It's a tribute to the enduring ambition of these two titles that they can have so many faults and still be considered some of the best work Nintendo has ever done.
One of the things that always frustrates me about Super Mario Sunshine is the inability to do the tiny sequence breaks that make Mario 64 interesting. Things like freeing the Chomp on the first star of Bob-Bomb Battlefield may seem small (and they are), but having the option of going after a star that is not explicitly the star of the assigned mission always gives me the giddy feeling of getting one over on the game (though I know it's all completely illusionary). With Sunshine's more defined level structures, the "world" of each mission is different enough that often there is only the one predefined Shine to get.
Ironically, Mario Odyssey has the exact opposite problem in my eyes. The worlds COMPLETELY get rid of levels, instead tasking you to find any old Moon that you can. The end result is the same, though; there isn't the fun of doing something "earlier" than the game "intended."
One of the things that always frustrates me about Super Mario Sunshine is the inability to do the tiny sequence breaks that make Mario 64 interesting. Things like freeing the Chomp on the first star of Bob-Bomb Battlefield may seem small (and they are), but having the option of going after a star that is not explicitly the star of the assigned mission always gives me the giddy feeling of getting one over on the game (though I know it's all completely illusionary). With Sunshine's more defined level structures, the "world" of each mission is different enough that often there is only the one predefined Shine to get.
Ironically, Mario Odyssey has the exact opposite problem in my eyes. The worlds COMPLETELY get rid of levels, instead tasking you to find any old Moon that you can. The end result is the same, though; there isn't the fun of doing something "earlier" than the game "intended."