A commendable effort to mix up so many different genres, which corrolate to both the plays/aesthetics, music and gameplay. Unfortunately it does come across as a big jack of all trades, master of none. In fact the controls in the game are so simple most buttons aren't used. The only real change between controls are what the B button does in each stage. That isn't to say the game, and its various styles, aren't fun - they just all feel like you're playing the tutorial stages of different games. Which I guess is also where the difficulty complaints come in. Each gameplay style has only 3 total levels, so add in to that the general Mario easiness and the game never really feels like it gets properly going before it's already ended.

As usual collecting everything 100% can add a tiny bit of challenge, but this game is very anti-completionists. Missed a collectable in a level? You have to replay the entire thing. It doesn't matter if the collectable is found in the first 10 seconds, to save it you must recomplete everything. As you might expect from a game where all the levels are done in the style of a play, you go through them at their pace, not your own, so having to redo them involves a lot of dialogue and waiting around. This is made even worse by the fact in the post-game a new collectable is added to every single stage, guaranteeing an entire second playthrough (I did 3 of the levels and in all 3 cases the new hide-and-seek guys were found within the first 1/3rd of the level. If the rest of the game is like that it just adds insult to the fact you can't quit once you find all 3).

But even with the game being easy, and going through the levels more than once being a chore, the presentation and set pieces make at least a one time run through enjoyable.

It does feel like a bit of a throwaway game that could only come out at the end of a consoles lifespan though.