the dmc4 of 3d mario
i simultaneously love and hate the idea of re-playing this game, the chuckster fuckster can suck my asshole. the experience can be like biting a nickel into an ice cream cone
Uniquely among the Mario games released prior to Galaxy 2, I have no nostalgia for Super Mario Sunshine.
I wasn't around for its reveal and initial release, and I had no way of playing it as a kid - my first playthrough of Sunshine was in 2015, emulated on a computer that could barely run the game at near-full speed with the audio disabled.
But I really enjoyed my time with the game - far more than I did with the Galaxy games - and I've come back to replay it a handful times since, including this playthrough on the rather unfortunate 3D All-Stars collection.
Sunshine is often treated as the black sheep of the series, a janky, unpolished mess compared to the rest of the games - and especially Galaxy right after it, which vastly surpassed it in its aesthetic and supposed scope.
When I say that it's this game that's actually one of my favorite games in the series, I acknowledge this reputation Sunshine has gathered over the years.
In other words, I don't mean to deny the aspects of Sunshine that are noticeably less well thought-out than the rest of the franchise. Let's go on an obligatory quick roll call: the lilypad stage is near impossible to complete normally, adding insult to injury in how long it takes to get there; the watermelon festival is clumsily designed; the Corona Mountain boat is hard to control; the missions are overall too dependent on Shadow Mario chases and red coins... We've all heard these a million times if we've ever discussed Sunshine on the Internet. Let's move on.
It does beg a few questions, though. Why do people complain so much about the lilypad, the pachinko, the watermelon, and all that while conveniently leaving out the fact that most of Super Mario Sunshine's supposed worst shines are completely optional?
The secret shines found around Delfino Plaza, the two bonus shines per course, the 100-coin shines, and each of the twenty-four shine sprites obtained from trading them in at the boathouse - accounting for 70 of Sunshine's 120 shines - are almost completely inconsequential to the game (at most, they let you unlock courses earlier), and a player could easily complete the game with 50 shines collected from the Airstrip, the first seven missions of each course and Corona Mountain.
It seems all too obvious to suggest to anyone who doesn't enjoy those aspects of Super Mario Sunshine: just leave them be!
100% completion seems like the default in 3D platformers ever since games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie emphasized the collection aspect of the genre, but in a world that's increasingly moving towards acceptance that we will never finish every game, even those we start, I don't see the harm in letting those extra shine sprites go, even if someone could argue that some of them are badly made or designed.
I'm not that someone. For context, I've enjoyed my time 100%ing this game far more than I did with Galaxy, and if I were to go back to a 100% playthrough of either it or Odyssey, I would pick Sunshine in a heartbeat.
I will first briefly give credit to the pachinko and say it gets far more hate than it deserves, and that some of Galaxy and Odyssey's more gimmicky missions are not only more obnoxious, but more drawn-out and exhausting—
With my reputation ruined with that one sentence, allow me to explain.
Super Mario Sunshine's biggest strength that no other Mario game accomplishes except for brief instances of Odyssey is its environmental platforming - how it manages to make each location feel like a genuinely believable place within Isle Delfino.
Ricco Harbor and Pinna Park are some of my favorite levels in the entirety of the Mario series in how they manage to naturally bring out Mario's platforming while making everything look like it exists for a purpose beyond being there for Mario to jump on.
While bigger than most Mario maps except some of Odyssey's larger Kingdoms, the courses generally do a good job in dividing themselves into smaller sections within a cohesive map (albeit Pinna Park might go about doing this in a somewhat ham-fisted way), where individual missions can focus on one or two of them each.
One issue I had with Super Mario Odyssey's level design was how too many of them felt like floating landmasses over a bottomless pit: twelve out of fifteen of its main kingdoms followed this design to some capacity, with only the Wooded, Lost and Luncheon Kingdoms really providing an interesting twist on this idea. Sunshine almost completely avoids this issue, with Pianta Village being the single place being designed this way. In exchange, Sunshine often uses its verticality as consequences for failing platforming challenges, with conveniences like tightropes and the Rocket Nozzle being placed to ensure players never lose too much progress for falling down - it also often ensures that players won't suffer from too much fall damage by placing water around the map, which ties into the aesthetic of the game quite brilliantly.
Speaking of aesthetic - I wouldn't give Sunshine's environmental design as much praise if it weren't for their overarching nature: there's a lot of detail put in to make it feel like (almost) everything exists within the same landmass, like how you can see Ricco Harbor from Bianco Hills. There hasn't been this much cohesion in a Mario game since Super Mario World, (another game that debatably suffered for it compared to Super Mario Bros. 3's diversity in locales) and it really goes a long way to sell the idea that Isle Delfino is a living, breathing place compared to the abstract, bizzare themes later found in Super Mario Galaxy that attempt to separate its environments as far apart as it can.
It's because it feels like a living place that I feel incentivized to explore the courses and comb every part of the island for coins, both blue and yellow - less because I'm expecting a reward like in the other Mario games, and more because it lets me live out an inherent feeling of exploration that I couldn't really have when I'd go on holidays as a kid and have my hand held the entire time, the feeling that Mario games seem to have a complicated relationship with.
It's because it feels like a living place that I can forgive the wacky Delfino people from having weird customs like the watermelon festival, blooper races; that I don't mind the fact that Mario's being scammed into helping the Sirena Beach hotel, that everything really is a little bit jank, but maybe it's fine...
Because that's how things are meant to be in Isle Delfino.
So in Rome, I'll do what the Romans do,
and enjoy it all.
I wasn't around for its reveal and initial release, and I had no way of playing it as a kid - my first playthrough of Sunshine was in 2015, emulated on a computer that could barely run the game at near-full speed with the audio disabled.
But I really enjoyed my time with the game - far more than I did with the Galaxy games - and I've come back to replay it a handful times since, including this playthrough on the rather unfortunate 3D All-Stars collection.
Sunshine is often treated as the black sheep of the series, a janky, unpolished mess compared to the rest of the games - and especially Galaxy right after it, which vastly surpassed it in its aesthetic and supposed scope.
When I say that it's this game that's actually one of my favorite games in the series, I acknowledge this reputation Sunshine has gathered over the years.
In other words, I don't mean to deny the aspects of Sunshine that are noticeably less well thought-out than the rest of the franchise. Let's go on an obligatory quick roll call: the lilypad stage is near impossible to complete normally, adding insult to injury in how long it takes to get there; the watermelon festival is clumsily designed; the Corona Mountain boat is hard to control; the missions are overall too dependent on Shadow Mario chases and red coins... We've all heard these a million times if we've ever discussed Sunshine on the Internet. Let's move on.
It does beg a few questions, though. Why do people complain so much about the lilypad, the pachinko, the watermelon, and all that while conveniently leaving out the fact that most of Super Mario Sunshine's supposed worst shines are completely optional?
The secret shines found around Delfino Plaza, the two bonus shines per course, the 100-coin shines, and each of the twenty-four shine sprites obtained from trading them in at the boathouse - accounting for 70 of Sunshine's 120 shines - are almost completely inconsequential to the game (at most, they let you unlock courses earlier), and a player could easily complete the game with 50 shines collected from the Airstrip, the first seven missions of each course and Corona Mountain.
It seems all too obvious to suggest to anyone who doesn't enjoy those aspects of Super Mario Sunshine: just leave them be!
100% completion seems like the default in 3D platformers ever since games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie emphasized the collection aspect of the genre, but in a world that's increasingly moving towards acceptance that we will never finish every game, even those we start, I don't see the harm in letting those extra shine sprites go, even if someone could argue that some of them are badly made or designed.
I'm not that someone. For context, I've enjoyed my time 100%ing this game far more than I did with Galaxy, and if I were to go back to a 100% playthrough of either it or Odyssey, I would pick Sunshine in a heartbeat.
I will first briefly give credit to the pachinko and say it gets far more hate than it deserves, and that some of Galaxy and Odyssey's more gimmicky missions are not only more obnoxious, but more drawn-out and exhausting—
With my reputation ruined with that one sentence, allow me to explain.
Super Mario Sunshine's biggest strength that no other Mario game accomplishes except for brief instances of Odyssey is its environmental platforming - how it manages to make each location feel like a genuinely believable place within Isle Delfino.
Ricco Harbor and Pinna Park are some of my favorite levels in the entirety of the Mario series in how they manage to naturally bring out Mario's platforming while making everything look like it exists for a purpose beyond being there for Mario to jump on.
While bigger than most Mario maps except some of Odyssey's larger Kingdoms, the courses generally do a good job in dividing themselves into smaller sections within a cohesive map (albeit Pinna Park might go about doing this in a somewhat ham-fisted way), where individual missions can focus on one or two of them each.
