they shoulda just stopped at this one ngl. Not because this game is bad or anything, far from it. More just because this was a great little return to formula of mario at the time, with it being the first original mario game since like mario land 2. However, this did kind of start a really bland and derivative series from nintendo, which kinda retroactively spoils this game by association. It is still good and worth getting if you have a DS, and I can give it the benefit of the doubt since it is the first game and the bosses are actually really interesting at the very least, but yeesh this game pretty much began the homogenized mario aesthetic that is too clean and bland for my tastes compared to what previous games looked and sounded like.