A guide to completing the battleship in World 8 in Super Mario Bros 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

How to Clear the World 8 Battleship

This level is similar to the previous one, but this time, there is water down below. It looks like lava, but it's just reddish-brown water that is safe to swim in.

Get past the Rocky Wrench on the right, then go to the right. You can optionally go down to the lower level and go to the left while dodging the cannonballs to reach the ? Block at the end, which contains a Super Mushroom or Fire Flower. Then go back to the right while dodging the cannonballs.

Get past the Rocky Wrench. There is a cannon behind the Rocky Wrench that spits out Bob-ombs.

Jump to the next platform, where there is another Rocky Wrench. The back of this platform has a giant cannon that shoots giant cannonballs to the right.

At this point, if you want to "skip" the rest of the level, you can fall into the water and swim underneath the next parts of the battleship. Just be sure to keep tapping the swim button so you don't sink too far.

If you want to complete the rest of the level normally instead of skipping it as described in the previous paragraph, get in the water, swim to the right, then jump out of the water to reach the next part of the battleship. There will be a cannon shooting cannonballs horizontally at you. Jump on that cannon, then jump onto the next one, which is also shooting horizontal cannonballs at you. After that, there are four Rocky Wrenches, followed by a giant cannon shooting giant cannonballs. After that, you have another opportunity to fall into the water and swim under the next ship. If you do, you will need to jump onto the right side of the ship and go down the pipe to reach the boss, Boom Boom.

If you want to complete the rest of the level normally instead, jump onto the next ship, but beware of the giant cannonballs shooting toward you from the front of it. Jump on top and stomp the Rocky Wrench, then go to the right, where there is a Bob-omb cannon on the bottom, and three horizontal cannons above that.

Next, there is one more giant cannon shooting giant cannonballs. There are some Bob-ombs to the right of that, so wait for them to appear on screen before you go to the right. The Bob-ombs are followed by the pipe that leads to the boss of this level.

Boom Boom

Boom Boom will move left and right, and sometimes he will crouch and slide. Whenever he crouches, his spiky shell is not safe to stomp on. Try to stomp on him when he is running around. You can also hit him with fireballs if you're Fire Mario. After you stomp him the first time, he will sometimes suddenly stop, then jump high up. It can be difficult to aim your jumps correctly when he stops and jumps, so watch him closely. After you stomp on him a second time, he will very quickly run left and right, so jump carefully to avoid letting him bump into you.

After you stomp him a third time, he is defeated, and drops a Magic Ball. Collect it and you will complete the level.

This removes a locked door, allowing you to go into the eastern pipe. From there, you reach a row of five traps, but only the right, middle, and left traps are levels. As you go from right to left, there is a 50% chance that a hand will drag you into the level. If a hand doesn't drag you down, you can choose to skip the level by going left, or you can press A to enter the level even though the hand didn't pull you into it.

There are three Hand Trap levels. See World 8 Hand Trap 1, World 8 Hand Trap 2, and World 8 Hand Trap 3 for a guide to each of these levels.

If you get past all the Hand Traps, you can continue to the World 8 Airship.