One issue I had with Super Mario Odyssey's level design was how too many of them felt like floating landmasses over a bottomless pit: twelve out of fifteen of its main kingdoms followed this design to some capacity, with only the Wooded, Lost and Luncheon Kingdoms really providing an interesting twist on this idea. Sunshine almost completely avoids this issue, with Pianta Village being the single place being designed this way. In exchange, Sunshine often uses its verticality as consequences for failing platforming challenges, with conveniences like tightropes and the Rocket Nozzle being placed to ensure players never lose too much progress for falling down - it also often ensures that players won't suffer from too much fall damage by placing water around the map, which ties into the aesthetic of the game quite brilliantly.
Speaking of aesthetic - I wouldn't give Sunshine's environmental design as much praise if it weren't for their overarching nature: there's a lot of detail put in to make it feel like (almost) everything exists within the same landmass, like how you can see Ricco Harbor from Bianco Hills. There hasn't been this much cohesion in a Mario game since Super Mario World, (another game that debatably suffered for it compared to Super Mario Bros. 3's diversity in locales) and it really goes a long way to sell the idea that Isle Delfino is a living, breathing place compared to the abstract, bizzare themes later found in Super Mario Galaxy that attempt to separate its environments as far apart as it can.
It's because it feels like a living place that I feel incentivized to explore the courses and comb every part of the island for coins, both blue and yellow - less because I'm expecting a reward like in the other Mario games, and more because it lets me live out an inherent feeling of exploration that I couldn't really have when I'd go on holidays as a kid and have my hand held the entire time, the feeling that Mario games seem to have a complicated relationship with.
It's because it feels like a living place that I can forgive the wacky Delfino people from having weird customs like the watermelon festival, blooper races; that I don't mind the fact that Mario's being scammed into helping the Sirena Beach hotel, that everything really is a little bit jank, but maybe it's fine...
Because that's how things are meant to be in Isle Delfino.
So in Rome, I'll do what the Romans do,
and enjoy it all.
Sunshine was the game that taught me what "several" meant. In the manual they state that there are "several" other configurations for the water back pack. I thought it meant seven. I was very disappointed.
I resented the word "several" for years after that and avoided using it.
I resented the word "several" for years after that and avoided using it.
This game is so fucking stupid but it has Delfino and immaculate music and vibes and that's all I need for it to be my favourite Mario platformer
godlike 3d platformer with extremely versatile movement. only a handful of annoying/badly designed stages
when you rearrange the letters in the title, you get "hernia suspensorium," which is how i feel when i play this game
Super Mario Sunshine is an odd game. It has a lot of good qualities and I could easily see it ranking alongside people’s favorite games of all time, but there’s also a lot of stuff holding it back, arguably more than any other 3D Mario. But, as a fair game critic, I should start with the positives.
Mario Sunshine’s biggest strength is in its personality. Right from the title screen, the game introduces an offbeat tone in both design and visuals, letting players mess around with Mario’s moveset and making them physically select a file. The aesthetics are beautiful, with vibrant tropical locales that still hold up visually. The soundtrack has a unique style that’s both catchy and fitting to the environment. It’s even the only mainline Mario game to feature voice acting! Bad voice acting, yes, but the voices are indeed acting!
There are some really good character designs here, too. Newly introduced series icons like the Piantas, Petey Piranha, and Bowser Jr join sleeper hits like Cataquacks and Electro Koopas to form an all-star cast. Also, I love how E. Gadd’s ties to FLUDD and the Magic Paintbrush connect this game to Luigi’s Mansion, showcasing a continuity Mario hasn’t really done since…Dream Team? Sunshine isn’t the most charming of Mario’s Gamecube outings; it’s outdone by the sports titles and especially TTYD, but the vibes are still as fresh as the water from Mario’s jetpack.
Speaking of which, FLUDD is a great addition to the gameplay. Not only does he fit with the game’s theming, but he’s a wonderful tool in Mario’s arsenal. The spraying mechanics are fun to use, serving as both a means of attack and of increasing momentum. Plus, the additional airtime provided by the hover nozzle is a nifty means of getting around. The rocket and turbo nozzles are also pretty fun to use, offering great vertical and horizontal utility respectively. And when you fully understand how FLUDD works, movement becomes an absolute thrill ride, where Mario hops, slides, and speeds along at an exhilarating rate…
…Which makes it suck when the game forcibly removes these options. Scattered throughout Sunshine are a series of self-contained platforming challenges over a great blue void. This might sound like a great chance to use that movement I mentioned, but here’s the thing: You can’t use FLUDD in these sections. Now, on paper this is a fine enough idea. FLUDD is the game’s central mechanic, and it’s only fair that it spends the entire game fleshing him out as much as possible. And removing that mechanic is a good way of doing so.
There’s just one problem: Remember that fluid movement I mentioned earlier? Yeah, see how much fluid you get without your fancy water bottle. Mario Sunshine’s movement really wasn’t built around not having FLUDD, at least not in the context of precise platforming, which is the exact situation where they remove him. It just feels awkward trying to get around without him, the game’s odd lack of a long jump especially making traversal a lot more frustrating. And on top of that, these sections harshly punish your mistakes. One wrong move and you fall into a pit and have to start the section all over again. Oh, and God forbid you lose all your lives and have to trek back through the level, wasting even more of your time.
Okay, so the no-FLUDD sections are frustrating, but so what? Every Mario game has at least a few bad levels. Just skip them! Oh, you sweet, stupid summer child, let me introduce you to one of Sunshine’s other major blunders: the change in structure. Now, Mario 64 was very generous with its completion requirements, only requiring 70 of its 120 stars in order to face the final boss. Plus, you could get a level’s Power Stars in any order. This meant that if you didn’t like a level, that’s fine. You could just do another one. Sunshine, for some odd reason, lays out an incredibly specific goal for the player: you have to do the first 7 missions in every level in order to reach the ending. All those sections that really suck? Yeah, they’re mandatory. So either slog your crusty, dehydrated plumber through platformer purgatory or give up and haul your ass back to Kirby Air Ride (Please note that I hold no ill will against Kirby Air Ride or its playerbase).
Another victim of the game’s structure is the optional shines. Now, optional content in games is cool, but usually there’s some kind of reward attached to it. Like, oh, I don’t know, something that helps you progress in the story. Mario Sunshine throws all that out the window, snapshots its corpse, and slaps it on a custom-printed postcard from the Land of Sensible Design. Yeah, I wish I was there, too. So many neat ideas in Sunshine are gimped by their complete uselessness in the face of the game’s ultimate goal. The shines you can earn in the overworld? Sorry, their purpose is in another castle. The secret shines scattered throughout the levels? The real secret is they’re a waste of time. The blue coins? Please, you’re better off buying crypto. Even the fact that shines help unlock levels (I think) is redundant because the main missions already give you more than enough to unlock all of them.
Let’s talk about those main missions some more, because Sunshine’s level design is…odd, to say the least. Remember when I praised Mario Galaxy for how its tight level design got the most out of its simple movement? Sunshine’s kind of the opposite. You have a lot of movement options, but every level either removes your access to them or plops them into an uninteresting layout. In what I can only assume was due to the game’s rushed development, Sunshine’s levels sit at an awkward midpoint between 64’s open-ended playgrounds and Galaxy’s linear, mission-based structure. The levels are technically open, sure, but you have to do all the objectives in a specific order, one at a time. Unlike the Galaxy games, though, the bulk of the level often remains largely the same, just with an objective tacked on at a different point, so you don’t really feel the variety. For a game all about cleaning, they paid shockingly little attention to polish.
But for what it’s worth, the missions you do within the main levels are fine. They reuse a lot of objectives, but they do a good enough job being engaging and the movement carries it a fair bit. Plus, this game features Yoshi’s first 3D appearance, even if it is by far the weakest and it portrays him as oddly soluble. And unlike Mario 64, the bosses don’t suck, even if the final stretch of the game is god-awful. That’s the thing about Sunshine. It’s not a bad game. Hell, I’m even tempted to call it good. But it really squanders a lot of its best ideas with an array of baffling design decisions and a development cycle that leaves it feeling less finished than the GameCube’s actual tech demo. It had the potential to reach the sky, but for every time it came close, it just got burned.
Mario Sunshine’s biggest strength is in its personality. Right from the title screen, the game introduces an offbeat tone in both design and visuals, letting players mess around with Mario’s moveset and making them physically select a file. The aesthetics are beautiful, with vibrant tropical locales that still hold up visually. The soundtrack has a unique style that’s both catchy and fitting to the environment. It’s even the only mainline Mario game to feature voice acting! Bad voice acting, yes, but the voices are indeed acting!
