Yes, this game is overrated. It was a pain in the neck to beat.
I didn't care for the regular character switches either.
There was a point in the game as I was climbing neverending vines with baby kong that seemed to lead to nowhere and then finally I found the clouds and got the heck out of there. Using baby peach (with the umbrella) was annoying because she could barely get her *ss up in the air and kept falling back downward.
The last level of the game got too complicated. I lost my motivation.
I would say this game had some good quality stuff in it, but had sloppy, sloppy gameplay.