. It requires some precision but it can be done. Once you make it through, jump into the hole to reach a whole new area of the stage&mdash;an underground lake. Stand on the edge and shoot some stars downward to beat the worm moving around below.

The second worm can be beat by jumping onto the tree below but on the left side so the worm doesn't jump toward you. Shoot a couple of stars at it and continue on to the right. There will be some more worms ahead but you can just jump over them easily enough or defeat them. Just to warn you though, a few of them might chase you if you don't do them in.

Soon after that, some mutated looking insects will start flying by (believed to be a reference to a similar creature from the Hayao Miyazaki work Nausicaä). You can jump onto them if you need to, and you might, since they have a tendency to get in your way. Keep going until you reach the hole in the wall after a series of steps. The boss is right ahead. It's rather tough so I hope you have the vitality and brought some Pink Medicine to restore your health if necessary.

BOSS: Yadokame (やどカメ)
This is snail-like creature appears to be a strange "hermit turtle" of sorts that was once nurtured by someone other than the girl. The first thing you should do is to start jumping so that you stay near the top of the slope on the left. The boss will crawl out of the water and start firing a beam of energy at you continuously until you hit it. Stay at the top, charge a star until the boss starts firing at you. At this point you should jump over the beam until you're under the part of the ceiling that crumbling and fire the star. It should hit the boss directly and not bounce off the ground or it might miss. It takes three hits to finish off the boss and continue on. (Note that this is the last character officially named in the game's manual.)