There are some really good character designs here, too. Newly introduced series icons like the Piantas, Petey Piranha, and Bowser Jr join sleeper hits like Cataquacks and Electro Koopas to form an all-star cast. Also, I love how E. Gadd’s ties to FLUDD and the Magic Paintbrush connect this game to Luigi’s Mansion, showcasing a continuity Mario hasn’t really done since…Dream Team? Sunshine isn’t the most charming of Mario’s Gamecube outings; it’s outdone by the sports titles and especially TTYD, but the vibes are still as fresh as the water from Mario’s jetpack.
Speaking of which, FLUDD is a great addition to the gameplay. Not only does he fit with the game’s theming, but he’s a wonderful tool in Mario’s arsenal. The spraying mechanics are fun to use, serving as both a means of attack and of increasing momentum. Plus, the additional airtime provided by the hover nozzle is a nifty means of getting around. The rocket and turbo nozzles are also pretty fun to use, offering great vertical and horizontal utility respectively. And when you fully understand how FLUDD works, movement becomes an absolute thrill ride, where Mario hops, slides, and speeds along at an exhilarating rate…
…Which makes it suck when the game forcibly removes these options. Scattered throughout Sunshine are a series of self-contained platforming challenges over a great blue void. This might sound like a great chance to use that movement I mentioned, but here’s the thing: You can’t use FLUDD in these sections. Now, on paper this is a fine enough idea. FLUDD is the game’s central mechanic, and it’s only fair that it spends the entire game fleshing him out as much as possible. And removing that mechanic is a good way of doing so.
There’s just one problem: Remember that fluid movement I mentioned earlier? Yeah, see how much fluid you get without your fancy water bottle. Mario Sunshine’s movement really wasn’t built around not having FLUDD, at least not in the context of precise platforming, which is the exact situation where they remove him. It just feels awkward trying to get around without him, the game’s odd lack of a long jump especially making traversal a lot more frustrating. And on top of that, these sections harshly punish your mistakes. One wrong move and you fall into a pit and have to start the section all over again. Oh, and God forbid you lose all your lives and have to trek back through the level, wasting even more of your time.
Okay, so the no-FLUDD sections are frustrating, but so what? Every Mario game has at least a few bad levels. Just skip them! Oh, you sweet, stupid summer child, let me introduce you to one of Sunshine’s other major blunders: the change in structure. Now, Mario 64 was very generous with its completion requirements, only requiring 70 of its 120 stars in order to face the final boss. Plus, you could get a level’s Power Stars in any order. This meant that if you didn’t like a level, that’s fine. You could just do another one. Sunshine, for some odd reason, lays out an incredibly specific goal for the player: you have to do the first 7 missions in every level in order to reach the ending. All those sections that really suck? Yeah, they’re mandatory. So either slog your crusty, dehydrated plumber through platformer purgatory or give up and haul your ass back to Kirby Air Ride (Please note that I hold no ill will against Kirby Air Ride or its playerbase).
Another victim of the game’s structure is the optional shines. Now, optional content in games is cool, but usually there’s some kind of reward attached to it. Like, oh, I don’t know, something that helps you progress in the story. Mario Sunshine throws all that out the window, snapshots its corpse, and slaps it on a custom-printed postcard from the Land of Sensible Design. Yeah, I wish I was there, too. So many neat ideas in Sunshine are gimped by their complete uselessness in the face of the game’s ultimate goal. The shines you can earn in the overworld? Sorry, their purpose is in another castle. The secret shines scattered throughout the levels? The real secret is they’re a waste of time. The blue coins? Please, you’re better off buying crypto. Even the fact that shines help unlock levels (I think) is redundant because the main missions already give you more than enough to unlock all of them.
Let’s talk about those main missions some more, because Sunshine’s level design is…odd, to say the least. Remember when I praised Mario Galaxy for how its tight level design got the most out of its simple movement? Sunshine’s kind of the opposite. You have a lot of movement options, but every level either removes your access to them or plops them into an uninteresting layout. In what I can only assume was due to the game’s rushed development, Sunshine’s levels sit at an awkward midpoint between 64’s open-ended playgrounds and Galaxy’s linear, mission-based structure. The levels are technically open, sure, but you have to do all the objectives in a specific order, one at a time. Unlike the Galaxy games, though, the bulk of the level often remains largely the same, just with an objective tacked on at a different point, so you don’t really feel the variety. For a game all about cleaning, they paid shockingly little attention to polish.
But for what it’s worth, the missions you do within the main levels are fine. They reuse a lot of objectives, but they do a good enough job being engaging and the movement carries it a fair bit. Plus, this game features Yoshi’s first 3D appearance, even if it is by far the weakest and it portrays him as oddly soluble. And unlike Mario 64, the bosses don’t suck, even if the final stretch of the game is god-awful. That’s the thing about Sunshine. It’s not a bad game. Hell, I’m even tempted to call it good. But it really squanders a lot of its best ideas with an array of baffling design decisions and a development cycle that leaves it feeling less finished than the GameCube’s actual tech demo. It had the potential to reach the sky, but for every time it came close, it just got burned.
The closest we’ll ever get to Mario having a gun.
Since 2002, I have been in a perpetual state of wanting to love this game. I always start off excited, get a few shines in, and remember how I don't like the water mechanics. The farthest I've gotten is about 30 shines deep. Hopefully one of these times I'll try again and it'll just click.
Update 12/29/22: I have tried it half a dozen times through 3D All-Stars, with and without a GameCube controller. Feels real bad to play every single time! It's been 20 years, I think I can safely say Sunshine isn't for me.
Update 12/29/22: I have tried it half a dozen times through 3D All-Stars, with and without a GameCube controller. Feels real bad to play every single time! It's been 20 years, I think I can safely say Sunshine isn't for me.
Another classic from my childhood. I definitely understand why it has its current reputation. And I get why the opinion on it has so drastically changed into the negative. It's one of the only Mario games that lacks the Nintendo standard of polish, and almost every bit of it feels like it is being held together by shoestrings and chewing gum. But Super Mario Sunshine is creative, and unique.
The Fludd adds a good deal to the platforming, it makes me wish there was a Sunshine 2 where they could have expanded it further. Clearing off the goop with the water jets is satisfying, and you get to use it in a couple creative ways. Sure, a lot of times moving and jumping with Mario feels wonky, but the different secondary nozzles are all fun enough to make up for it.
So yeah, it's good, and yes it has problems. Yes, the brightness is legitimately blinding and they lock the ability to adjust it behind 50 shines, and yes they make you reset that again every time you go back to the hub. Yes the final boss is piss easy. Yes the secret red coin pachinko game is really annoying and made me want to shove Miyamoto in the face, and sure, on my 5th time trying to get through that boat section in Corona Mountain I wanted to hurt him physically. Absolutely.
But the game is still a blast. It's pretty, the music is great, and it feels different to other games like Mario 64 or Odyssey. Try it out again. For me.
The Fludd adds a good deal to the platforming, it makes me wish there was a Sunshine 2 where they could have expanded it further. Clearing off the goop with the water jets is satisfying, and you get to use it in a couple creative ways. Sure, a lot of times moving and jumping with Mario feels wonky, but the different secondary nozzles are all fun enough to make up for it.
So yeah, it's good, and yes it has problems. Yes, the brightness is legitimately blinding and they lock the ability to adjust it behind 50 shines, and yes they make you reset that again every time you go back to the hub. Yes the final boss is piss easy. Yes the secret red coin pachinko game is really annoying and made me want to shove Miyamoto in the face, and sure, on my 5th time trying to get through that boat section in Corona Mountain I wanted to hurt him physically. Absolutely.
But the game is still a blast. It's pretty, the music is great, and it feels different to other games like Mario 64 or Odyssey. Try it out again. For me.
"Jankiness". Aquele famoso termo usado para de forma pouco criteriosa por gamers para significar qualquer game em que os controles não são imediatamente satisfatórios. Apesar de normalmente utilizado de forma derrogatória, essa qualidade por si só não é negativa. Talvez ser difícil de controlar faça sentido ludonarrativo; talvez haja apenas uma barreira inicial de habilidade e o jogo se prove responsivo e satisfatório para os que persistirem.
Em Super Mario Sunshine os dois casos se aplicam. É como se o game tivesse duas camadas sobrepostas de "jankiness", e quando você pensa que soube lidar com uma esbarra na outra. O Mario é o mesmo acrobata do jogo anterior (Super Mario 64), mas a física parece ainda mais sensível e às vezes um mínimo detalhe pode te lançar para a morte. Mas agora ele é equipado com sua mochila-à-jato-movida-à-água FLUDD, que permite flutuar por certo tempo no ar e fazer outras manobras. Entretanto, às vezes o FLUDD mais atrapalha do que ajuda, sendo meio pesado de controlar e um tanto situacional. Essa interação entre Mario e FLUDD é às vezes interessante, mas muitas vezes também estressante. Mesmo depois de horas jogando, em nenhum momento senti que era capaz de mover o Mario com a fluidez e elegância que consegui em Mario 64.
