Overall, it's as good as it tasted so long ago
This platformer had so much revolutionary about itself upon release, its boundaries are difficult to decide as with just how phenomenal a turnaround it caused in the entire videogame industry. It was led by Mario and his lesser known brother, Luigi against Bowser which had kidnapped 7 Toads which were under command by Princess Peach (which was kidnapped as well). The area known as Mushroom Kingdom was overrun by Bowser in turning every single person into a troop to be commanded by Bowser himself.
With the classic story of save the princess with likely no turn in plotline, this platformer had lots of excuses to send you all over the place. You have many areas to traverse and almost all have very alternating paths; you could leap from mound to mound and gap the deadly falls hoping to avoid enemies, or plow through everyone that stands in your way with fire Mario / Luigi for loads of points, or you could try to mad dash through levels going as fast as someone being chased by the cops, a guaranteed method for numerous self deaths, frantic way. Whatever be your liking, the game pushes you to do a bit of all which is all around fine. Levels take place on ground, water, sky, underground, castles, and even treetops and they all have a bit different technique of completion. For instance, sky areas are bonus stages for coin collecting, underground allows you to maybe get to the rooftop for a very easy level completion, and in the water; platforms are far larger obstacles as you have very few attack techniques but can move anywhere in the water. The game also allows you to make a wide array of realizations like, things are not as they appear; blank space could have power-ups or hidden ledges, that mini Mario is better suited in some obstacles than his larger counterpart, and that charm can exist anywhere from the character to the environments.
While you could write essays about what is in the game, knowing that the game offers far more than just one way to do most anything is essential. So, what comes with Deluxe, the always classic set of 32 levels, a challenge mode of every classics' level that has you find Yoshi's Egg, 5 Red coins, and top the preset score which tallies to a red score meter with all the other scores (just try to top that). You also get 8 new racing levels where you can race against Boo or go head-to-head, lost levels (here it is called "Super Mario Bros. For Super Players"), a toy box, album, and a highscore table. I think you've got enough bang for your buck. In terms of visuals, it's an emulation, so the graphics are only as good as they were, right down to the very pixel the original had but now, the whole place has been colored and roughly half the levels have full backgrounds pallets, it also retains all the visual charm as before though there is flicker when two moving objects like a Koopa Troopa and a Bullet Bill pass through each other.
The music has a track for each area, they're very catchy and once you reach the final 100 seconds, you get a franticly tuned version of the same song, which is telling you to get running! The sound effects are crisp, maybe a little few but that's judging on today's standards. In terms of gameplay, there are some issues, the levels follow a common route, in every case you get a castle at the end within each of the worlds, the camera is a little troubling as you need to now push the up or down buttons to raise the camera up or down, you can press select to adjust the camera right to the edge of the left, but it defaults to the default camera perspective whenever you transfer from one level to another, the hit detection is great but it can flaw, if you are just momentarily running along a platform and jump (which happens frequently), the jump button might not register, and your head can pass through certain enemies and flame sets, if they just graze you, and minus world surprisingly doesn't exist. To GBC's advantage you can also run back, a little bit which becomes essential in some areas of challenge mode. In terms of difficulty, this game is well prepared; it's most definitely a just right difficulty, (for classic mode).
Super Players levels feel like almost an expansion to the original, there are some simple enemy variations but beyond that, it's built from the same game and real damn hard (bordering between Hard and Very Hard). It's a nice inclusion that otherwise was only as popular as Luigi, it is responsible for one revolution; blind leaps also, though prevalent in the original installment, it is this game that emphasized to the point of realization that you can use enemies as platforms. Challenge mode is challenging, what was listed earlier on is almost impossible to complete, most certainly the hardest feature and is definitely ranked at the difficulty of Very Hard. The racing feature is built of objects seen in the original and new ones including spikes and toggle switches that either better or worsen the race difficulty. The highscore table has nothing really special but the toy box works well with the game, I'm not spoiling anything here but as you progress, and meet certain unidentified goals, you are awarded more and more fun features. The album will slowly reveal metals and pictures as you beat certain in game challenges.
In the end, you just need to play this game if you own a GBC, I've spent at least 200 hours but probably a lot more playing this game, it is fantastic at making you come back again and again to get another picture, metal, feature or joy in the experience of playing through this classic again and again. All flaws aside, Mario's return is a superb way to revisit or now experience a gaming history.