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.')

8to 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.