Também não ajuda que alguns níveis são bem ruins e o jogo tem umas decisões de caráter... duvidoso, para dizer o mínimo. Não poder pegar o shine de 100 moedas durante a execução de uma missão, por exemplo, foi uma péssima decisão, e algumas blue coins são um inferno de se achar.
Não que eu odeie o jogo ou coisa do tipo. Gosto da ambientação tropical, curto bastante certos níveis como o Hotel ou Noki Bay, e os shines secretos, que tiram o FLUDD e fazem uso só das habilidades acrobáticas do Mario em níveis super abstratos, são um deleite. Mas é preciso relevar bastante coisa para se aproveitar essa aventura, algo que chega a destoar do espírito de diversão imediata que tornou a franquia tão popular.
Em Super Mario Sunshine os dois casos se aplicam. É como se o game tivesse duas camadas sobrepostas de "jankiness", e quando você pensa que soube lidar com uma esbarra na outra. O Mario é o mesmo acrobata do jogo anterior (Super Mario 64), mas a física parece ainda mais sensível e às vezes um mínimo detalhe pode te lançar para a morte. Mas agora ele é equipado com sua mochila-à-jato-movida-à-água FLUDD, que permite flutuar por certo tempo no ar e fazer outras manobras. Entretanto, às vezes o FLUDD mais atrapalha do que ajuda, sendo meio pesado de controlar e um tanto situacional. Essa interação entre Mario e FLUDD é às vezes interessante, mas muitas vezes também estressante. Mesmo depois de horas jogando, em nenhum momento senti que era capaz de mover o Mario com a fluidez e elegância que consegui em Mario 64.
Também não ajuda que alguns níveis são bem ruins e o jogo tem umas decisões de caráter... duvidoso, para dizer o mínimo. Não poder pegar o shine de 100 moedas durante a execução de uma missão, por exemplo, foi uma péssima decisão, e algumas blue coins são um inferno de se achar.
Não que eu odeie o jogo ou coisa do tipo. Gosto da ambientação tropical, curto bastante certos níveis como o Hotel ou Noki Bay, e os shines secretos, que tiram o FLUDD e fazem uso só das habilidades acrobáticas do Mario em níveis super abstratos, são um deleite. Mas é preciso relevar bastante coisa para se aproveitar essa aventura, algo que chega a destoar do espírito de diversão imediata que tornou a franquia tão popular.
I recently adopted a black kitten named Heath. He may just be the cutest cat ever. For such a small boy, Heath has really big features. His ears in particular are massively adorable. Almost everyone I've shown him to agrees that he is too precious for this world. My sister in particular wishes she could catnap him.
Whenever I play a Mario game, Heath takes interest. He'll keep his eyes glued to the screen and sometimes bat at it as well. He did this when I played the first two Paper Marios, Mario Kart Double Dash & Wii, and even Mario Superstar Baseball.
Yet besides that one mouse game I downloaded on my phone, I don't think Heath has taken more interest in any game than with Super Mario Sunshine. I am convinced by this point that Heath simply really loves Mario. For all we know, he's the true Mario loremaster.
Since this game brings out the adorableness of my adorable kitten even more than any other game has, it deserves a perfect score for that reason alone.
And if I can find that mouse game on this site, then I'll be sure to give it even more praise!
Whenever I play a Mario game, Heath takes interest. He'll keep his eyes glued to the screen and sometimes bat at it as well. He did this when I played the first two Paper Marios, Mario Kart Double Dash & Wii, and even Mario Superstar Baseball.
Yet besides that one mouse game I downloaded on my phone, I don't think Heath has taken more interest in any game than with Super Mario Sunshine. I am convinced by this point that Heath simply really loves Mario. For all we know, he's the true Mario loremaster.
Since this game brings out the adorableness of my adorable kitten even more than any other game has, it deserves a perfect score for that reason alone.
And if I can find that mouse game on this site, then I'll be sure to give it even more praise!
Super Mario Sunshine is my drunk friend. He's irresponsible, a bit unsightly and frankly weird at times, but man is he fun to hang out with (when he's not putting me in a giant fuckin Pachinko machine!!)
I recognise that Super Mario Sunshine is flawed in a lot of ways. It's unusually buggy for a 1st-party Nintendo game, it's very clearly rushed, with the game noticeably dipping in quality in the 2nd half and some of the levels like the aforementioned Pachinko machine and almost all of Sirena Beach are just outright not fun. But the moment-to-moment gameplay in Sunshine, especially in levels like Ricco Harbour and Noki Bay just have the juice, man.
Super Mario Sunshine's levels, much unlike Super Mario Odyssey's are built to accommodate for Mario's amazing sense of control. They're like jungle gyms or climbing frames, with so many different levels and layers and alternative routes, even if Mario has more movement options in Odyssey - I think he's simply more fun to control in Sunshine because it feels like the game's worlds are built around that. It's so stupidly fun to spray water on the floor and dive on to it for enough momentum to belly slide all over Delfino Plaza (which - might I add, is maybe the best hub world in a videogame ever?) It's all the little things Mario can do in this game and all the ways that the world around you allows for it that makes this game so fun in such a simple, kinetic sense.
On top of core gameplay that's really fun (except for when a silly level dissuades it) Mario Sunshine also has another intangible that really makes me love it. This might sound like a weird thing to praise a 3D Mario game for - but it's the...Worldbuilding? If you wanna call it that. Delfino Isle, the setting of Super Mario Sunshine feels more grounded and realised than any other 3D Mario, probably because those games always have you warping around to other places. You can see Pinna Park, one of the game's levels from Delfino Plaza. You can see Ricco Harbour (I think it's Ricco Harbour?) from...Another level that I can't remember (it's been a while, alright?) and the culture of Delfino Isle is demonstrated by the Piantas, incredibly charming recurring NPCs who again lend the setting with a sense of consistency. After a while, Delfino Isle starts to feel like a home, a place that you know and are comfortable with, and the Plaza is constantly sliding so many nifty little secrets and hidden corners your way that coming back is always exciting.
Sunshine is bogged down by a lot of silly gimmicks like all 3D Mario games are, but when it's at it's best, I truly believe it's better than all of them. I know that may be controversial but hey, check out a speedrun of this game and maybe you'll see what I mean. Speedruns of this game fucking go, dude.
I recognise that Super Mario Sunshine is flawed in a lot of ways. It's unusually buggy for a 1st-party Nintendo game, it's very clearly rushed, with the game noticeably dipping in quality in the 2nd half and some of the levels like the aforementioned Pachinko machine and almost all of Sirena Beach are just outright not fun. But the moment-to-moment gameplay in Sunshine, especially in levels like Ricco Harbour and Noki Bay just have the juice, man.
Super Mario Sunshine's levels, much unlike Super Mario Odyssey's are built to accommodate for Mario's amazing sense of control. They're like jungle gyms or climbing frames, with so many different levels and layers and alternative routes, even if Mario has more movement options in Odyssey - I think he's simply more fun to control in Sunshine because it feels like the game's worlds are built around that. It's so stupidly fun to spray water on the floor and dive on to it for enough momentum to belly slide all over Delfino Plaza (which - might I add, is maybe the best hub world in a videogame ever?) It's all the little things Mario can do in this game and all the ways that the world around you allows for it that makes this game so fun in such a simple, kinetic sense.
On top of core gameplay that's really fun (except for when a silly level dissuades it) Mario Sunshine also has another intangible that really makes me love it. This might sound like a weird thing to praise a 3D Mario game for - but it's the...Worldbuilding? If you wanna call it that. Delfino Isle, the setting of Super Mario Sunshine feels more grounded and realised than any other 3D Mario, probably because those games always have you warping around to other places. You can see Pinna Park, one of the game's levels from Delfino Plaza. You can see Ricco Harbour (I think it's Ricco Harbour?) from...Another level that I can't remember (it's been a while, alright?) and the culture of Delfino Isle is demonstrated by the Piantas, incredibly charming recurring NPCs who again lend the setting with a sense of consistency. After a while, Delfino Isle starts to feel like a home, a place that you know and are comfortable with, and the Plaza is constantly sliding so many nifty little secrets and hidden corners your way that coming back is always exciting.
Sunshine is bogged down by a lot of silly gimmicks like all 3D Mario games are, but when it's at it's best, I truly believe it's better than all of them. I know that may be controversial but hey, check out a speedrun of this game and maybe you'll see what I mean. Speedruns of this game fucking go, dude.
Sunshine is like the polar opposite of 64. This game feels AMAZING to control. It's no coincidence that my favourite parts are the pure platforming sections without Fludd.
