Talking about this game is pretty frustrating. On the one hand, I felt this was another case where the general populace overexaggerate on the difficulty. Often times, I found that levels were as good, if not better, than the first game, utilizing enemy behavior and patterns in a way that felt rather invigorating to handle. I also find that walking instead of holding down the B button made some of this way easier, which was probably the intention since most of SMB1 could be dealt with by doing just that. The new wind element and more abundant use of springs also helped with this as well. Plus, I'm willing to say that a few death traps were honestly really funny, like the backward warp zones.

On the other hand, I also found myself agreeing with those same people. Half of this game can indeed be downright mean, whether from using obstacles you'd have no idea about until you move them onto the screen, dumb invisible block paths or the stupid maze-like loop shit from before, or jumps requiring pixel-perfect jumping. The slippery controls from before is also still felt here, and I don't like how inconsistent and fickle the spring's jump timing can be, despite again how it makes going through the levels more fulfilling and different. It can also be too hectic with its enemy spawns, making some jumps harder to pull off as a result.

I dunno, I was actually pretty hopeful when going through this, thinking I'd say this game gets too bad of a rep, but once I hit World 7 I was pretty exhausted, and this was with heavy use of the rewind state. So close, yet so far.

There's a lot of hard game that are know for that out there. Cuphead, Dark Souls, Celeste... and this one.
But, what mades a game have a good hard dificulty? Well, the answer is that a good hard dificulty must require ability.
But this? This doesn't require ability, this is just pure luck! If you put the best gamer out there to play this game he would still failing cause this game is designed terrible. The graphics are the same as the original Super Mario Bros, the lore is the exact same too!
People pray this game only because is a classic and/or because is just hard, but they ignore how unfair and boring this game is.
At least is better than Ghost 'n Goblins