@RedBackLoggd

1. I'd say he slippery ground has more to do on how Mario behaves mostly. But the level design doesn't help either.

2. I liked that each shine feels different from one another, but it also kills any sense of wonder and exploration you might have had in an open ended level. Like" You discovered this secret" gets reduced to "Wow, another blue coin". I'm partially mix towards it. In Galaxy it was all linear, in Mario 64 you could collect any start as long as isn't tie to a scripted mission. It is a matter of taste at the end of the day, every game has it's own approach of dealing with collecting stars/shines.

3. The Mysterious Hotel Delfino shine is so the most cryptic shine/star I've ever gotten in a Mario game lol. Has nothing to do with real difficulty, more than anything I was trying to give light of how logic in Sunshine is plain dumb and doesn't do the player any favors of figuring something out on their own. It all felt like trial and error. Corona Mountain, Sandbird are not that hard if you are skilled enough. The Fludd-less levels were a pain but, I dunno they didn't felt frustrating. It just felt like a really hard challenge.

4. F.L.U.D.D is both a good and a bad idea. More than feeling like an extension of Mario's moveset, it feels like the hover felt cheating. Hovering in the air is barely used and only serves to gain a little bit height, since most levels in Sunshine are made with verticality in mind. Though, I'd say the other modes such as the one that let's you run faster and the one that lets you jump very high are geuinely good power-ups. You know, the classic risk-reward balance. The normal fludd mode, which just shoots water has a more wide use. For puzzles, bosses or just cleaning the gloop on a timer. Fun stuff. It's only the hover which I have a big problem with.

5. Yeah, the bosses are great. My favorite one is the casino boo. The only bad one I did encounter was the piranha plant on it's second encounter on bianco hills. The rest are fine, though they do end up recycling some of them. It's also specially weird how there is only one fight against Bowser Jr and Mecha Bowser? Thought they would be use much more, like the koopalings in the classic games.

Edit: I forgot to pin you, whoops