Oh boy... I adored the original SMB, so playing the sequel was a no-brainer. Edmund's absence is felt immediately, and does the game absolutely no favors.

The game looks gorgeous, but that's about it. The "random" level generation is a completely unecessary feature and results in a lonely experience, where SMB was a game that you could discuss in a community, finding strategies for deathless runs.

The difficulty curve is also all over the place. All light worlds are piss easy, the jump to any dark world is steep, and the curve stays flat for all dark worlds. It feels terrible.

Completing all dark wolds deathless was really difficult, and not in a fun way at all. I am incredibly disappointed.