i remember mario being one of the first games I ever played on game boy, i don't know if it was this one or another because i never got past the first level so i can't quite recall anything about it. playing this now was quite fun. some of the levels are goofy, with easter island men running at the speed of light and some chinese ninjas levels? not what i expected from a mario game. it's not particularly difficult but playing with such a small and imprecise controller on my GBA made me die a few times, and man i do not miss the days of start from the beginning if you run out of lives. i got to the last level and died just before i got to the boss fight. after watching it on youtube i really don't think i'm missing out on much by leaving this one uncompleted, so fuck my need for closure.

had this sat in my library along with DST for quite a while before I actually decided to sit down and learn to play properly. none of the mechanics are explained to you, meaning you have to learn everything through trial and error which i didn't really like at first, leading me to give up when i first tried playing. but once you start treating this game as a roguelike where each death is a chance to learn, it does become quite fun.
i love this game's style, both the art and the rather abstract content. the only civilisations are pigmen, there are tentacle biomes and krampus steals from you if you murder too many animals. it stands out from other survival games which try to prioritise realism and that also adds to the challenge, as you have to learn this new universe's rules rather than the ones we already know about ours.
one part of the game which i found a bit annoying was how much exploring you have to do. i often found myself spending the first 20 days just running around exploring the map, but rarely finding the resources i was looking for due to the size. so by the time winter came around i was unprepared and died. i'm not complaining about the size of the map, just wish certain resources had a consistent way of finding them other than just walking until you happen upon them. that is if they even generated in your world, which you don't know for certain until you've explored every inch.
the dying and having to set up repeatedly is starting to tire me now, so i think i'll be putting this on the shelf again for a bit, but would definitely like to try out the 2nd game with some friends.