The game's title screen was redone in the Japanese version to feature the Mini-Marios rather than Mario and Donkey Kong. This style of title screen has been used in all future games in the series, even in international releases.
A small animation was added to the European and Japanese versions that was absent from the American version (which was built first). When Mario goes through the door, the Time Limit will be sucked in with him to make it more clear the remaining time will be added to the new Time Limit.
While Donkey Kong's voice uses recycled clips of Grant Kirkhope's voice from Donkey Kong 64 in all versions of the game, the Japanese commercial for the game features Donkey Kong being voiced by Donkey Kong's current voice actor Takashi Nagasako.
The Mario game where Mario speaks the most.