Leans heavily into secrets and hidden stuff, and it lived up to the hype, which is rare. Some things:
-There's a frog suit with big ole frog eyes on top and Mario hops around like a frog
-You can get a green wind up shoe and Mario hops around in the shoe and I yelled out loud the first time I got it
-There are Koopa Kids and one of the Kids has a rainbow mohawk and another one wears sunglasses
-There's a world of big and everything in this world is bigger than in other worlds
-This is a spectacular game

It's hard to describe how hard this game slapped in its time. The characters, the graphics, the gameplay, and the weapons were slick and creative. Some parts made me want to scream into a pillow, but with the right weapons the game was doable (even without the pause glitch). The robot master theme channeled pure chaos through the NES sound chip. The sound design, particularly Elecman's weapon sound, deserves an award with a cash prize and a lifetime supply of baked beans. Still curious if the Elecman stunlock strategy was intended by the designers.