Go to the World Map. Note that a new branch has opened to the southeast. Follow it to Kero Sewers.
Kero Sewers
Mallow will tell you to watch out for "Belome", whatever this might be. Mario automatically jumps onto the pipe, so press Down to go down. Note that you may get Pure Water from the fights here. Pure Water is an instant kill if you use it against ghost enemies (such as the ones appearing in this level). You can also sell it for 75 coins, so it's a very good source of coins.
Now you'll be in the underground. Right next to you is another save point if you want to save. Otherwise, jump into the water ahead and swim over to the right. On the other side, you can read how to enter pipes, which you should already know. In any case, go down the pipe there to proceed. In the next area, jump down to the pipe you see and go through. Follow the passageway to the end (watch out for the Boo) and go down the next pipe too.
Now run to the left, watch out for Alley Rats coming out of the small alcoves. While they mostly flee during battle, they can also poison you (this is why you should have bought that Antidote Pin). The Treasure Box before the stairs contains a flower so collect it. Now, climb the stairs and go to the right. You should see another Treasure Box, so jump down and collect it. When you try to collect this Treasure Box, however, you'll find out it's actually an enemy! Pandorite is weak against Jump, so just jump on him and he should be defeated in no time. You'll get a Flower Jar and a Trueform Pin. Equip the Trueform Pin to Mario, as it's essential for the upcoming miniboss fight. Now, jump up to the pipe from the stairs and walk up again. Get to the pipe and go through.
The next area contains an Invincibility Star. Get it, jump down and kill the four Alley Rats. Quickly run to the left, go down the pipe, run down the alleyway and defeat the rats there until your Star Power runs out, then go down the pipe you see at the very end. In this area, jump down to the pipe on your right and go through it. You'll now be in an area with several ghosts and a big green switch. Jump onto the switch to drain the water and then go back the pipe you came from. In the now drained area, go down where the water was and follow the pipe. The Treasure Box here contains a Recovery Mushroom, so collect it, there's also a save point here to save your game. Once you're done, go to the pipe to your right and follow it.
You'll now be in the area where the miniboss is. Approach it to start the fight.
Miniboss: Belome
Mario should probably use Jump against Belome, while Mallow uses Thunderbolt or heals. If Mario already has Super Jump, this is a nice enemy to try it out on. After taking some damage, Belome will attempt to use S'crow Funk to turn Mario into a Scarecrow. As a Scarecrow, a character can only use special attacks, but if you equipped the Trueform Pin to Mario, he should be immune to it. Belome will occasionally eat Mallow whole, leaving Mario alone. Simply continue to attack the beast and eventually he will spit Mallow out again. Overall, this fight should not be terribly hard.
Once you defeat him, he will tell you to "beware the flood".
Midas River
Select controller:A cutscene will start where Mario and Mallow fail to keep the green switch down, thus making water rush through this place who will take your party with it. Now, you will play a simple minigame where you can try to collect as many coins as possible. Toad will give you instructions if you want and then leave you alone. In the first part, you'll be moving down the waterfall - press 
repeatedly to swim against the current. You can also enter one of the many holes here to get into caves. The first one is empty - when a fork comes swim left for a Frog Coin. The second cave there contains a flower, so if you want one enter it, otherwise simply continue.
Once you reached the end you'll get to a Barrel Jumping minigame. Toad will again give you instructions if you want. The gist here is to collect all the coins in the air. After a while you'll reach a second barrel, where you can decide either to jump onto the next barrel or to stay on the barrel you currently are and roll on the other side. After the middle part, you'll additionally see fish jumping out, avoid them as you will lose coins when you touch them. If you want to collect as many coins as possible, don't jump at the first barrel, then jump twice, don't jump twice, jump twice, and so on... until you reach the end.
At the end, you'll find another guy. If you managed to collect 60 coins he'll give you one Frog Coin in exchange. He will keep the rest for himself, and give you a NokNok Shell. This is a new weapon for Mario so be sure to equip it. There's a save point so you can save, once you're done here continue to the southeast and go to Tadpole Pond.
Tadpole Pond
| Frog Coin Emporium | |
|---|---|
| Item | Price |
| Sleepy Bomb |  1
|
| Bracer | 2
|
| Energizer | 2
|
| Crystalline | 5
|
| Power Blast | 5
|
| Juice Bar | |
| Item | Price |
| Froggie Drink | 14 |
When you arrive first it's pretty quiet. So go straight ahead and step on the stone. A short cutscene will start where the tadpoles notice Mario, after which Frogfucius comes "floating" to invite you to his small island. The tadpoles will form a bridge for you to jump across, so go ahead and talk to Frogfucius. He will explain what happened so far and why it has happened. Once he tells Mallow to go along with Mario, he uses the opportunity to reveal the truth, which is that Mallow is actually not a tadpole but fell from the sky... Mallow will now agree to follow Mario on his adventure. If you collected the Cricket Pie in Mushroom Kingdom talk to Frogfucius again to give it to him (otherwise, go back and collect it then return here). He will give you the Froggie Stick in return, which is a weapon for Mallow (as always, don't forget to equip it).
After getting the Froggie Stick, you should get your Alto Card. Go to the far right, there should be a pool with four horizontal lines in it. The musical structure you want is: So La Mi Re Do Re Do Re. Place the tadpoles in this order to achieve that musical structure (counting down from the top):
- Line 4
- Line 3.5
- Line 1.5
- Line 2
- Line 2.5
- Line 2
- Line 2.5
- Line 2.
If you walk up to the left you'll find two shops. In the left one you can use your Frog Coins to buy some powerful items. This is best kept for late game. The right one allows you to buy a Froggie Drink and Elixir. A Froggie Drink works like a Mushroom but it heals the entire party by 30 HP, whereas an Elixir heals the entire party by 80 HP. Once you're done here continue to Rose Way.
