The remake was the perfect excuse to revisit this game again and I am so glad about it because oh man, it's so much fun.

It doesn't change an awful lot but it DOES fix most of the backtracking which is great to see because they can be absolutely diabolical with that at times. Doing the General White part again and thinking about how I didn't have the luxury of having a warp pipe hub connected between previous chapters playing through the original as a kid as I realized just what it was they make you sit through had me in tears. Games really don't affectionately hate their players like that anymore and.. maybe that's for the best.
All of the characters mumble speak now aswell (usually with character-specific noises you're already quite used to) and it adds a surprising amount of fun to the game, genuinely don't think I could do without it now. There's some additional content aswell, but I'm more than happy with just the regular playthrough - so I can't exactly vouch for that. I'm sure there's a few more challenging superbosses out there, so that's bound to be great for anyone looking for a challenge.

Only thing I'm a bit disappointed with is that the game balancing in terms of badges hasn't changed an awful lot, which is a shame because they're pretty lopsided. Power Bounce got nerfed in a brutal way by making the fourth jump a grand total of one frame (good luck with that lmao) which is an odd way to go about it but definitely a valid change considering how ridiculous that was, but even then the difference between jump and hammer badges is still steep. Ofcourse, it's a kid's game so I'm willing to be pretty lenient with it not having to be optimal by any means in this regard - but considering you can jump in pretty much every Mario game and the Hammer is more uniquely a thing for the series' turn-based games, it'd be great to not feel like I'm actively holding myself back by investing in it, and with this balancing issue being pretty well-known with the original being out for about 20 years now (god I feel old) I was hoping to see something along those lines, atleast. Didn't stop me from continuing to hold myself back though (mostly because it is a pretty easy game for advanced players, naturally) so it's not too much of an issue. Would've definitely made the game even more fun for me though!

But even without that, this game is such a blast. Gorgeous music, a unique style with a ton of charm, humor that's still as fun as ever and SUCH a fun and active gameplay system. Always a relief to play a childhood favorite again after so many years and immediately realizing that it's every bit as fun as it ever was.