One crazy Mario game even for Mario standards!
Well firstly, the game starts with Mario in the middle of a strange land. Oh no, this isn't the Mushroom Kingdom which means that Mario is probably experiencing a bad trip... and lets be honest, this isn't the first time (in one game Mario was jumping through paintings but that is a different story). So what is this strange land you might ask? We will get to that later but next I want to talk about the enemies.
Firstly, you have your standard goomba and kooper. If you jump on a goomba, you know what to expect. If you jump on the koopa, the shell will self-destruct and explode. Yep, you heard right but what is even stranger is the rest of the enemies are new and to my knowledge and haven't been seen in any other Mario game. If you jump on them they react the same way each time. They will fall to the ground for a second and fall off the screen before making a screeching noise at Mario, although that may not be the best way to describe the noise. However it was there and then where I found out what was truly going on. None of these creatures are real, they are all robots or machines if you will.
You see these... machines must have kidnapped Mario, brought them back to their home planet and built a whole city replicated in the Mushroom Kingdoms image. When you jump on a koopa, you aren't actually jumping on a koopa but instead a robot designed to behave and react like a koopa creature. Of course the machines weren't able to fully replicate the koopa creature fully so they decided to implant the koopa with explosives that would detonate on impact with Mario's boot. What is even more disturbing is these things can shape shift! When Mario defeats the boss and thinks that he has saved Daisy, Daisy morphs into one of the creatures in front of Mario's eyes. This is obviously an attempt by the machines to get inside Mario's head and drive him into a state of insecurity.
There is one thing that hasn't been addressed yet and that is the goomba creatures which if I understand correctly are real. Which leads me to believe in two possibilities: 1) The goomba creatures were kidnapped along with Mario or 2) The goomba creatures are involved somehow. I am not entirely sure yet and you have to play through the game to see for yourself which one of these possibilities is the better explanation. I am leaning towards the latter.
There are only 4 worlds which is quite short but they are enjoyable. The ending leaves you with so many questions left unanswered but that was to be expected with such an insane game. Overall, good game for what it is worth, but dam, this is an insane Mario game!