Does anyone else agree with me that SMO should have stuck to a number nearer to the classic 120 stars instead of 800+? In Marios 64 and Galaxy you had to work hard enough for each individual star, and they were all a little different, that it felt like a reward. There were some bad ones like the 100 coin stars and purple coin stars, but the majority felt like all different individual accomplishments. Now they've replaced that with so many moons that each individual find feels like nothing, there are often 30-50 that all feel exactly the same as each other, and getting 100% of moons is less like completing the game and more like getting a platinum trophy. Lots and lots of tedious repetitive work long after you've done everything fun.
NO If there's one thing I've taken away from this game, it's that having all of those moons spread all across the levels is what allows gamers to play Odyssey in their own way while still being as equally rewarding. Just look up any Let's Play video of people playing the first couple of hours of this game. Almost all of them get different moons in several different ways. If the game had way fewer moons to collect, than the whole experience would have been way more linear. In Mario 64, you had to specifically select which Star you wanted to go after and once that Star was acquired, you got kicked out of the level and had to start it all over again just to get a different one. I think starting a level from scratch every time you need to get one star is way more repetitive than trying to find all the moons that you can in one go.
I don't object to not having to start the level over from scratch, that's a good change. I object to how boring it is to get 30 different musical note moons, 50 different ground stomp moons, 10 different goomba seduction moons, etc, etc, etc. It's just so god damned repetitive. Not to mention how unenjoyable it is to have to search every little corner of every single level to avoid missing anything. Can't just move forward and focus on the goal, have to search behind this thing, around this corner, under that nook, so god damned boring. Then they have those Toadette moons where you have to buy every single thing in the game, which means collecting at least 20000 coins and every single purple coin in every level. In 64 and Galaxy I felt motivated to get every single star because I knew the next star was going to be different. In Odyssey I've got maybe half of them and I'm so bored I'm barely motivated to get to 500 to see the last world. There hasn't been one that's actually been different from previous ones since I finished the main story. There's no fun in the post-game, it's kind repeating over and over and over again the things you did to complete the main story. They should have left the moons as major goals then had all the other random little slot moons and stuff as some other accomplishment system. Like, left moons as a demarcation of your progress in the game and tied them to the main story and the more platforming and puzzle achievements, and then had a trophy system for people who enjoyed doing 100% of every little chore. If you want to say, Odyssey isn't a game for people who like platforming, it is a game for people who like checklists of repetitive chores, then fine. It might be a game for you, but it's not one for me.
Also I'll add, I think Odyssey feels way more linear than the other games you mentioned. In Odyssey you're forced to do the main boss of each area before moving onto the next. In 64 and Galaxy, the worlds open up in a given order but you can basically do them in any order you want. I do your point how the change widens the accessibility, but here's how I see it. In Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy there are two games. There's the 'easy game', which is complete when you beat Bowser, then there's the 'hard game' which is complete when you get to 120 stars, and the hard game is just as fun as the easy game, because you're still doing something new and different for every star. In Odyssey, there is the normal 'easy game', then there's no hard game. Only a handful of the moons are hard, only a handful are fun, and to 'complete' the second game you have to do all the forementioned tedious chores.
You don't have to get all the moons though... Heck, you can finish the game in 3 hours if you just focus on getting enough moons to get from world to world...
What Rincewiend said. If you find collecting the moons repetitive, don't collect them. What you unlock if you do get all the moons isn't really all that special anyways. I think it's a postcard or something. So there you go. The moons are there, but you're not missing out on anything if you don't collect them all. They're there for players who don't mind repetitive mechanics.
my advice is to not be a completionist and just enjoy video games* *I realize it may not be that easy depending on your personality type