What do you think is the stuff Dan was referring to in the quicklook?

The mind-blowing post beating the game spoilers he wanted to avoid showing people. Very little unlocks during your post-beating-the-game 400+ moon gathering binge. I expected something to actually happen the way Dan was talking about it. Other than the Mushroom Kingdom, there isn't really anything from the post beating the game you could spoil.

I think Dan is just easily impressed. There is nothing mind blowing about going to a location from a previous game, especially when they've completely changed it.

I appreciated the Mushroom Kingdom tribute, but it didn’t blow my mind. However the darker side of the moon challenge wrecked me last night.

I think I both love the darker side of the moon challenge course and hate it. It is expertly put together to look intimidating, but each individual obstacle is actually not that hard to overcome. It’s just that a super long course of medium difficulty with no checkpoints can still be absolutely brutal when you miss one jump or cap throw out of 1000* and then die and are forced to replay everything for 10 minutes to get back to where you died.

*(a little hyperbolic since I’m pretty sure it doesnt take 1000 cap throws/jumps to get through everything, but it certainly feels like it)

I loved the 500 Moons level, thought it was brilliant. The Mushroom Kingdom was super cool to me, and I'm not even really a fan of Mario 64. The game goes out of its way to be a loving tribute to all things Mario though, and it never stops being charming. I still haven't gotten every Moon (or purple coin) yet and unlock the final final thingy, I'm taking a break to slowly go thru AC Origins right now.

The Mushroom Kingdom is basically the "Return to Shadow Moses" chapter but for old Mario fans, so I'm assuming it's that.

I hate and will likely never finish the darker side of the moon level. It's the most Mario Sunshine ass level in the game and then they went and made it super long to make things worse. I've already tried it maybe a dozen times and I've only gotten to the section with the wall the starts filling in so you guess where to go to avoid being pushed into lava. That section and the holes of lava section where you need to use the fireball to jump into them always ruin my runs. The luncheon kingdom was already my least favorite because of the hot liquid so a level with tons of that and easy ways to get bumped off gets an immediate fuck off from me. I watched a video to see what you get for finishing it and the reward is really dumb too.

I spoiled it for myself by going to some random painting

This is definitely an intended tease. Finding the "moon" there was a high point of my playthrough TBH.

I think Dan was mostly impressed by the number of new moons that get added (?). It also sounds like he might have left a lot of the regular moons for post-credits too so it makes sense that he'd be attributing most of the depth of the game to that part. I found the levels a joy to explore but post-credits didn't really add much beyond sheer numbers.

I saw it first through the painting. The music that played when you get the "moon" there was just another amazing touch. Then cappy quips: "Some moons are in different shapes" - just handled really well.

If Dan was just referring to the Mushroom Kingdom, that's super weak. There's noting else post-credits that has blown my mind, especially not in a 3D Mario Land/World sense. I played the shit out of each level the first time through, and bunch of Moons locked behind coins and discreet challenge levels are not enough for me to keep going. I'm on the edge of 600 moons and I think I'm done. The Dark and Darker sides of the moon don't interest me at all, honestly.

I just finished getting all the moons and purple coins a couple of days ago. I liked getting a lot of the post-credit moons, and the Mushroom Kingdom stuff was a fun addition. I thought the Dark Side was sort of lame (boss re-fights just with crappier gravity felt like a lazy challenge design), but I really enjoyed the Darker Side. It's not nearly as hard as some of the final levels from past Mario games, but I liked how it utilized all the capture abilities you learned in the game. The lack of checkpoints is the only truly intimidating thing about it, but I still liked how it was put together.

Still, I would say the best parts of Odyssey are mostly before the credits roll. But I played for a lot of hours to finish that game up on Thursday, so maybe that back portion of the game is more of a blur for me than it would be for other people. So it's hard for me to say what specifically could've impressed Dan so much. To me, it was just cool that there was plenty more of that game to play after the credits for people who wanted it.