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Well, I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like (thank you very much school), but I am more than a third of the way into the game with Mario, and have watched my sister (who's played a lot more than I have) do a lot of the later levels, so I'd say I've played and seen enough to develop a good opinion of the game. I want to preface the things I'm about to say by saying that were I to give the game a rating, it'd be about an 85-90% score from me.
As much as the game is fun and well done overall, I can't say that it's the best game ever. Far from it in fact. There are more than a few things about it that hold it back, and keep it from topping Mario 64 as even the greatest 3D platformer in my eyes. I'll get the opinion stuff out of the way first though. I don't like the fact that they guide you by the hand through every level until you get the star. You can't get stars out of order in general, and the exploration in most levels (even the larger ones) is at best, minimal. That was one of my favourite parts of Mario 64; they generally left you with levels that had plenty of things to do and explore, and you could pretty much get the stars in any order you want. As much fun as a lot of these smaller levels can be, I think they pale in comparison to Mario 64 in this regard, and a lot of the fun is lost. I think it's mainly a failing of trying to take 2D gameplay concepts and stylings and work them in 3D. It works, and it's fun, but not as much so as Mario 64 which was pretty much designed around the fact that it's 3D.
My other biggest problem is the camera. I will give them credit in that it works 85-90% of the time, but the lack of camera control gets old fast. I've had more situations where I couldn't see what was coming than I can count. Sometimes this has even led to me being hit by an enemy, and even dying outright before I could react (the sling pod galaxy is the worst I've seen for this so far). The camera is great on the smaller planetoids, but in the larger worlds it becomes problematic, especially since they tend to give you only partial control at best most of the time, and never let me move the camera into the positions I want it in. And then when you get to any water level, the camera system breaks down entirely. People like to complain about Mario 64's camera, but at least you could change the angle yourself. If the follow camera of this game (which is largely the best I've seen in a 3D platformer) had been combined with the ability to control it, it would have been perfect. As it is, there are a few too many times where it makes gameplay more frustrating than it needs to be.
And my last gripe is really nitpicking, but I wish that if Nintendo is going to continue to pretend their games have a coherent story that they would actually bother to write a coherent story. If not, then let's drop the long, boring cinematics and get to the gameplay. Just stop beating around the bush, tell me the Princess has been kidnapped by Bowser again and let me play the damn game already.
There are other things that bothered me about the game, but none that really pertained to the gameplay that I can recall at the moment (except that I hate the randomness of comet stars but that's a little thing), and I don't want to rag on the game too much. I think it's a great game; certainly the best on the Wii, and I'm having a lot of fun playing it. Is it the best game ever though? Not in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned it still fails to top Mario 64 for the title of best 3D platformer even, especially considering that for all the promise the Wii had of new types of gameplay, we've essentially seen this all before. At the end of the day, despite how much fun it is, it's not without it's problems that hold it back a bit.
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My wife was playing with me last night and noticed something interesting. When you're playing in Co-star Mode, the second remote makes sounds when you grab something or help Mario jump. Well, it had always sounded like just some random, cute noise. However, in her boredom (and our frustration looking for something) she noticed that the sound made is a chord that always coincides with the music correctly. We actually sat there for a while and just listened as she grabbed things and the chord progression followed the music exactly.
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Also, in the file selection screen before you even start the game, something similar happens. The empty planets produce a duller note that changes with the music, and the actual Mii head save file produces a higher pitched 'lead' note. The 2nd time I loaded up the game and I noticed this, I spent a good 3 minutes just playing around with the music there.
In levels with water, note how the sound of the music changes when you are underwater.
One thing that goes unnoticed to the general masses is the sound design of the Mario games. From the music speeding up in SMB when time is running out to the addition of a drum beat every time you mount Yoshi in SMW, Nintendo (and Koji Kondo in particular) takes great care in matching the sound to the game. At this year's Game Developers' Conference, Kondo gave a presentation on interactive music in games. It really is worth a read. If you have some of the games they use as examples, check them out yourself.
