an incredible time! pretty far and away my favorite 2D mario at this point. i still have a bit of a ceiling for 2D mario, especially compared to stuff like DKC2/Tropical Freeze but this game was so absurdly creative and fun to play. controls the best mario has ever felt in 2d, the wonder flower was a ton of fun to see what exciting thing they had in store for a level, the best looking 2d mario, badges are sick and a lot of fun to experiment with. the only big downside here is the bosses, which to be fair is the case for all 2D marios they're always pretty bad but it felt like such a big chance for them to finally knock bosses out of the park and they're just as boring and standard as ever. final boss was neat but still not anything amazing.

this game really has nothing to dislike, i think if you like 2d mario even a little you're gonna have a solid time. there's so much love in every single aspect of this game. it's very hard to not just have a big smile on your face the entire time. i've never been the biggest 2d mario guy in the world but they finally made one i truly fell in love with here.