Gonna admit up front that I have a ton of nostalgia for this game that probably clouds my judgment on it a bit, but I still believe this to be one of the better Mario games out there. The amount of creativity present in each level is ridiculous, with both unique level themes and interesting spins on standard level themes. While it doesn't have the most mechanically interesting levels in any Mario game, though it isn't too far off, it's able to consistently provide varying challenges and twists that keep levels interesting throughout. It's a real shame that Nintendo has never revisited most of the ideas in this game, because there is a lot of mileage to get out of them.