Switch Card

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 features e-Reader compatibility, in that it can link up to a second Game Boy Advance with an e-Reader. Upon scanning in one of three types of cards, something will then be triggered in the game. One type of card present in the game are the Switch Cards. These cards had a significant effect on gameplay, in that they generally made massive changes to the game when used. Out of the seven released Switch Cards, only two of them were released outside of Japan. Additionally, unlike the e-reader levels, these features were left out of the games re-release in the Wii U Virtual Console. In total, there are fifteen switch effects, seven of which are unused. Said effects also have unused pop-up icons that were supposed to appear on the Game Boy Advance screen when said effect was activated.

Switches released worldwide

• The Orange Switch was a switch that when activated, made it so that whenever Fire Mario defeated a non-boss enemy with a fireball, said enemy would leave behind a coin as it was defeated, like in Super Mario World.
• The Blue Green Switch was a switch that when activated, made it so that Vegetables would appear in all of the main game, which Mario could pluck from the ground, and throw at various enemies, like in Super Mario Bros. 2.

Switches released in Japan

• The Cyan Switch was a switch that when activated, cut the Power Meter from six steps into just three, making it much easier to run across stages and to fly with Raccoon Mario.
• The Green Switch was a switch that when activated, caused every level to have a slow timer countdown and music for the first 50 counts of the timer, giving the player more time to complete each level. Once this effect expires, a coin sound effect is played, and both the timer and the music go back to normal speed.
• The Yellow Switch was a switch that when activated, gave Luigi his Flutter Jump ability from Super Mario Bros. 2.
• The Blue Switch was a switch that when activated, changed every 1-Up Mushroom in the game into a 3-Up Moons, allowing the player to accumulate extra lives much faster.
• The Red Switch was a switch that when activated, all the enemies in the game get replaced with more difficult enemies. Additionally, the points the player receives from such enemies is doubled. In the games code, these are two separate effects, meaning that through the use of a cheat device, one could activate one effect without activating the other.

Completely unused effects

• There was going to be an effect that caused point combos from defeating multiple enemies continuously would start at 4000 points. This would mean that the player would start earning extra lives starting from the third enemy.
• There was going to be an effect that caused any block that contained a 1-Up Mushroom to contain three 1-Up Mushrooms instead.
• There was going to be an effect that doubled the amount of hits needed to defeat a boss.
• There was going to be an effect that saved Mario the first two times he fell into a pit during a level. The first time, a two-block-wide platform would carry Mario back up; the second time, just one block would carry him. Afterwards, Mario would lose a life like usual.
• There was going to be an effect that dropped a random power-up during a level if Mario was hit by an enemy, similar to Super Mario World.
• There was going to be an effect that caused any recorded demos to show off Luigi instead of Mario.
• There was going to be an effect that caused Mario to go directly from any fully powered-up form to Small Mario, rather than to Super Mario whenever he got hit, as in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.