Man, they really padded this issue. Check out some of these helpful hints. It's not like they had a choice, but still, some of this stuff is obvious.
Now this -- this -- is what I studied when I was a kid. Within one or two moves I could tell every N house thanks to these. I would always start in the top right and then move on. I still know a bunch of the patterns somehow. There's always a star in the bottom right corner and the mushroom pattern of top right / down-left / down-left again / two left and one up works pretty regularly. I don't remember the rest though. This was my main reason for looking at this guide.
I've talked about this jerk before on this board and I'll do it again. Boss Bass is the biggest jerk in the Marioverse. This guy scares me more than any survival horror guy. If I see this stupid fish stalking me in the water, I'm going to freak out a little. I make so many mistakes just being scared of this fish. I will never get over this. I have a Boss Bass-phobia.
dat shoe. I once lost a friend fighting over who could play the shoe level. oops.
I called this place 'Tube City' for a really long time because of this magazine. I thought that was its name and not something boring like 'Pipe Land'. Anyway, I always really liked this world. I know most people prefer 5 and 6 but I liked the little switches you jump on and all the pipe mazes. Plus 7-4 and 7-5 are great.
Here they are. Fun stuff, especially 7-4.
Swimming under the ships was mindblowing to me. I would do it just because I could, even if it was boring as hell.
There's really not much to grab from these strategy guides. Mario 3 will at least be more interesting than the next one.
You know what this guide is missing? Treasure ships! P-Wing/Anchor rewards for getting a set number of coins on a level! The even levels sucked for those anchors, man. Then again, if you ever sucked at had to chase that airship around, you were glad to have them.
--
xyzzy