I'm glad they're giving it another shot with this style just because it's been a while.
That said, I really did not like Mario Sunshine, it did not "click" or ever feel right to me, hopefully this is done a lot better than that and learns some things from the Galaxy/3D World games.
Not enough platforming in Sunshine IMO. Exploration in a Mario platformer is OK, but once you go past Mario 64 levels of exploration you get into dangerous territory I think.