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This is it. After clearing seven worlds and gathering seven keys, you finally get access to the last world. The map is a long path of levels, with no mushroom houses or hammer bros. There are eight levels, the first seven have the theme of an older world. The first level is like Koopa Plains, the second is like Hotfoot Caverns, etc.

A deadly surprise awaits at the end of each level though. The game saves every level you’ve beaten in this world, so you can go back to other worlds, stock up on items, and charge back to Bowser’s Castle to take on the next level. This world is normally very difficult, but you can bypass a lot of the hard stuff just by collecting a few wands in older worlds and using them here.

+Koopa Plains revisited Location: The first level on the path Time Limit: 300

A lot to go through here. Try to do it quickly or you’ll run out of time. Don’t worry about the door, just get past all the obstacles (the chain chomp ? block only has a coin in it). At the bouncy music note blocks, drop down and go left for a power-up and a potion. Once you get that potion, bounce back up to where the closest chain chomp is. Go through the coins that used to be bricks. If you don’t make it in time, go back to the start of the level and go through the door for a retry.

Now you have to swim all the way left, hit the brick at the start of the level, then swim back and go back to start to climb the beanstalk. Don’t go in the door by the beanstalk.

Once you get to the top, there are plenty of chain chomps. You can use the glass blocks and koopa shells to knock them out. The bricks in the corners just have 50-coin mushrooms, not worth going for unless you have a raccoon suit to whack it.

After you go up the pipe, take a short hop, keeping close to the wall. You’ll land on a moving platform, which you have to keep pace with. After jumping a few pipes, you must take the platform under a bunch of blocks, then race around a tunnel and land in the platform before it moves across the next set of blocks.

Survive that for a door to Bowser. In this world, every level ends with a fight against a Bowser, probably fake versions of him. This layout it pretty similar to the final boss in SMB3. If you need more help with Bowser Battles, check the Bowser Battles section further down in this world (find “+ Bowser Battles” without the space).

+Hot Foot Caverns revisited Location: The second level on the path Time Limit: 300

Starts off with fire brothers, so jump on them. Go all the way right for the power-up, then grab a glass block to drop down. Keep holding the glass block as you go right and hit the brick, which holds a potion. Don’t get the potion yet. Climb up the wood platforms. The first two have walking flames. Grab a glass block, don’t get hit by the fire-spitting plant next to it. Carry the glass block and hop on the potion. Take the coins and keep to the left of the bricks. The bricks will change back into coins and you’ll drop to the ledge on the left. Jump and kick the glass block at the brick on the right side. If you’re Super, you have to take a short distance duck-slide under the wood block without much spare room to work with. After that is your second Bowser Battle.

+Lakitu Glacier revisited Location: The third level on the path Time Limit: 300

Just like Lakitu Glacier, this level is really slippery. Climb up the platforms, and once you jump over the ice wall, there’s a pit underneath. After you pass the second ice wall, drop down to safe ground below (and an evil face made of coins). Then you have to jump across some slippery one-block platforms. Ignore that pillar; it’s strictly background. Try to cross the bouncing music blocks without touching the upside-down spinies. Don’t go too fast through this area. Then when you get to the pool of water, drop to the bottom of it, and enter the (usually) invisible door in the center. This will take you t othe next Bowser Battle.

+Kuribo’s Woods revisited Location: The fourth level on the path Time Limit: 300

I’ve tried and tried and tried, but can’t find a good way to get shoes from those goombas. Anyway, when you get to the logs, drop, and go right. Watch out for the winged goombas. Climb up the wood blocks and you’ll move up to a platform with lots of glass blocks.

Grab a glass block, and make your way left. There are four piranha plants. You can either kick a glass block at each one (moving back and forth), or make sure you stand on the left side of the pipe, so piranha plants don’t pop out.

While holding a glass block, go down the falling log pit again. Kick the glass block at the isolated brick. It has a potion inside; use it to take the lower passage. Enter the door to take on Bowser.

Rain causes a small glitch that makes this level much easier. The platform that forces you to cross the piranha plant pipes is gone, so you can go back with the glass block the same way you came.

Another very minor glitch is that sometimes one of the piranha plants won’t appear. Not a big difference.

