don't know what it has to do with mario, but there's a old gameboy game it reminds me of. it was just cruel. timelimit, falling blocks you had to remember, enemies going cruse missile after you if you stand still too long.character looked like a pig. only made it past the first lvl back then.
for me its kinda hard to set up the right units cause its a bit messy to find out which unit is what type and what is good against them. maybe you could display the units and types on the world map. like in some tower defense games so you can set up the right troops.