It doesn’t control exactly like any of the previous Marios. I would also disagree it engenders less precision.
So I got all the big gold coins on world 1. What does that do? And how do I unlock the cannon level on world 1?
The coins allow you to unlock bonus levels after beating the game. And the route to the cannon is hidden in World 1-3. Peep it here:
Yeah, well, I accidentally shot myself out of a cannon and am stuck in World 6. It’s getting embarrassing having Luigi come in and show me how to do it. 
You can change Worlds by hitting the - button on the Wiimote.
I got it for Xmas and just beat Bowser the other night (which was a little disapponting because I feel like I’ve barely touched it.) I’m working my way through the Rainbow stages-- I’m going to try to find all the gold coins without a strategy guide, but I doubt that’ll last.
There are some things I love about it, and some things I don’t love so much.
I love the music and how everything dances along with it. I just can’t get enough of the Koopa Troopas kicking out their hands and legs at “WAH-WAH!” I still stop and watch them, and the goombas, and the powerup mushrooms . . .
I love all the classic elements. Familiar enemies, mostly familiar handling . . . LOVED the floating ship levels. LOVED the fireballs coming at me as I approached Bowser . . .
. . . for that matter I loved the final battle. The fakeout and the chase. Wish it was a little longer and faster, but it was cool.
I didn’t like the map so much. It’s far closer to Mario 3 than SMW-- the latter having been very slightly more “free range.” For what this map was, I’d be just as happy if they’d done away with it and spirited you through the levels a la Mario 1 and 2.
I was disappointed by the powerups, generally. Maybe I misheard or misremembered, but I thought there were supposed to be a ton of new powerups in this game and we were supposed to be BLOWN AWAY by them. The ice-flower and the penguin suit were kind of “meh.” The propeller suit could be fun at times but it was ultimately a step BACKWARDS from being able to actually fly in Mario 3 and 4.
Small nuisance, but you can’t throw shells upwards in this game.
I realize there are probably a lot of things I don’t know about the game, but if these rainbow levels are all that’s left, it’s way too short. In Mario 4 you could beat Bowser and only be about halfway done IIRC. It also tracked how many levels you’d beaten on the title screen, which this game doesn’t do as far as I can tell (?) I also loved the concept of switch palaces in Mario 4, which were absent from this game despite P-switches being present.
I guess I probably just let my own imagination get the best of me, but I thought this game was going to be where Mario could’ve gone, had 3D not taken over, whereas Galaxy is where it went. I expected some more variety, more features, more items, innovative and original level design, and squeezing the most possible out of what can be done in 2 dimensions, etc. Maybe they’re holding some stuff back for the sequel.
Overall I would call it a winner-- I’m a sucker for pretty much any Mario game-- but I’d rank it below Galaxy and World, and maybe only very slightly above 3.
I’ll say this: I’m more excited for Galaxy 2 now.
Is there anything worth doing after beating 9-8; i.e. getting all the star coins in world 9 or rescuing all the toads?
I just beat the last level and got all the star coins today. The answer:
Nope. That’s it.
There’s a lot of stuff I really like about the game, but ultimately I think it represents Nintendo being amazingly lazy. There’s so much more they could have done to make the game fantastic, but they just played it safe and allowed the game to be simply mediocre. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but I have a lot of complaints about it. As someone else mentioned, the power-ups are just kinda “meh” (the penguin suit makes the ice flower pointless, and the spiny hat thing wasn’t nearly as good as the tail/tanuki suit or cape from SM3 or SMW respectively) and honestly the lack of online play in this day and age is simply unacceptable, even from Nintendo. The level design is actually quite good, which is the saving grace of the game, but I’m pissed they didn’t want to use 4 unique characters and just stuck with 2 toad-like copy characters.
all in all it’s a serious step back for 2d mario games, imo, and represents a huge amount of laziness on the part of Nintendo. I still enjoy playing it, but they had an opportunity to do something truly special with this game but they squandered it instead. There are much better, more innovative platformers out there that have come out recently, like 'Splosion Man, which are a lot more fun
I passed it (beat Bowser anyways, though we only unlocked 3 rainbow world levels) with my friends in one long weekend during a ski trip. Great fun to be had, love the 4-player action. Terrific mix of SMB 3 and World with respect to aesthetics and gameplay elements. I agree powerups were a weak spot in the game - I thought the ice flower was a good addition, the propeller suit alright, and the penguin suit a total travesty in 4-player situations (you can’t get a good slide going without leaving your friends without penguin suits behind, then you can’t see what’s coming up). The shrinking mushroom was funny but too situation-specific. I too wish that they had gone with a real 4th character instead of yellow toad - really they should have some sort of unlock to allow you to play as Peach, as a throwback to Mario 2 
Regarding the “sluggishness” of the control, it might have something to do with it being a 3-D engine (ie. characters are 3-D models instead of sprites), though I could be wrong. I’d say it’s comparable to similar 3D/2D games like Smash Brothers.
All in all, I agree there are many ways it could have been better, but as re-imaging of the old 2D Mario style of play on the Wii it was well done. If this was a PC game from 1999, I’d say it would be ripe for an expansion pack - the platform is solid, but it can be fleshed out with all the content that would satiate the fanboys. I wonder what they’re going to do for the inevitable sequel?
Well, if we’re going to nitpick, the Tanooki suit of Mario 3 made the racoon suit “pointless” as well.
The DS version had the same feel to the controls. I think they just wanted the games to feel more like the original Super Mario Bros.
We finished the game. I enjoyed it, but my husband found parts of it very, very frustrating. (I put it down to not having years of gaming under his belt and not having the reflexes of a 12-year-old.)
Some parts of it took us playing two-player mode to get the star coins–I’d go in with him so that if one character “died” he could come back in the bubble, or I could nobly fling myself at the gold star coin and die while he got to the end of the course.
We found 9-8 to be an absolute bugger to get through, but did, with two players. But no, that wasn’t enough. He spent all yesterday afternoon trying to get through and get all three coins on his own. There was much swearing involved. But he did.
He (my husband) gets so wound up playing that I am really debating getting Super Mario Galaxy 2. I really want it, but I don’t want to hear the swearing, the yelling, the stomping on the floor, and the times when he bites the Wiimote out of frustration.
Oh, what to do…
My girlfriend and I just played it for the first time last night. It’s a lot of fun, but if anything will cause the demise of our relationship, it will be this game.
“Stop bouncing on my head!”
“Move to the platform! No, don’t go that way! The platform, I said!”
“Seriously, I have no lives and you have twelve. You’re not going to let me get those 1-Ups?”
“I really think we should use an item before going into this level. Really? We have four or five of them each in storage. Are you saving them for a rainy day?”
“Jump up when I bounce on you so I can reach that platform. Now! Okay, try again. Now! Dammit, okay, now! Whatever, we’ll skip it.”
One-player mode seems a lot easier in this game.
I sorta agree, the difference being the tanuki suit was much, MUCH rarer than the penguin suit. In NSMBW it’s literally a case of simply not needing to bother with the ice flower cause, in all likeliness, you either have a stock of penguin suits or can go beat a level in 3 seconds and get yourself one
This. I can’t play the game with my girlfriend anymore. She’s absolutely terrible at it and just ends up killing me, too. We just decided it’s best for us if we each have our own game file