+Space Slopes revisited Location: The fifth level on the path Time Limit: 300

The tornado is back. Run at it and jump when you’re about half a block’s width away from hitting the middle of it. When you land, jump again to clear the other tornado. If you run into the second tornado, you’ll be dropped into the pit. Being able to consistently cross this pit will be important. Now that you’re here, hit one ? block, collect that power-up, and then do the same for the other ? block. Don’t hit both of them before collecting either or you’ll lose one!

Now you’ve got a pile of glass blocks. Grab one, and do the same thing you did before to get back to the other side of the gap, while holding the block. The big difference is that you should have a raccoon suit now, so you can float, making the jump easier. You’ll have to take 4 glass blocks to break 4 bricks, which means you have to go back and forth 4 times, 8 jumps total. The fasted method with the Raccoon suit is do the jump as normal (with a running jump), and when Mario is about fall into the pit, press jump a few times to fly a little higher. Then the ability to fly will run out (check the timer below the world number) and you should float to safety, then jump through the second tornado. Other methods tend to slow you down, and you need as much time as possible for the Bowser Battle.

+Colossal Classics Revisited Location: The sixth level on the path. Time Limit = 300 Now this one’s simple. Climb the clouds and enter one of the small rooms with flying turtles in it from above. To the left of where you entered is an invisible block to get out of the room. Hit the flying koopa once, then avoid it and grab the glass block, climb out of the room, run to the right, and kick the block at the next thwomp. Don’t let the glass block hit the koopa, or it will be lost. You have to defeat 4 thwomps to get to Bowser.

If you want to do this faster, or have run out of blocks, you can use a single koopa shell four times. However, the shell will bounce off of bricks placed after every thwomp. You have to (duck and) jump to stop the shell so you can grab it again try to run at it (very hard to do it you’re Super), so you’ll hop over it as you stop it so you won’t hit it again. For the fourth thwomp, just run into it with the shell. You’ll lose the shell, but you won’t need it. It’s tougher but faster than using glass blocks.

+Desert Dares Revisited Location: The seventh level on the path. Time Limit = 300 (fail at about 50)

This one took me way too long to figure out. The potion is a red herring; you can’t go through those bricks even if you turn them into coins because they have stuff in them. Instead, you must collect all of the coins; the row by the glass boxes, the arrow, and the ones on the platforms that go up to the left. Then drop to the beginning of the level, and there should be a door at the right side of the pyramid. If not, move to the left edge of the level and back.

+Bowser Battles At the end of each level is a battle against a fake Bowser. It gets harder each time, but with masterful timing and cunning, you can trick Bowser into dropping off the bottom of the screen!

Or… you can just use a wand to beat him through brute force. That’s right, if any of these battles are too much of a challenge, there’s an easier way. Just pull out a magic wand (from your inventory, or reset the game and get one from another world if you don’t have one). It takes quite a few sparks from the wand to beat Bowser, but it’s much easier than getting him to drop throw layers of bricks and lava.

1. 3 rows of bricks

A lot like the final boss layout from SMB3, but no indestructible bricks around the edges and no door with blocks above it for protection. Stand about half a screen away from him and dodge his fire breath. When he jumps, run away so he doesn’t ground pound you. Now jump over him to the right side, and get him to ground pound those bricks. Then move back to where he has pounded some bricks, stand in the middle of the groove, and as he’s about to ground pound, take a short hop out of the groove and let him hit it again. Now it’s 2 blocks deep. Lure him somewhere else and go back into the groove. As he ground pounds into it, hop away from him again, and he’ll fall out of the bottom of the screen.

2. 4 rows of bricks, only 3 blocks wide.

This is like the first level, but now it’s 4 bricks high, and much of the area is indestructible. No big deal, just form a pit at the area with the destructible bricks. Lure Bowser carefully, jumping out of the pit as he’s about to pound down.

3. 4 rows of bricks, strip of lava above the bottom row.

Ok, this is where the Bowser Battles start getting tough. The last set of bricks is guarded by deadly lava, though Bowser isn’t affected by it. You can have Bowser crush the first three rows as normal, but then you can’t enter the pit without falling into lava. Lure Bowser a few steps from the pit. Then jump to the other side of the pit, and wait for Bowser to jump. As he jumps at you, take a short hop (don’t hold the jump button for very long) over the pit, timed just so Bowser will pass over you as you’re both over the pit. If you timed it properly, Bowser will ground pound right into the pit and fall. This takes some practice, but keep at it.

4. 4 rows of bricks, strip of lava above the 2nd-to-bottom row.