Rose Way
NOTE: Be sure to equip the Wake Up Pin to someone. There are many enemies in this area who can silence you or put you to sleep.
Right at the beginning, you can read a note on how to use the floating platforms if you're not sure. Use the floating platforms to get to the left side of the area. There is a flower and a mushroom, as well as some enemies on your way. In this area, kill the two enemies resting on the platforms, then jump across to the Treasure Box containing a Frog Coin (it is tricky and you may need several tries), then return to the main area. There, use the platforms to go to the north.
This area has several new enemies, including the quick and powerful Crooks. In battle they will mostly flee, but if you manage to beat them before they flee you'll get lots of coins. Defeat four of the Shy Guys dangled by Lakitu, and he will reward you with a Recovery Mushroom before departing. Go through this area and into the next one. Here there are more platforms, as well as several coins. Go to the southeast and proceed.
Here you'll have Shy Guys sitting on the Treasure Boxes, who will try to engage you when you open them. These Treasure Boxes contain coins and one Recovery Mushroom. Collect them while avoiding the enemies (or fight them for EXP), then go into the next area.
Here, run forward and a short cutscene will start, which shows Bowser and his army marching to recapture his castle. Follow the troop to Rose Town.
Rose Town
| Item Shop (left) | |
|---|---|
| Item | Price |
| Mushroom | 4 |
| Honey Syrup | 10 |
| Pick Me Up | 5 |
| Able Juice | 4 |
| Item Shop (right) | |
| Item | Price |
| Thick Shirt | 14 |
| Thick Pants | 14 |
| Jump Shoes | 30 |
| Wake Up Pin | 42 |
| Trueform Pin | 60 |
| Fearless Pin | 130 |
This town has a problem - arrows are flying from the sky who paralyze anyone who is unlucky enough to get hit by them.
Your first target should be the item shop. Don't go through the door, but enter through the chimney using the boxes conveniently placed there. You'll now be able to reach a Treasure Box containing a flower. Run along to the top corner to find a hidden Treasure Box containing a Frog Coin. In the shop, buy the Thick Shirt and Pants and equip them. You should already have all the pins except for the Fearless Pin, which is not really necessary.
Now, enter the Inn. A cutscene will start where a little boy plays with Mario, Toadstool and Bowser toys. Once he sees the real Mario, he is surprised. The mother asks you to play with him, Mario agrees and Gaz gets his Geno doll. He shoots, but misfires and hits the actual Mario, who then gets dizzy and loses consciousness... In the following cutscene, the Geno doll will become real and leave the inn.
You wake up just next to a save point. Use the opportunity, then leave the inn. A short conversation shows Gaz telling his mother the Geno doll became real, though The mother doesn't believe him. Leave Rose Town, and enter the Forest Maze.
Forest Maze
In this entire level, you may see Mushrooms at the side. You can actually pick these up and they will work like actual mushrooms, so don't hesitate to pick some. However, in the underground some mushrooms are actually enemies, so watch out. If you need coins, jump onto the Wigglers to get some. Bouncing on Wigglers ten times in a row will yield a Frog Coin instead of a normal coin.
In the first section of the forest maze, on the left side near the top of the bushes is a hidden treasure containing a Kerokero Cola. In the second area go all the way to the end and go down the tree stump. In the underground, go all the way through to the other springboard. Once outside, simply go to the next area. Here you will find several tree stumps to go into. Go into the last one at the very end, and in the underground, approach the sleeping Wiggler. He will become very angry and sling you outside, where a new way has opened. Follow this new way to another tree stump and go down.
In this underground, follow the way into the next area. There, go all the way through to the springboard and jump up to go outside. Here, you'll find a save point if you want to save, because in the next area, the actual maze part will start. You can follow Geno, but if you want a small bonus go left, left, straight, right from Mario's view to get to a lone tree stump. Follow it down to find several treasure chests containing one Frog Coin, three Flowers and a Recovery Mushroom. Return to the maze and follow Geno, who will walk right, left, straight, right, left, left, from Mario's view again. Here, a cutscene will start where Bowyer, essentially a giant Bow, is proud of shooting one thousand arrows. Suddenly, Geno steps in and challenges Bowyer to a fight. Mario and Mallow decide to help him. And with this the second boss fight starts:
BOSS: Bowyer
This fight is a tougher fight than anything you have encountered so far. Mario should attack physically, Geno should use Geno Beam and Mallow should heal or also physically attack. Bowyer has some very powerful attacks which will do a lot of damage to your team, so don't be afraid to heal (especially if you collected many mushrooms in the forest). After the first round, he will disable one button (
, 
or 
), which makes the fight much harder since you need to adapt. If the button is disabled, have Mario use Super Jump and Mallow heal.
The most important thing to keep in mind when fighting Bowyer is that his Static-E attack hits like a freight train; expect mid-teens damage to Mallow and Mario (even with the Thick Shirt/Thick Pants) and 25 damage to Geno. Since Geno likely will only have 45 HP in this battle, he cannot survive consecutive "Static-E" attacks. Keep healed. The Froggie Drink will come in really handy in this fight, just make sure that your HP is consistently high (or the team has plenty of Flower Points to heal with HP Rain) in the event that Bowyer locks the button. Once you have dished out enough damage to him,(720 hp) he will perish.
You'll get a Flower Box, which gives you five flowers. You'll also get the second Star Piece! Geno then talks about the Star Road and the function of the Star Pieces, he will also join your party. One arrow who has seen everything goes to run off and tell Smithy. Your next target is Moleville.