Mario Odyssey arrived a few minutes before I left for a weekend trip

So I played about 3h of it last night. I'm enjoying it, but what has been the most exciting for me is watching my 4-year-old son enjoy it — whether he's playing or just watching me. He has had zero exposure with 3D mario games, so this is a pretty special experience for him. Needless to say, he
really loves it.
**MY SPOILER-FREE IMPRESSIONS**
It's just about what you'd expect from this kind of game. But it's not the huge leap for the brand that Zelda: BotW was, or that Mario Galaxy was. It's just a fun (often
funny) 3D Mario platformer in a big world, structured more like Mario 64 than recent games.
Speaking of Mario 64, I do love how you aren't forced to end a level after getting a moon (stars for this game). In fact, you'll probably find 6-8 moons while
en route to the main quest's moon. It really encourages you to explore the worlds, and not just gun it for the direction you know you're supposed to be headed in. In M64, you could explore, but often weren't rewarded, because the levels were very goal-oriented, and a star only existed in 1-2 places in a level at a time.
The hat-control stuff is neat, but it's really just a gimmick so far — not a huge part of the game. You use it to solve a handful of puzzles per level. Most of the time, you'll be doing standard 3D Mario platforming, perhaps with 2-5 seconds of enemy possession interspersed in the course of a minute. By comparison, the gravity in Mario Galaxy was an all-encompassing feature that influenced how the levels were designed and what you could do within those worlds.
As far as level design goes, it feels like it has a lot in common with Mario 3D Land, writ large, with full multi-path zones to explore, instead of a streamlined experience. This means there's a lot to discover, but also sometimes you will be sort of aimlessly wandering the borders of the world, looking for secrets, not sure exactly where the next moon will be. The level design also changes slightly depending on different world events. Not sure how consistent that will be for all worlds, but it's definitely a big factor for one world.
I'm of course excited to play more, but I can't say that I'm
on fire to jump back in.