This game is amazing, it really benefited from not being the only 3d Mario in the console, back then, people looked at it too harshly because of that, people were expecting something like Mario Galaxy, but this game isn’t trying to be like that, it tries to be its own thing, and it does it amazingly, the courses are the most fun out of any Mario game, my only complaint is that they shouldn’t have increased the movement speed of the characters, the stages really don’t feel designed with that much speed in mind.

If I could describe this game in one sentence is “wasted potential”
This game had everything to make it one of the best games in the series, but it failed horribly in every aspect, from the story, the characters, the exploration, everything was set up to be the greatest ever, but it just couldn’t make it work, the story felt too rushed, trying to develop 3 story lines at the same time is a challenge and GF couldn’t manage to do so. Characters are the same, they could have been the best characters but everything felt underbaked and raw. The exploration was everything a Pokémon fan has been dreaming for almost 30 years, but again, it fell short, the poor performance really breaks everything, this game needed an extra year in the oven.
I really wanted to like this game, it was one of the few titles I managed to play in the release date, and I payed full price for it, but still didn’t managed to capture me, I completed it out of compromise, it really hurts.