i'd just tone down the saturation of the greens a bit down because right now it raped my retina, not to mention you want all the focus on the characters instead, and with such bright colors its going to be quite hard to not get your background burned into someone's brain.
The lightsoure on the clouds does not match that of the land.
The shading makes the clouds look as if they were made of putty, actually. Also, (And this is just personal) the background is way too big and unless you are planing to use it on a desktop wallpaper, it would be practically impossible to use it on a way that could show it as a whole.
Still, looks nice and very Mario-ish, though.
I'm working on it.
However, I have to say the reason for it's massive size is for actual fangame work, and the game will be shown full screen, not to mention needs to loop without being that repetitive.
Do you plan on keeping that blue outline around the hills? It makes them stand out unnaturally.
Looks pretty good so far, in any case!
the hills are blocky, make them smoother