The actual content itself is heavily padded though, which is likely due to the fact there's now a measly 7 levels, instead of 64's 15. Every stage has 2 red coin missions, every stage has 30 blue coins to collect (a total of 24 of the 120 shine sprites are from collecting freaking blue coins), every single level has a "chase shadow Mario" mission. Bosses get repeated. Despite each stage having 10 missions (including 2 "hidden" missions, which 90% of the time is just "replay the platforming stage again but this time collect even more red coins), the amount of actual unique ideas here is shockingly low.
Collecting 100 coins in every stage is also back, which is fine, but for some reason collecting that shine will exit you out of the level, meaning unlike in the past game you can't do that mission along with another mission, making it a direct quality of life degrade.
The worst part of all this is that some of the blue coins require a lot of fun or otherwise unused areas and mechanics of the game. If they just fleshed out the good blue coins and made them shines, while removing all the bad ones, it would have improved the game massively.
The game is mostly okay, it just feels like there's 25% good content that is copy/pasted four times to make a full game.
The actual content itself is heavily padded though, which is likely due to the fact there's now a measly 7 levels, instead of 64's 15. Every stage has 2 red coin missions, every stage has 30 blue coins to collect (a total of 24 of the 120 shine sprites are from collecting freaking blue coins), every single level has a "chase shadow Mario" mission. Bosses get repeated. Despite each stage having 10 missions (including 2 "hidden" missions, which 90% of the time is just "replay the platforming stage again but this time collect even more red coins), the amount of actual unique ideas here is shockingly low.
Collecting 100 coins in every stage is also back, which is fine, but for some reason collecting that shine will exit you out of the level, meaning unlike in the past game you can't do that mission along with another mission, making it a direct quality of life degrade.
The worst part of all this is that some of the blue coins require a lot of fun or otherwise unused areas and mechanics of the game. If they just fleshed out the good blue coins and made them shines, while removing all the bad ones, it would have improved the game massively.
The game is mostly okay, it just feels like there's 25% good content that is copy/pasted four times to make a full game.
to the best of my knowledge, character movement exists within giant state machines dictated by the player input and the properties of any current collision. if you touch a slope, transition to sliding state; if you press the jump button, transition to a jump state unless you're sliding or etc. etc.. in those behind-the-scenes tales of miyamoto meticulously testing mario's movement in low-poly sandboxes during sm64's development, these state transitions and their corresponding kinematics values were the real meat of the tweaks on the programmers' end. "let's make the flip jump transition available even before the turn animation begins, also if mario jumps onto a slope less steep than X degrees maybe we could try giving him a few frames standing or moving to give the player some time to jump again, also if you collide in the air with a slope steeper than X degrees make sure you don't add horizontal momentum when you transition to a slide" these are just ideas off the top of my head and don't represent the actual code, but this is how I conceive of it. the character is a tightly tuned system that functions as a simulacrum of real movement, realistic where our brain wants it and exaggerated where our hands desire it. code with the model ingrained into its logic teeters the line between pretty and messy, and sm64 perhaps got the closest in its era to actually getting somewhere with this system.
sunshine unfortunately lacks this level of polish. mario's main movement feels tighter and more responsive than in the game's predecessor, but at the same time the introduction of fludd and of dynamic object geometry strains whatever was in the previous character state table. accordingly mario feels at his most chaotic in this entry. floating into a slope could result in him suddenly sliding away with no ability for the player to break out of his helplessness, or a rotating platform could cause mario to stutter as the line between "flat" and "slope" becomes blurred. mario will legitimately phase through objects on the rare occasion he doesn't clip in and out or plummet out of the sky having lost his jump. this distinct lack of polish (likely due to the game's rushed development) pervades each aspect of the game.
second-to-second these movement quirks will likely be the most apparent issue to the player, but zooming out reveals level design and structure indicative of the game's troubled history. immediately out of the gate: no star (or rather "shine sprite") requirements, with the first seven shines of each main area now mandatory and the rest completely optional and pointless outside of bragging rights. the seventh shine of each is a brief shadow mario chase that varies little from location-to-location, leaving just the first six of each area as notable challenges. so how do these stack up?
many of these (at least one per world) are obnoxious "secret" stages that steal mario from the sunkissed vista of isle delfino and drop him into gussied-up debug rooms. the level design here mainly consists of a few half-hearted platforming challenges made from hastily-assembled generic blocks slapped together with a smattering of coins and 1UPs, and none of them are very fun. the rotating objects that mario must ride in a few of these especially aggravate that previously-mentioned unstable character state table, and mastering them requires a frustrating level of practice given how unnatural the physics of these sections are. of special note is the infamous chuckster level, which involves having mario awkwardly thrown from platform to platform over death pits with restricted influence from the player. talking to each chuckster at a slight offset will result in getting thrown at angles that will often result in certain demise, and learning how to best exploit them again requires more frustrating practice in a stage that should be otherwise brief. all of this is exacerbated by the fact that you have no access to fludd, leaving mario with solely the sideflip and the spin jump. these are good moves in their own right, but I can't help but miss a low-and-long movement option like the long jump, or potentially a high vertical option that doesn't require the control stick shenanigans the sideflip/spin jump necessitate.
removing all of the secret stages (of which there are ten) and all of the shadow mario (of which there are seven) yields just 32 unique shines as part of the main game. some more categories of stages quickly become apparent:
sunshine is often criticized for its number of red coin stages, and while the postgame adds one to each secret stage along with a couple other optional ones, the main game itself features just five. the windmill village and pirate ship ones are more traditional platforming challenges, and I'd say the windmill village one is a solid exploration of the titular area in bianco hills. the pirate ship one is frustrating given the difficulty of staying put on the actual pirate ships, but the majority of the red coins are on climbable grating and are much more straight-forward to obtain. the coral reef red coin challenge revolves around sunshine's spotty swimming mechanics (questionable for a game with such a focus on watery environments) and ultimately boils down to a game of I Spy with a fiddly camera. there is also one using the rideable bloopers in ricco harbor (I often failed this one after collecting all the coins by crashing into the pier with the shine on it, which surprisingly enough didn't kill me playing on the 3DAS version), and one that takes place with the underwater scuba controls within a large bottle, which I can't really say is particularly interesting given how few obstacles there are in your way.
boss stages appear frequently throughout each world to little surprise from players of sm64 prior. bianco hills features petey pirahna, whose mouth must be filled with water before he spits sludge at you. his first fight is pretty on-par for what I'd expect from a first boss fight, and his refight is pretty similar with a couple little additions, such as flying about the main area and creating tornados (?). gooper blooper appears no less than three times throughout the game and severely wears out his welcome by his noki bay appearance, although this is proceeded by a legitimate platforming challenge that makes up for it. of note is that his first two ricco harbor appearances are virtually identical except for that one fight requires one extra spin jump in order to reach the arena. wiggler, mecha-bowser (who you fight with rockets from a rollercoaster car), the manta, king boo, and eely-mouth all have singular fights throughout the other worlds that generally are the better shines of their respective worlds. they fall about on the level I would expect from a 3D platformer: not necessarily enthralling, but decent diversions from the actual platforming.
there are also three il piantissimo races akin to koopa the quick from sm64. I would say some of the latter's races are somewhat challenging, whereas the former's chosen routes leave a lot to be desired and thus can easily be thwarted by anyone with a reasonable understanding of the controls. they unfortunately feel like 30-second throwaway shines. there is also a time attack on the rideable bloopers with a couple minor obstacle that seem pulled right out of the secret stages.
all of the above shines removed from the total, we now have 13 shines left. in theory these are the "interesting" objectives, the ones that would hopefully pop up when reminiscing about what made this game special. when I look at this list, the first one that pops out to me is sand bird... the infamous filter for many new players, including myself when I first finished this game. this stage actually involves collecting red coins, although this objective is somewhat auxillary considering the first seven can be scooped up in less than 15 seconds and the final one can't be reached until the bird that you stand upon finally reaches the top of the tower in the middle of the area. rather, the main obstacle is simply that the bird rolls 90 degrees, releasing you into the ether if you don't scramble over onto the bird's side before it completely rotates. learning to correctly time mario's walk over the edge between the different faces of one of the bird's many cubes (I usually do it at the tail) is entirely unintuitive and unforgiving. once it clicks, the stage becomes an auto-scroller without any point or challenge, as it has the last couple times I've played it. there is no sweet spot in the middle where the shine feels obtainable with some effort; it either feels insurmountable when you're first trying it and then rote on each subsequent playthrough.
