This game is always mentioned as such an upgrade over the original. It's pretty charming and creative, I'll give it that, but somehow, it's much less challenging and exciting. The camera's so zoomed in that you can never go too fast or reach a state of flow within its plodding level design.
Since you can clear each world in any order you want, there's next to no difficulty curve until the Wario castle, which is jarring.

For as much imagination there is in its visuals when compared to the original, the first Mario Land offered a much more engaging experience.