Got the game on release day but had to wait until Monday to play it as I was visiting a friend over the weekend. It's so amazing to play these games again and I think they look incredible on the big TV. Nintendo made the right choice in only remastering them but updating the titles to make them look more modern and sharp. It preserves the feeling of the original games. Some thoughts:
Mario 64: This games holds up so well and as someone who played the slower PAL version it feels very responsive. Rumble support is nice and it captures that fascination I had when playing the game as a kid. Love it. But the DS version is way superior when it comes to camera control, content, character movement and collision detection. People shit on the DS version way too much! (Looking at you, GameXplain) Still, this might be my favourite version of the game.
Aspect ratio: I think the reason why Mario 64 is not widescreen is that some objects (like doors) only get loaded in whenever more than 50% of their surface is inside the 4:3 screen window. You can check this out by standing in front of the castle, go into "first person" perspective and slowly move the camera so the doors are at the very edge of the screen. I remember playing Mario 64 on an emulator with widescreen and a lot of objects were only visible when they were inside the original field of vision. Guess it would've been a bit of work to change all this so they kept the game in 4:3.
Mario Sunshine: Sunshine looks glorious in HD and visually it's my favourite game in the collection with its warm colours and lots of nice looking water. Controls are great, too. Strangely enough I enjoy looking for blue coins as I just collect them while doing missions and I'm absolutely thrilled by how much fun the game is. Just missing 60fps.
Mario Galaxy: That's the one I have played the least so far. It looks stunning in 1080p but the controls are worse than in the other two games as the game had to be controlled with the Wii remote originally. Pointer controls are a bit slow with the pro controller. Looking forward to playing this once I have finished 64 and Sunshine.
Also took the opportunity to show these games to my girlfriend. She likes Sunshine the most because of the tropical setting and Mario's move-set.