this describes a lot of these remaining shines unfortunately, especially when it comes to the proper platforming challenges in each stage. the caged shine sprite in ricco harbor atop a large structure of steel girders caused me to tear my hair out initially with the wind sprites that assault you, requiring a full tower reclimb; on this attempt I forgot the intended path and instead skipped about 60% of the area with a well-timed spin jump. the runaway ferris wheel stage in pinna park had the same result for me: on my original playthrough I struggled greatly with the electrified koopas and their unpredictable movement cycles, whereas on this playthrough I skipped past the entire top half of the climbable grating with another spin jump, making the challenge moot. simply knowing the movement tech completely obliterates the challenge, and yet I feel obligated to do it because without using it I'm thrust into the jank. the same goes for those who know how to use the spam spray: timed slime-clearing levels such as the one in sirena beach are incessently precise without knowing how to shotgun your water blasts, but once you do they become pointlessly easy. simply knowing discrete strategies or moves renders the game moot, and thus there is no linear difficulty curve. between my first playthrough and now there is simply a void where a fun game should be; never has sunshine felt like a accessible trial to be overcome. there is simply a gulf between aggravation and tedium.
this is to say nothing of the hub, the optional content, the one-of-a-kind environmental throughline, hell, even fludd itself. it just all feels... slight in its rushed nature and uneven scope. levels are expansive but exploration is heavily discouraged given how scripted many of the individual shines are, and on this playthrough I felt like I missed entire swaths of each level. new fludd abilities or yoshi aren't given bespoke unlock levels such as in sm64, and instead simply are dropped from even more shadow mario chases. the plaza hub does come to life more and more as the game continues, but compared to peach's castle it lacks progression even as it opens up new challenges (among which are the particularly infamous sunshine levels everyone discusses like pachinko or the lilypad death river). the one thing that keeps me going is that sense of locality that few other games of this era can point to, that feeling of seeing the ferris wheel far off in the background of another stage, or the hotel delfino off in the distance. no other game I can think of attempts something so drastically removed from typical delineation of themes between areas like sunshine, and it's a shame that it jettisons a lot of its potential by flooding the shine list with these dripless special stages in a floating void.
in many ways I don't see sunshine as truly mechanically paired with 64 as the "collectathon" mario games. in fact, I don't think 64 was even intended as a collectathon as we understand them today; instead its explorable areas feel more like opportunity seized from technical restraints preventing true linear platforming challenges from really succeeding. sunshine attempts to move more in the latter direction, without the same sense of non-linearity or potentiality that arose from 64's seeming vastness at the time. in this regard it feels more like an ancestor to galaxy; galaxy is hatched from the egg of sunshine, something with the same genes as 64 but woven within a new form and flesh. it may have even been genius in its own right had it not been hastily released in an attempt to bolster the gamecube's faltering performance. in another way it's the reverse of much of nintendo's modern "meh"-tier output: full of soul but completely unpolished.
sunshine unfortunately lacks this level of polish. mario's main movement feels tighter and more responsive than in the game's predecessor, but at the same time the introduction of fludd and of dynamic object geometry strains whatever was in the previous character state table. accordingly mario feels at his most chaotic in this entry. floating into a slope could result in him suddenly sliding away with no ability for the player to break out of his helplessness, or a rotating platform could cause mario to stutter as the line between "flat" and "slope" becomes blurred. mario will legitimately phase through objects on the rare occasion he doesn't clip in and out or plummet out of the sky having lost his jump. this distinct lack of polish (likely due to the game's rushed development) pervades each aspect of the game.
second-to-second these movement quirks will likely be the most apparent issue to the player, but zooming out reveals level design and structure indicative of the game's troubled history. immediately out of the gate: no star (or rather "shine sprite") requirements, with the first seven shines of each main area now mandatory and the rest completely optional and pointless outside of bragging rights. the seventh shine of each is a brief shadow mario chase that varies little from location-to-location, leaving just the first six of each area as notable challenges. so how do these stack up?
many of these (at least one per world) are obnoxious "secret" stages that steal mario from the sunkissed vista of isle delfino and drop him into gussied-up debug rooms. the level design here mainly consists of a few half-hearted platforming challenges made from hastily-assembled generic blocks slapped together with a smattering of coins and 1UPs, and none of them are very fun. the rotating objects that mario must ride in a few of these especially aggravate that previously-mentioned unstable character state table, and mastering them requires a frustrating level of practice given how unnatural the physics of these sections are. of special note is the infamous chuckster level, which involves having mario awkwardly thrown from platform to platform over death pits with restricted influence from the player. talking to each chuckster at a slight offset will result in getting thrown at angles that will often result in certain demise, and learning how to best exploit them again requires more frustrating practice in a stage that should be otherwise brief. all of this is exacerbated by the fact that you have no access to fludd, leaving mario with solely the sideflip and the spin jump. these are good moves in their own right, but I can't help but miss a low-and-long movement option like the long jump, or potentially a high vertical option that doesn't require the control stick shenanigans the sideflip/spin jump necessitate.
removing all of the secret stages (of which there are ten) and all of the shadow mario (of which there are seven) yields just 32 unique shines as part of the main game. some more categories of stages quickly become apparent:
sunshine is often criticized for its number of red coin stages, and while the postgame adds one to each secret stage along with a couple other optional ones, the main game itself features just five. the windmill village and pirate ship ones are more traditional platforming challenges, and I'd say the windmill village one is a solid exploration of the titular area in bianco hills. the pirate ship one is frustrating given the difficulty of staying put on the actual pirate ships, but the majority of the red coins are on climbable grating and are much more straight-forward to obtain. the coral reef red coin challenge revolves around sunshine's spotty swimming mechanics (questionable for a game with such a focus on watery environments) and ultimately boils down to a game of I Spy with a fiddly camera. there is also one using the rideable bloopers in ricco harbor (I often failed this one after collecting all the coins by crashing into the pier with the shine on it, which surprisingly enough didn't kill me playing on the 3DAS version), and one that takes place with the underwater scuba controls within a large bottle, which I can't really say is particularly interesting given how few obstacles there are in your way.
boss stages appear frequently throughout each world to little surprise from players of sm64 prior. bianco hills features petey pirahna, whose mouth must be filled with water before he spits sludge at you. his first fight is pretty on-par for what I'd expect from a first boss fight, and his refight is pretty similar with a couple little additions, such as flying about the main area and creating tornados (?). gooper blooper appears no less than three times throughout the game and severely wears out his welcome by his noki bay appearance, although this is proceeded by a legitimate platforming challenge that makes up for it. of note is that his first two ricco harbor appearances are virtually identical except for that one fight requires one extra spin jump in order to reach the arena. wiggler, mecha-bowser (who you fight with rockets from a rollercoaster car), the manta, king boo, and eely-mouth all have singular fights throughout the other worlds that generally are the better shines of their respective worlds. they fall about on the level I would expect from a 3D platformer: not necessarily enthralling, but decent diversions from the actual platforming.
there are also three il piantissimo races akin to koopa the quick from sm64. I would say some of the latter's races are somewhat challenging, whereas the former's chosen routes leave a lot to be desired and thus can easily be thwarted by anyone with a reasonable understanding of the controls. they unfortunately feel like 30-second throwaway shines. there is also a time attack on the rideable bloopers with a couple minor obstacle that seem pulled right out of the secret stages.
all of the above shines removed from the total, we now have 13 shines left. in theory these are the "interesting" objectives, the ones that would hopefully pop up when reminiscing about what made this game special. when I look at this list, the first one that pops out to me is sand bird... the infamous filter for many new players, including myself when I first finished this game. this stage actually involves collecting red coins, although this objective is somewhat auxillary considering the first seven can be scooped up in less than 15 seconds and the final one can't be reached until the bird that you stand upon finally reaches the top of the tower in the middle of the area. rather, the main obstacle is simply that the bird rolls 90 degrees, releasing you into the ether if you don't scramble over onto the bird's side before it completely rotates. learning to correctly time mario's walk over the edge between the different faces of one of the bird's many cubes (I usually do it at the tail) is entirely unintuitive and unforgiving. once it clicks, the stage becomes an auto-scroller without any point or challenge, as it has the last couple times I've played it. there is no sweet spot in the middle where the shine feels obtainable with some effort; it either feels insurmountable when you're first trying it and then rote on each subsequent playthrough.
this describes a lot of these remaining shines unfortunately, especially when it comes to the proper platforming challenges in each stage. the caged shine sprite in ricco harbor atop a large structure of steel girders caused me to tear my hair out initially with the wind sprites that assault you, requiring a full tower reclimb; on this attempt I forgot the intended path and instead skipped about 60% of the area with a well-timed spin jump. the runaway ferris wheel stage in pinna park had the same result for me: on my original playthrough I struggled greatly with the electrified koopas and their unpredictable movement cycles, whereas on this playthrough I skipped past the entire top half of the climbable grating with another spin jump, making the challenge moot. simply knowing the movement tech completely obliterates the challenge, and yet I feel obligated to do it because without using it I'm thrust into the jank. the same goes for those who know how to use the spam spray: timed slime-clearing levels such as the one in sirena beach are incessently precise without knowing how to shotgun your water blasts, but once you do they become pointlessly easy. simply knowing discrete strategies or moves renders the game moot, and thus there is no linear difficulty curve. between my first playthrough and now there is simply a void where a fun game should be; never has sunshine felt like a accessible trial to be overcome. there is simply a gulf between aggravation and tedium.
