I thought that was what you meant by "Which do you guys prefer, the openness of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine?  Or the linearity of Super Mario Galxy 1/2" I would say that even if SM64 has a castle that has some stuff to do, this is outweighed by the many levels in galaxy that are completely open, many of the purple coin ones for instance, which I found much less linear than the 8 red coin levels in 64.

I'm not sure how I haven't played it tbh. It confuses me too.

The purple coin levels are fairly few and far between, however.

I'd say a good example is the first level of either game.  In Super Mario 64, you're roaming around Bomb Bomb Battlefield.  One time you have to get to the top of the mountain to kill King Bomb-bomb, one time you have to race Koopa to the top of the mountain, one time you have to shoot to the island in the sky, one time you have to finish of Chain Chomp, one time you have to scour the level for the red coins.  And that's how most levels in SM64 are.  It's one large, open level, and you just have to go different places and do different things every time. 

In Super Mario Galaxy, a few levels have a similar scale, like Honeybee Galaxy, while most are smaller experiences, having you essentially follow a path through a level, then changing the path for the next star.  Even in Honeybee Galaxy, they're fairly good at guiding you where to go.  The changing placement of the shoot stars essentially forces you to only go certain places depending on which star you select.  SMG2 follows this linear approach all the more.  Start on a planet, shoot to the next planet, go into crazy chamber with changing gravity, get to the end, grab the star, etc.  Or levels like Flip-trap galaxy, where it centers entirely around getting to the end of the level while hopping across the flip traps.  There's a much wider variety of levels, but you essentially do 1-2 things per level.

scottie, I doubt we could find another person on this website who believes that.

...I can't even think how I would convince you otherwise.

In SMG, no exploration is required. It is always obvious what your objective is; where you should go next. In the case of Luigi's Purple Coins, you can see them all and it's a matter of tactics to plot a path.

In SM64, you're given a whole world with just the name of the star to give you a hint, but you can collect most of the stars in any order and with completely different routes around the level (how are you going to get to X platform - jumping from above, Wing Cap, cannon, somersault up a ledge etc.). The red coins are hidden around the level and it can take a long time to discover all their locations, and they are not visible from each other and no obvious path is there. There was always another way to get to a star, and you didn't have to collect the stars within a world in a fixed order.

The linear parts of SM64 were the Bowser levels - indeed, all Galaxy's levels are styled after that. A linear series of obstacles.

Yeah, I am getting the impression that I am alone in think this... Oh well :P

I, however, did not notice many places in SM64 in which there were many different methods of getting to X platform, whereas SMG had a decent amount, especially if you were playing as luigi (higher jump was useful in many places to find an alternate route).

I found plenty of places when I last played it through. Conversely, I found almost no places where that was true in SMG. We'll have to disagree here. Can you give another example of your kind of alternative in a SMG star?

It is not true that you had to "collect the stars within a world in a fixed order." in SMG. It may be in SMG2, I haven't played it. And even if it were true, I wouldn't describe that as "where you have multiple choices as to where to go, that actually have an effect upon the gameplay" so I don't consider that to be true open world, unlike in Zelda (the original) or Megaman, where you can beat the levels in any order AND this effects the gameplay of the levels you play afterwards.

Yes, it IS true in SMG. Go back and look. You had to do Star 1, then Star 2, then Star 3 in a galaxy. For the other part, I'm not saying SM64 is truly non-linear in all respects, just that it is less linear than SMG in that you have more possible stars in a world you can do at one time and that the game isn't pointing you in the direction you need to go next constantly, leaving room for exploration and discovery. Few games are truly non-linear today (as Zelda I was), so most people are comparing them relative to one another on those terms.

Just out of interest, which would you consider less linear - Metroid Prime or Metroid Fusion?

So I suppose, being as I don't get to define what 'open world' means, I shall change my answer to 'I prefer the linear style of SMG because even though there was less potential for exploring then in SM64, I personally found more alternate ways to solve the puzzles than I personally did in SM64, where I and my friends almost always found one solution that was a lot more obvious than the others'

That's fair.

I'm not sure I would describe that as open world. In SM64, each star is (for the most part) found by following a linear path, sure, you can deviate and walk slightly further but it has no impact upon what happens eventually. The linear paths are generally tied into each other better in SM64, but again I wouldn't describe that as open world. Open world for me is where you have multiple choices as to where to go, that actually have an effect upon the gameplay. The purple coins on luigi's face is an excellent example of this, all my RL friends, as well as all the people I've talked to on the internet/seen on youtube/seen maps drawn by them on gamefaqs chose a different path. Literally every single person chose a different path! All of them were valid, and had the same final result, but required different jumps. There is nothing like that in 64. Even the red coin levels, you have complete control of which order you get the coins in, but the steps you take to actually get the coins are the same regardless of the order in which you get them.