For Super Mario series the game is just average.
Speaking about 2D Marios this part is a next one after outstanding Super Mario World games from SNES. And of course taking this fact into account I expected a lot more from the game. But this game obviously suffers from a crisis of ideas. SMB 3, SMW, SM64 all of them got us used to new innovative mechanics, new creative puzzles and a great level of immersion into the game. This part tries to follow this approach but hardly manages to do it. The game is very secondary. Levels design can not offer you anything extremely new, there is minimum of really creatively hidden coins and difficulty level is rather low. In my opinion this point is especially annoying. Instead of thinking of really difficult platforming elements or not standard level design creators just force you to get certain power-up on one of the previous levels in order to collect 3 big coins from a current level. It looks very artificial and doesn't gives you enough satisfaction for beating of such levels. But worthy to say that closer to the end games becomes more difficult and hence more fascinating. What for enemies they're pretty standard for the franchise. Not all of new enemies which appeared in the game feel matching Mario world what also negatively interfere the game's atmosphere.
Probably the only thing which was really new in comparison with previous parts was cute graphics and soundtrack. Nowadays after playing more modern Mario games it won't surprise you but back in a day I assume it was really impressive. Especially taking into account handheld type of the system where you played the game. Probably this aspect and nostalgia about legendary Super Mario Bros games leaded to over 30 millions of sold copies. And that was a surprise for me that the game has been sold almost 3 times better than SM64 on Nintendo 64.
Ideas here seem to be just drafts for further games in the series. Let's say 3 big coins in 99% percent are easily available for a player. Later developers started hiding them really well and it became one of the main challenge to find them all. Spending of these collected coins give you just opportunity to open new mushroom-house with power-ups and save the game when later you'll need collectable items in order to move to another world.
For me all these weaknesses of the game are largely explained by the team who developed the project. That was not a team directed by Shigeru Miyamoto but a team of Shigeyuki Asuke (who surprisingly will lead development of Super Mario Bros Wonder later). Asuke tried to follow the main concepts of original creator but for me didn't have such a good feeling of the series and appropriate level of taste.
Nevertheless that's still a nice game. It's still about our favourite Mario, Bowser and Peach. It still can surprise you in several places and gifts you feel of satisfaction for beating of several difficult and tricky levels.
IMO it still has an important place in series since it became a fundament for the series growing and development.
Speaking about 2D Marios this part is a next one after outstanding Super Mario World games from SNES. And of course taking this fact into account I expected a lot more from the game. But this game obviously suffers from a crisis of ideas. SMB 3, SMW, SM64 all of them got us used to new innovative mechanics, new creative puzzles and a great level of immersion into the game. This part tries to follow this approach but hardly manages to do it. The game is very secondary. Levels design can not offer you anything extremely new, there is minimum of really creatively hidden coins and difficulty level is rather low. In my opinion this point is especially annoying. Instead of thinking of really difficult platforming elements or not standard level design creators just force you to get certain power-up on one of the previous levels in order to collect 3 big coins from a current level. It looks very artificial and doesn't gives you enough satisfaction for beating of such levels. But worthy to say that closer to the end games becomes more difficult and hence more fascinating. What for enemies they're pretty standard for the franchise. Not all of new enemies which appeared in the game feel matching Mario world what also negatively interfere the game's atmosphere.
Probably the only thing which was really new in comparison with previous parts was cute graphics and soundtrack. Nowadays after playing more modern Mario games it won't surprise you but back in a day I assume it was really impressive. Especially taking into account handheld type of the system where you played the game. Probably this aspect and nostalgia about legendary Super Mario Bros games leaded to over 30 millions of sold copies. And that was a surprise for me that the game has been sold almost 3 times better than SM64 on Nintendo 64.
Ideas here seem to be just drafts for further games in the series. Let's say 3 big coins in 99% percent are easily available for a player. Later developers started hiding them really well and it became one of the main challenge to find them all. Spending of these collected coins give you just opportunity to open new mushroom-house with power-ups and save the game when later you'll need collectable items in order to move to another world.
For me all these weaknesses of the game are largely explained by the team who developed the project. That was not a team directed by Shigeru Miyamoto but a team of Shigeyuki Asuke (who surprisingly will lead development of Super Mario Bros Wonder later). Asuke tried to follow the main concepts of original creator but for me didn't have such a good feeling of the series and appropriate level of taste.
Nevertheless that's still a nice game. It's still about our favourite Mario, Bowser and Peach. It still can surprise you in several places and gifts you feel of satisfaction for beating of several difficult and tricky levels.
IMO it still has an important place in series since it became a fundament for the series growing and development.