And it's an exaggeration anyway. I didn't think the game was tedious or boring, and didn't have any trouble sticking with the game long enough to finish it. It was just a typical 3D platformer, with nothing particularly special about it. Even just this year, it's probably close to the 50th percentile of games I've finished, so I've played worse.

I got a game over on the water course, by the way. And its entrance sealed up after that (which I think is a problem in all cases: It makes it harder to tell which ones you've already checked. I'm also annoyed that Shines you've already collected continue to make their "Shine noise" clue.)

I said that this game might have the greatest disparity between its good and bad parts of any game I've played. What might be the runner up? Another fairly recent game, R-Type Final, comes to mind. But I think Mario Sunshine beats it.

Stage 1 was one of the worst parts of that game, and it's pretty boring (made even worse because you have to revisit it almost every time you play the game. If, say, you want to get the "Stage F-C Cleared" note, you'll have to beat it within the context of the whole game; beating it in score attack mode won't count). But waiting for the boats for Yoshi to ride around on is more boring, and irritating as well.

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
-Orwell