Was in at midnight last night and played until three in the morning...
Honestly I thought it was kind of a weak start, did anyone else? Wasn't a huge fan of the opening cutscene or area, and I'm not convinced I like Cappy either.
But then you get to the Cascade Kingdom and what the game wants to be becomes immediately clear. A true 'open-level' Mario, way more so than even Mario 64. And it is fun as hell.
I was glad that I went mostly blackout on media because lots of things have been a surprise to me. Most positive, some negative. I had no idea the Cascade Kingdom would come first, for example. Was sure it'd be New Donk City. I think they made a good call there - the Cascade Kingdom was a great opening level with some gorgeous effects. And I had never seen the
at all so that blew me away - it's utterly gorgeous.
On the other hand, I also had no idea that all the cool outfits I had seen weren't power-ups but just costumes. From early PR I thought the whole game was going to be about crazy Mario power-ups (Safari Mario! Snorkel Mario!) but so far (5 kingdoms + 1st major boss beaten) it's really all about the cap and possessing things. And possessing stuff is fun, but it's pretty basic most of the time too. I also wasn't expecting motion controls in any way, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Last night I was playing in bed (after two hours on the TV) and there was a moon I felt like I couldn't get because I was playing portably. Very strange.
I also kind of wish that they had separated the big objectives from the moon scavenger hunt. Moons are everywhere - everywhere. To the point that finding one doesn't really feel like an achievement, which is a shame. So when you reach the end of a long linear section with a major goal or beat a boss, I'd have liked if there had been a different reward - like the classic power star - to set aside that achievement as something more meaningful. Because moons in this game aren't that dissimilar from blue coins in Mario Sunshine at at times. I was really expecting each of them to follow a dedicated platforming challenge or 'level'. That's just not the case.
Looking forward to spending all weekend playing it, though.