Probably one of the best platformer games of all time. Yeah mario is fun with cool powerups but theres so much more to these games that I never realized. Mario games were originally made with the idea of a game having a story, and would later pick up great music, visuals, and accessibility to some extent. Now decades later, that story really ain't ♥♥♥♥. And those games are triple A 60 dollar titles.
A 20 dollar (5 if you buy it during its many sales like me) indie game did all of that but better in every way imaginable. Visually, its pixel art at its finest, complimented beautifully with the 2D animated dialogue boxes and cutscenes, really good music that isn't quite right in minecraft but is perfect in this game. Gameplay isn't that hard if you swallow some pride and skip some strawberries... but it still has a bit of everything, from Touhou esque fast paced boss fights to puzzle based levels. And talk about a seriously good story. Mario going to the castle to eat some free cake isn't emotional, touching, or really anything worth caring for in the slightest. This game could do all of that, not to mention plenty of self reflection, the kind where you would pause the game just to process everything and think about yourself. Only time i ever do that with mario is to connect another controller... but at least they got cool powerups, im still buying your games.

Probably one of the best platformer games of all time. Yeah mario is fun with cool powerups but theres so much more to these games that I never realized. Mario games were originally made with the idea of a game having a story, and would later pick up great music, visuals, and accessibility to some extent. Now decades later, that story really ain't shit. And those games are triple A 60 dollar titles. A 20 dollar (5 if you buy it during its many sales like me) indie game did all of that but better in every way imaginable. Visually, its pixel art at its finest, complimented beautifully with the 2D animated dialogue boxes and cutscenes, really good music that isn't quite right in minecraft but is perfect in this game. Gameplay isn't that hard if you swallow some pride and skip some strawberries... but it still has a bit of everything, from Touhou esque fast paced boss fights to puzzle based levels. And talk about a seriously good story. Mario going to the castle to eat some free cake isn't emotional, touching, or really anything worth caring for in the slightest. This game could do all of that, not to mention plenty of self reflection, the kind where you would pause the game just to process everything and think about yourself. Only time i ever do that with mario is to connect another controller... but at least they got cool powerups, im still buying your games.