Same thing, but the lava has been moved up. That means you have to do the short hop over the pit twice this time. Doing the short hop precisely and consistently takes practice! It’s a satisfying challenge to overcome, though it’s pretty easy if you use wand attacks.

This fight also has an audio glitch. If you enter the battle while still listening to the potion music, then when that music ends, the ordinary fortress music plays instead of the Bowser music. This is reminiscent of a bug in Sonic 3 where if you played the drowning music against a mini-boss, then hop out of the water, that game plays the Sonic & Knuckles mini-boss music instead, even though that game wasn’t connected or even out at the time. The point is that the game is cued to play different music, but it’s no biggie. If you just can’t get pumped into battle without the appropriate music, wait for the potion music to end before you face Bowser.

5. 4 rows of bricks, strip of lava separating the top row from the other three, and 2 sets of bricks to use as platforms.

You could do it the same way as battles 3 and 4, but the platforms allow a new strategy.

First, stand on the left platform. After Bowser jumps at you, jump over to the right platform. He should be on the left platform. Now, when he pauses to jumps at you, immediately jump to the left platform (the one he was on), in a way where you will crash into him in midair above the top of the screen.

The way this works is that you don’t get damaged by him if you’re off-screen. If you position it right, he’ll ground pound the two bricks left of the right platform. Now lure him back onto the right platform so you can do it again. Keep doing this until he falls off the bottom!

If it’s more comfortable for you, mirror the strategy so left is right and right is left.

6. 3 rows of bricks, a strip of lava, and then 3 more!

Use the small hop strategy here from battle #3 here. You’re higher up, and it’s a really tough challenge.

7. Five rows of bricks, then a row of lava, and then another row of bricks below. Plus the top row has two pools of lava!

There’s two ways of doing this, and they’re both ugly.

If you’re good at the small-hops from battle #3, do that but over the existing lava pits, so Bowser destroys the blocks underneath the lava until he falls. If you let the platform at the edge of the level get destroyed, it’ll be really hard to hop over the lava pit, so watch out for that.

The other way you can beat him is to drill down the center, but it’s hard to complete this strategy without having to stay really close to Bowser, making the fire breath attacks difficult. The platforms to the outside of the lava pools can be valuable in this case, just don’t let Bowser destroy them.

Actually, there are three ways, because you could also just zap him a bunch of times with the wand, but where’s the honour in that?

When you finish this level, you’ve made it to the final level:

+Bowser’s Castle, uh, visited Location: The eighth and last level on the path (even though the path keeps going). Time Limit = None

This level has every enemy in the game, except a bombitu, or a Boom-Boom, a boo bar, and probably a couple other ones. Quite a long run, but there’s a few power-ups along the way; there’s a high-up one near the beginning. It ends with brothers of all kinds. After defeating the hammer brothers and climbing the bricks, take a big jump over the giant hammer brother below. Pretty tough without a Fire Flower or wand (from outside levels). Take your time, there’s no limit, but it sucks to have to start over.

When you get to the next area, you lose all your items, and are then given some fire flowers, so it doesn’t matter what you come in with. It’s time for the final battle.

I think Bowser’s above the ceiling, and there’s a few rows of blocks above the top of the screen. You hear a bunch of thumps, so he’s working his way down for a grand entrance. Just wait for a minute or two.

You have a fire flower, another one in your stock, and one in the music note box for later use, so three total. If you lose them all, you won’t be able to beat Bowser. Shoot at him while he’s on the platform, but watch out for the fire he breathes. Keep a distance from him or the fire breath will be hard to dodge.

Bowser takes a ton of hits, like at least a hundred if not more I’d say. Not quite as hard as some of the earlier Bowser Battles, but you can’t use a wand this time, so you have to be good with the Fire Flower. Finish this intense battle and you’ve won the game!

+Credits

Not really a level, but your reward for beating the game.

You rescue Peach / Princess Toadstool again, though her ending speech is a little different.

Whereas SMB3’s ending showed off all the worlds, Mario Adventure uses the end sequence for credits, though there are some pictures to look at too.

After you win, you’re taken back to the title screen, but your victory has been saved. Now you can play all the levels in World 8 whenever you want. Also, whenever you beat any World 8 level, A door opens up and you can see the ending again. I think those are the only changes. The game timer still counts up, so you might want to record how long it took you to beat the game if you took less than 10 hours.