I vehemently dislike virtually all of Super Mario Odyssey. I'd elaborate, but I have so many issues with the game's design that I end up writing a treatise every time I try. It feels like only three people out of millions played the same game as I did, and what little criticism I can find is always buried and accused of "trolling". I do like trying to support my opinions with explanations, so does anyone get what I'm talking about, or should I bring out the big paragraphs?
I'm way overdue to close this background tab, so I'm going to stop worrying about presenting my opinions perfectly; sorry if they're rough or overwrought or come across the wrong way. If you like the game, more for you. Anyway, let's see.
In terms of gameplay,
Odyssey hardly has any good content imo. Almost everything that there is to do is filler. The last four 3D games each offered hundreds of platforming gauntlets, while
Odyssey has a dozen forms of trivial, uninspired busywork recycled over a dozen backdrops. Power Moons and regional coins are hidden completely interchangeably—down to a bunch of Power Moons just floating in plain sight—and the lack of other meaningful collectibles heavily damages the game. The dedicated platforming sections, all shoved into sub-areas as if the game is embarrassed of them, are strictly formulaic and often lack appeal. As for the other missions, it's a game's worth of Blue Coins from
Sunshine, down to halting the flow of gameplay every time. I usually try to go for 100% with these games, but I got actual burnout trying to force myself to do that, and quit and haven't looked back.
"Will this Power Moon be any fun? No, but I'm already there so I might as well grab it." "Oh, this trivial action can give you a Power Moon, great, now if I want to get everything, I have to try that every single time I see that object from now on." "The Moon Rocks just make you backtrack over places you've already explored for the same kinds of Power Moons? But with compass pins so you can't even miss these ones?! Then what's even the point??" Thoughts like these echoed through my head hundreds of times, yet I've only seen them aired by a handful of other people. I genuinely felt like I was either being pranked or losing my marbles.
I don't even like that much challenge in games, but with most of
Odyssey's enemies being powerup dispensers that are most efficiently controlled with shameless waggle (on a portable screen!), the biggest thing the game tests is your patience to slog across a barren plane with an umpteenth seed or Capture—with no obstacles to make these escort sequences more than a pure timesink. By any means, missions like "Love at the Edge of the Desert" or "A Treasure Made from Coins" ought to rival the infamy of the worst parts of TTYD and SPM.
The other elements of the game are barely present enough to be worth commenting on imo. There are a couple cool story sequences, a couple fun pieces of music, but I personally can't help but consider them drops in an ocean of tedium.
This is less of a value judgment than these other takes, but it also seems like it's an unpopular opinion that
Odyssey is nothing like
Super Mario 64, since it's generally treated as a revival of that style.
64 famously gave you a variety of courses, and you could choose whether or not to play most courses and most missions within them. On a macro-structural level, the first
Galaxy is most similar to this, but that gets hastily ignored because some of the missions are linear and that's considered "objectively worse". Meanwhile,
Odyssey requires you to get Power Moons in every kingdom, and their value doesn't transfer until the postgame. I really don't see the resemblance in gameplay style, beyond the surface observation that the courses are more open-ended. People are free to like both games but the similarities are overstated.
As long as I'm comparing these games, I vastly prefer
Bowser's Fury. Good platforming, item variety, existent obstacles (with a giant, goopy one looming over you, no less). It's not perfect, but at the very least, it hits 100% completion long before it wears out its welcome.