New Super Mario Bros Wii as hard as Contra?

Of course I want New Super Mario Bros Wii — what good retro fan wouldn’t? It looks pretty, it’s sidescrolling, I can play it multiplayer, there’s lots of Yoshi. The list of reasons go on. And perhaps I expect to be able to breeze through it, since it’s a Wii game and most Wii games aren’t that hard. Right?

Perhaps wrong, if MTV Multiplayer has anything to say on the matter. They got some time with the later levels in the game, and had some interesting comments to share on its difficulty:

You remember those ghost house levels from “Super Mario World” where you had to stay on the moving platform and it slowly chugged past ghosts and other obstacles? Ok, imagine that, but turn the platform into a slavering bone dragon and speed it up by about 3 times. Oh, and throw on three other homicidal friends who would rather jump on your head than let you make a perfectly timed jump. I went in expecting instant success, I left with zero lives and a lower sense of self worth.

I’m not sure I’d go as far as to compare that kind of difficulty to Contra, but hey, it could be possible. When I think of hard now, I think of being endlessly punished in games like I Wanna Be The Guy. This sounds challenging, but manageable with practice, just like the good old NES days. I personally am really looking forward to it when it hits next month. What do you think about this? Would you welcome that sort of challenge?