While the gravity idea is cool and all, I want a Mario game that's pretty much just a 3D platformer that has some exploration in it. That's what I loved about Super Mario 64 was that you still had to explore the worlds to find stuff. I don't know, but to me the Galaxy games are very linear with very little though as to how to progress. Yeah there were some worlds that you could explore, but they felt a lot smaller than Mario 64. Every single area in Mario 64 was just begging to be explored such as Boo's Mansion, the water level the giant eel, the clock.
With the galaxy games, you don't really ever not know where you're not suppose to not go at all times.
There aren't really open areas to search for stars or branching paths. They really just focus too much on the gravity which causes it to be very linear. Mario 64 was difficult to find and get to many of the stars. With Galaxy it wasn't a challenge of finding them so much as executing. I would love for the next 3D Mario game, to be more like Mario 64. It can have the crazy worlds of Mario Galaxy, but I want them to be exploreable. Many times when you would go to the same galaxy, it didn't even feel the same. It was just a different area that was themed similar. Okay I'm starting to repeat myself.