I think I only really mind the backtracking now because I’ve played the game before, but the platforming the game has you do sometimes has been really getting on my nerves
I think the 64 one needed a remake a lot more (and it's not just because it's old graphically) but on the other hand I'm really happy more people get to experience this game
I’m hoping we will get a fresh new game with interesting writing like in this game or Super Paper Mario (which is a phenomenal game in its own right). This existing shows promise. I think a new game could fix the flaws this game has. Like yes it’s fantastic but you can tell the limitations in the world building. There had to be backtracking to extend what’s there. Each world is actually quite small. With bigger and more powerful systems maybe we can have something like this but bigger and more epic.
getting to the end of the game holy shit the final level is a low key dumpster fire trainwreck. i really hate this era of video games simply for their tendency to be absolutely amazing until they have the chance to make a final boss level that follows this premise:
-you fight hard bad guy -you fight another hard bad guy -you do a bunch of very easy puzzles to unlock the seventeen mcguffins that unlock 13 more mcguffins to fight the mcguffin queen who is guarding the ultimate mcguffin -you fight another hard bad guy and there's a ten minute unskippable ctuscene in the middle of it for absolutely zero reason and then immediately do another boss fight afterwards because guys haha wouldn't it be funny if you fought another boss after fighting a boss without being able to save or restore hp?? haha. so funny -you get a super long exposition sequence followed by a room with three power ups, a save point, and a healing item. -then you do the boss fight that's like nine boss fights cruelly stitched together, each one separated by a completely unnecessary five minute cutscene. nine boss fights later, you're ready to fight the boss's true form which is incredibly easy, but because frustrating and annoying = difficult, everytime your character blinks they take 6000 damage and the boss heals all of their hp. also yes all of these cutscenes are just a montage of the different places you went to on your adventure featuring the same three characters reacting to the situation and/or reciting their one inside joke no you can't skip this -you get an incredibly underwhelming ending cutscene and now it's time to do post game content
keep in mind the rest of this game is *chef's kiss* perfect but gah dayum like most games of this time, they instantly throw that in the trash when it's time for the final boss
also I forgot to mention the cult classic random fucked up difficulty spike because the only way to make something challenging and maybe rewarding is by making the enemies' hp, attack, and defense incredibly high, making it so every turn they do a special move that destroys 20% of you or your allies' hp with zero limitations (such as fp, mp, whatever you wanna call it)
-you fight hard bad guy
-you fight another hard bad guy
-you do a bunch of very easy puzzles to unlock the seventeen mcguffins that unlock 13 more mcguffins to fight the mcguffin queen who is guarding the ultimate mcguffin
-you fight another hard bad guy and there's a ten minute unskippable ctuscene in the middle of it for absolutely zero reason and then immediately do another boss fight afterwards because guys haha wouldn't it be funny if you fought another boss after fighting a boss without being able to save or restore hp?? haha. so funny
-you get a super long exposition sequence followed by a room with three power ups, a save point, and a healing item.
-then you do the boss fight that's like nine boss fights cruelly stitched together, each one separated by a completely unnecessary five minute cutscene. nine boss fights later, you're ready to fight the boss's true form which is incredibly easy, but because frustrating and annoying = difficult, everytime your character blinks they take 6000 damage and the boss heals all of their hp. also yes all of these cutscenes are just a montage of the different places you went to on your adventure featuring the same three characters reacting to the situation and/or reciting their one inside joke no you can't skip this
-you get an incredibly underwhelming ending cutscene and now it's time to do post game content