It's simultaneously packed with shit but also has nothing meaningful to do, kinda like BotW. It even has "shrine" equivalents, which I think actually fit DKB better.
A big part of the problem is enemies barely matter and there's a much bigger emphasis on exploration than platforming, whereas Odyssey balanced that better. They both have the same problem of collectables feeling meaningless due to oversaturation, I hope that problem goes away in the next Mario game.
Throwing my 2 cents in: I don't see how it could be. Eventually putting DK & Pauline's redesigns aside, the best music is still from the Rareware games and none of the new characters hold a candle to the old ones. I hoped DKB's enemies would be an improvement over Retro's, but they might be even worse.
Then there's the environments. I'm in the area with the living crystal people, and it's completely uninteresting with bad music. These areas are hit and miss so far. I miss when the DK world was somewhat more grounded, like in Rare's games (especially DKC1). I'll give the game credit, it's addictive and fun regardless of its plethora of imperfections and issues. The core of the game is really good, a sequel could help iron the kinks out if they don't go full retard and do a TotK style follow-up.
One more complaint, this is very subjective, but I do not like the theme of the game revolving so heavily around music. Seems kinda random.