this is to say nothing of the hub, the optional content, the one-of-a-kind environmental throughline, hell, even fludd itself. it just all feels... slight in its rushed nature and uneven scope. levels are expansive but exploration is heavily discouraged given how scripted many of the individual shines are, and on this playthrough I felt like I missed entire swaths of each level. new fludd abilities or yoshi aren't given bespoke unlock levels such as in sm64, and instead simply are dropped from even more shadow mario chases. the plaza hub does come to life more and more as the game continues, but compared to peach's castle it lacks progression even as it opens up new challenges (among which are the particularly infamous sunshine levels everyone discusses like pachinko or the lilypad death river). the one thing that keeps me going is that sense of locality that few other games of this era can point to, that feeling of seeing the ferris wheel far off in the background of another stage, or the hotel delfino off in the distance. no other game I can think of attempts something so drastically removed from typical delineation of themes between areas like sunshine, and it's a shame that it jettisons a lot of its potential by flooding the shine list with these dripless special stages in a floating void.
in many ways I don't see sunshine as truly mechanically paired with 64 as the "collectathon" mario games. in fact, I don't think 64 was even intended as a collectathon as we understand them today; instead its explorable areas feel more like opportunity seized from technical restraints preventing true linear platforming challenges from really succeeding. sunshine attempts to move more in the latter direction, without the same sense of non-linearity or potentiality that arose from 64's seeming vastness at the time. in this regard it feels more like an ancestor to galaxy; galaxy is hatched from the egg of sunshine, something with the same genes as 64 but woven within a new form and flesh. it may have even been genius in its own right had it not been hastily released in an attempt to bolster the gamecube's faltering performance. in another way it's the reverse of much of nintendo's modern "meh"-tier output: full of soul but completely unpolished.
set aside takes on whether the game is good or whatever. the rating is tied to how much i loved it as a kid, i havent finished replaying and there are more important things to discuss anyway:
mario goes to fucking JAIL. you ever think about that? i mean sit down, and really think about it. i think our society has normalised the fact that mario goes to jail in super mario sunshine. dude literally gets taken to court and handed a sentence. this would NEVER happen in a mario game today. and here it is, in the first 10 minutes. then he has to do community service??? THEY EVEN MADE WANTED POSTERS. i think if you suggested this as a plot for any big nintendo IP you'd get laughed at. can you imagine the next pokemon game starting like this? this game came out in 2002, and truthfully, i am nowhere near old enough to remember people's immediate reactions to it. but i think more games should send their protagonists to jail. ignoring that the plot here is a retread of one of the greatest written games of all time, sonic adventure 2, which came out a year before sunshine, this was a very bold move for the series.
i had to look up the name of the wonderful writer who decided to send mario to jail - makoto wada. interestingly, this is his only writing credit for a mario game (besides 2000's mario artist for the 64DD). can you imagine the state of the mario canon if it was left in his hands? you know those joke games with fake box art with like, "Yoshi Commits Tax Fraud". you ever think about how mario sunshine was officially that, way back?
the rest of the game no doubt delivers on its bizarre premise, as mario is made to clean up psychedelic goop for a good 20 hours, ride a soluble yoshi, become an eel dentist among many other things, before finally topping it off with flipping bowser out of his bathtub. but really, mario sunshine deserves to go down in history as the game that dared send gaming's biggest icon to the slammer.
mario goes to fucking JAIL. you ever think about that? i mean sit down, and really think about it. i think our society has normalised the fact that mario goes to jail in super mario sunshine. dude literally gets taken to court and handed a sentence. this would NEVER happen in a mario game today. and here it is, in the first 10 minutes. then he has to do community service??? THEY EVEN MADE WANTED POSTERS. i think if you suggested this as a plot for any big nintendo IP you'd get laughed at. can you imagine the next pokemon game starting like this? this game came out in 2002, and truthfully, i am nowhere near old enough to remember people's immediate reactions to it. but i think more games should send their protagonists to jail. ignoring that the plot here is a retread of one of the greatest written games of all time, sonic adventure 2, which came out a year before sunshine, this was a very bold move for the series.
i had to look up the name of the wonderful writer who decided to send mario to jail - makoto wada. interestingly, this is his only writing credit for a mario game (besides 2000's mario artist for the 64DD). can you imagine the state of the mario canon if it was left in his hands? you know those joke games with fake box art with like, "Yoshi Commits Tax Fraud". you ever think about how mario sunshine was officially that, way back?
the rest of the game no doubt delivers on its bizarre premise, as mario is made to clean up psychedelic goop for a good 20 hours, ride a soluble yoshi, become an eel dentist among many other things, before finally topping it off with flipping bowser out of his bathtub. but really, mario sunshine deserves to go down in history as the game that dared send gaming's biggest icon to the slammer.
Super Mario Sunshine is so explicitly Summer themed that even its cover exudes powerful waves of Summah energy. From its very premise - which sees Mario and Peach travel to the perpetually sunny Isle Delfino to enjoy a much-deserved vacation - to its world design and water-based gameplay, it is as blatantly Summah as any game could possibly be. Naturally, ending my 2023 Summah Games Series with Super Mario Sunshine seemed like a no-brainer. Seemed like a real good idea at the time.
The Summah is so cancelled, man.
I haven't touched this game since 2002, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't think very highly of it back then. I was extremely excited for it leading up to release though, as I'm sure plenty of people were considering this was the first big follow up to Super Mario 64. It is somewhat hard to factor out my disappointment when viewing it through the frame of being 64's direct sequel, so I'm going to state up front that I'll be making numerous direct comparisons between both games to elucidate why I think Mario Sunshine just does not work mechanically and feels bad to play.
Episode 1: Blob Mario is On The Loose
Super Mario 64 released in 1996 and was one of the first major 3D platformers - this is an almost unnecessary statement of fact, but I need to establish the premise that Mario 64 plays extremely well both for a product of its era and for its place in the history and development of 3D gaming. A lot of thought went into designing a control scheme that was both intuitive and felt good to engage with, and Nintendo succeeded so well that Mario 64 established a foundation for 3D platformer controls much in the same way the original Super Mario Bros. served as a watershed moment for 2D platformers.
By contrast, Mario feels notably "off" in Super Mario Sunshine. There is no longer any predictability to his movement, he neither feels like an extension of the player nor a character with his own distinct physicality. Mario is a blob. He animates with so much bounce and jiggle that you might think he's composed entirely of some viscous substance, and though charming from an animation standpoint, he controls every bit as goopy as he looks. This results in an awkward delay to his movements, and the bounding nature of his weight results in numerous misfires when jumping. Try to jump onto the top of a nail or any similarly small object and you'll see what I mean. You'll probably overshoot or undershoot several times before finally dialing it in. Worse case, you'll slide off the damn level.
Perhaps they didn't see the need to refine these controls, or otherwise opted not to intentionally in consideration of F.L.U.D.D., Mario's water-firing backpack and the biggest mechanical addition to Sunshine over its predecessor. F.L.U.D.D. can spray water, which is useful for clearing goop, triggering events, and uncovering blue coins (we'll get to those.) He can also turn into a jetpack, which the player will likely rely upon heavily during platforming sequences. It becomes apparent that F.L.U.D.D. serves as a band-aide for Mario's poor physics when you enter the "secret" stages, which remove F.L.U.D.D. from the equation and force you to jump around the old-fashioned way.
If you sink enough time into Mario Sunshine, you might actually pick up on all its idiosyncrasies and gain some dominion over the beast. You might even start to think it's better than Mario 64. I once got locked inside of a Suncast jumbo storage shed with two crates of graham crackers, and I learned to like them so much that I still eat an entire pack for lunch pretty regularly. This is a psychological phenomenon referred to as the "mere-exposure effect," in which we develop a preference for something due to our familiarity with it. You have been conditioned!
Episode 2: Camera Catastrophe
One thing both games have in common, however, is how the camera is treated as a semi-physical object which occupies the same space as Mario. As such, it has a tendency to get caught on geometry. This is a nuisance in both games, but I would argue it's substantially worse in Sunshine due to it the complexity of its stage design and greater abundance of geometry.
