The marketing is pretty pretentious ("huhr duhr remember when vidya was HARD?"...failing to realize that not every game made before 1998 was an exercise in frustration) and there are simply better games that accomplish what it set out to do.
Cursed Castilla came out a year prior, actually looked like an arcade or Genesis game and had far better level design based around strict jump arcs and the need to think one step ahead since you didn't have the free-flowing movement of something like Super Mario. If you need a more modern example, Curse of the Moon went for the same thing with great results. Neither game needed to tell you it was "so hard" or "so retro", either.
Seems like this has its fans though. To be fair, it did release before the whole retro revival really blew up...but it just didn't feel any better to play now than it did upon release for me.
Cursed Castilla came out a year prior, actually looked like an arcade or Genesis game and had far better level design based around strict jump arcs and the need to think one step ahead since you didn't have the free-flowing movement of something like Super Mario. If you need a more modern example, Curse of the Moon went for the same thing with great results. Neither game needed to tell you it was "so hard" or "so retro", either.
Seems like this has its fans though. To be fair, it did release before the whole retro revival really blew up...but it just didn't feel any better to play now than it did upon release for me.