it really wasn't that ground-breaking and the mass propaganda campaign for it only really worked in the US which was aided by droughts in the amount of available games and later being bundled with the console and it still didn't sell even half the US ltd or even a 3rd of the US ltd of the N64 itself, it only sold just short of 6 million NPD and within spitting distance from Golden Eye which also benefitted from the game droughts and bundles, though not as many bundles as M64.
Basically removing the then press hype surrounding it, it was mostly just a very empty platformer that relied on backtracking and collectables, the novelty was running around open spaces with objects disguising the fact the levels were empty. Very flat colors, somewhat slow movement though fps was somewhat consistent, and boxy polygons even though the image quality was high due to lack of pushing anything substantial which was somewhat of a benefit.
But it worked for the time back in the day, In the US, and the game droughts helped it and later the bundles. Mario Sunshine arguably, was the ground breaking game as it actually had a somewhat living town with various shadow and lightning effects with an somewhat interactive environment and detailed design somewhat immersing you in a world and making Delfino seem like a real town/city as opposed to M64 feeling nothing like a kingdom and more like running around flat environments.
Both have tedious game design and are hard to go back to although Sunshine has a good first couple hours before the poorer designed levels and "platform dimension' stages started getting worse,