i've probably watched the same stuff you have. from the small amount of content, it looks like they've focussed on some overworld exploration, puzzle solving and light platforming similar to what i know and love from 64 and Sunshine. Galaxy was much lighter on this, 3d land almost did away with it. i like the diversity in formula between titles. I would imagine they are really only showing early levels so of course the platforming is more simplistic to ease players into it. All the challenging/hardcore platforming will come in later stages and optional side levels Disagree and this shows a vast misunderstanding of my criticisms.
In Mario 64 and Sunshine, exploration is
mostly aided by platforming. In those games platforming and exploration is tied. In order to find things, you need to platform. In order to get to the ship in the Bay level in 64 you need to platform. In order to find secrets in Sunshine you need to platform to get there, often requiring mastery of triple jumps combined with FLUDD.
This isn't the case here. Platforming and exploration are splintered into their own specific game areas. You explore the forest. You certainly and sure as fuck don't
platform there. The platforming is limited to specific areas that the developers deem platforming. In 64 and Sunshine, the stage IS the course; in this the courses are within the stage. There's a difference between this type of design. You can take the first level in 64 as an example. You can explore all kinds of things in that level but in order to make it to the top and fight the boss you need to platform, no matter how easy it is.
The difficulty at this point doesn't matter because as said, it's early in the game. That said, the game Nintendo have revealed three different worlds and none of them have a focus of combining platforming with exploration like Mario of old. You're out doing side objectives in order to obtain moons.
Comparing them shows the design is night and day. Saying Odyssey plays similarly to 64 is laughable to me. They couldn't be further apart.
To drill this in, you can watch this video that will hopefully make my point.
VIDEO It seems pretty obvious that although there's exploration, platforming is the main focus. Platforming is WHY I LIKE MARIO. And absolutely none of the footage thus far has made the contention that this is a platformer first. And if you're Mario and not a platformer first, why should anyone bother playing it?
Odyssey looks terrible. It's like making a Zelda game focused on combat. Certainly Zelda has some combat, but it's pretty obvious that its main priority is exploration and puzzle solving. And while there are some Zelda's with a larger combat focus than others, exploration and puzzle solving has been its bread and butter from the beginning. So we have Super Mario Odyssey. Exploration is fine. Every Mario has exploration in some small manner, whether it's finding how to warp in SMB1 and 3, getting everything in Yoshi's Island, or getting all the stars in 64. Even the linear ones like Galaxy and 3D Land have exploration. But they generally tie this exploration with platforming. This is what Odyssey is missing. Instead of having courses, we have big levels that happen to have courses in them. The priorities and focus is completely different.