Sunshine attempts to correct for this by providing some level of transparency when the camera hangs behind something, but the way this is implemented - by showing Mario's position, dropping out surrounding platforms, and unhelpfully highlighting NPCs, enemies, and objects with vague question marks - is such a half-measure that its inclusion feels utterly worthless. Trying to wrangle the camera using the C-stick even manages to feel worse in practice than using the Nintendo 64's C-buttons, something I wouldn't have thought possible without getting my hands on Sunshine again.
There is an overall lack of consideration in how levels are constructed, and so the camera will often snag right near the start of platforming sequences or when manually aiming the camera to survey the environment. During Episode 1 of Sirena Beach: The Manta Storm, the camera got stuck on a palm tree while Mario was using his jetpack to douse manta rays, which then multiply like Gremlins. As I was trying to get my bearings, Mario fell onto several manta rays, which caused him to leap back into a puddle of goop, which then caused him to bound forward into more manta rays. Mario's screaming was deafening. I still hear it when I fall asleep.
Episode 3: The Blue Coin Economy
In true collect-a-thon fashion, you enter a variety of different stages all connected by a hub world, but unlike Mario 64 where stars can mostly be collected out of order, Sunshine locks you into a more rigid structure. This is because each area tells its own story, like Noki Bay, whose waters have become toxic and require several attempts to purify, gradually changing the level over time. This is a novel concept which consequently boxes the player into completing a set number of episodes in each world. Not only can you not skip Shines which you might simply find unenjoyable to collect, but you must defeat Shadow Mario in each world in order to complete the game. The 50 Shine minimum to see Sunshine's end credits does not translate to "any 50 Shines will do" and instead means "these specific 50 shines, at least. You can get more for like... fun, I guess?"
There is nothing more "fun, I guess?" than the Blue Coins, which seems to be the one universal sore point for Mario Sunshine even among its defenders. There are 30 of these hidden in each level, and every 10 collected earns you another Shine. Functionally, these are meant to encourage the player to more thoroughly explore each level, drawing them to points of interest that each episode's required path might otherwise force them to skip. This is yet another consequence of the more linear nature of Sunshine. You might end up missing whole chunks of levels because you're never asked to go there, so blue coins provide motivation to branch off, beckoning to you and appealing to that dark desire that exists within all of us to do everything, to do it all.
You should not, though. Please exercise some self-restraint. Sometimes I want to drink an entire 8-pack of NOS, but I don't because I know it would be bad for me. Likewise, you should NEVER collect blue coins. All these get you is a post card at the end of the game. You could just look that up on the Internet. Here, I'll even give it to you free of charge.
The problem with blue coins isn't necessarily how many there are, but that they only contribute to 100% completion. There's no reason to interact with them whatsoever because - as we've established - you cannot complete the game by collecting any Shines you please. If you were to cash in half of the total number of blue coins, then the resulting 12 Shines earned mean absolutely nothing despite the effort it took to collect them. This issue could've been entirely side-stepped if blue coins served another purpose, like upgrading F.L.U.D.D. or unlocking some other form of bonus content which progressively opens up the more you cash in. This would not only keep the incentive to collect them but make them even more worthwhile as skipping any would not be so detrimental.
Oh, and you can't check to see what blue coins you've earned in what levels, the game only marks which levels you found every blue coin in and how many you have total. This just makes hunting for them even more of a pain without a guide and a spreadsheet to track them with, so you don't get confused. Some blue coins also appear only in specific episodes, so you need to make repeated trips into levels as well.
While I think the blue coins speak to larger issues with Sunshine's overall design, they are optional, and I am by my own admission hyper-fixating on them. I guess that's what I get for collecting um... 70% of the things.
And not to be entirely negative, I will say that there is some strong level theming in Sunshine. All of it feeds back into that core Summer aesthetic, placing a focus on locations like sun-bleached villages, beaches, a harbor, and a hotel/casino among other places, rather than adhering to tired tropes like desert or ice levels. Although there is one lava level, Corona Mountain, which is pretty much a straight line with really tepid challenges that ends in a flaccid boss fight. Bit anti-climatic.
Episode 4: The Mario Narrative
Some (me) might call Mario Sunshine an embarrassment and a gross misstep in the mainline Mario series. And some (me) might have even hated it so much at the time of its release that they traded it in for pennies on the dollar to a GameStop the second they finished it. Those very people (ME) may have even checked Ebay since then and lamented the fact that they could've swindled some poor fools out of 75 bucks a few years ago before 3D All-Stars brought prices back down to a more "reasonable" 40$.
We all make mistakes. Even Nintendo.
That's something I've chewed on while reflecting on this game. Would I think so harshly of it if it weren't a Mario game? It would still be bad, certainly, but it wouldn't betray a level of trust or an expectation of quality which the larger Mario series had set. Even a game six years its senior and which released on the edge of 3D gaming hitting the mainstream manages to outstrip it in structure, level design, and even controls. Perhaps that just speaks to how impressive Mario 64 is, but it's not unreasonable to think Nintendo could top it given the time and advances in game development. In 2002, Mario Sunshine downright hurt. Even so, I don't think it's appropriate to grade it on the Mario Scale.
Even if you chalk some it up to a difference in vision - due either to Miyamoto desiring something unique or Koizumi's directorial style - simple things like the way Mario plays should feel far more refined. Instead, Sunshine is sloppy game, one that uses Mario 64's bones and constructs them into something familiar but all too crude.
BUT IS IT A SUMMAH GAME?
man i don't give a shit
The Summah is so cancelled, man.
I haven't touched this game since 2002, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't think very highly of it back then. I was extremely excited for it leading up to release though, as I'm sure plenty of people were considering this was the first big follow up to Super Mario 64. It is somewhat hard to factor out my disappointment when viewing it through the frame of being 64's direct sequel, so I'm going to state up front that I'll be making numerous direct comparisons between both games to elucidate why I think Mario Sunshine just does not work mechanically and feels bad to play.
Episode 1: Blob Mario is On The Loose
Super Mario 64 released in 1996 and was one of the first major 3D platformers - this is an almost unnecessary statement of fact, but I need to establish the premise that Mario 64 plays extremely well both for a product of its era and for its place in the history and development of 3D gaming. A lot of thought went into designing a control scheme that was both intuitive and felt good to engage with, and Nintendo succeeded so well that Mario 64 established a foundation for 3D platformer controls much in the same way the original Super Mario Bros. served as a watershed moment for 2D platformers.
By contrast, Mario feels notably "off" in Super Mario Sunshine. There is no longer any predictability to his movement, he neither feels like an extension of the player nor a character with his own distinct physicality. Mario is a blob. He animates with so much bounce and jiggle that you might think he's composed entirely of some viscous substance, and though charming from an animation standpoint, he controls every bit as goopy as he looks. This results in an awkward delay to his movements, and the bounding nature of his weight results in numerous misfires when jumping. Try to jump onto the top of a nail or any similarly small object and you'll see what I mean. You'll probably overshoot or undershoot several times before finally dialing it in. Worse case, you'll slide off the damn level.
Perhaps they didn't see the need to refine these controls, or otherwise opted not to intentionally in consideration of F.L.U.D.D., Mario's water-firing backpack and the biggest mechanical addition to Sunshine over its predecessor. F.L.U.D.D. can spray water, which is useful for clearing goop, triggering events, and uncovering blue coins (we'll get to those.) He can also turn into a jetpack, which the player will likely rely upon heavily during platforming sequences. It becomes apparent that F.L.U.D.D. serves as a band-aide for Mario's poor physics when you enter the "secret" stages, which remove F.L.U.D.D. from the equation and force you to jump around the old-fashioned way.
If you sink enough time into Mario Sunshine, you might actually pick up on all its idiosyncrasies and gain some dominion over the beast. You might even start to think it's better than Mario 64. I once got locked inside of a Suncast jumbo storage shed with two crates of graham crackers, and I learned to like them so much that I still eat an entire pack for lunch pretty regularly. This is a psychological phenomenon referred to as the "mere-exposure effect," in which we develop a preference for something due to our familiarity with it. You have been conditioned!
Episode 2: Camera Catastrophe
One thing both games have in common, however, is how the camera is treated as a semi-physical object which occupies the same space as Mario. As such, it has a tendency to get caught on geometry. This is a nuisance in both games, but I would argue it's substantially worse in Sunshine due to it the complexity of its stage design and greater abundance of geometry.
Sunshine attempts to correct for this by providing some level of transparency when the camera hangs behind something, but the way this is implemented - by showing Mario's position, dropping out surrounding platforms, and unhelpfully highlighting NPCs, enemies, and objects with vague question marks - is such a half-measure that its inclusion feels utterly worthless. Trying to wrangle the camera using the C-stick even manages to feel worse in practice than using the Nintendo 64's C-buttons, something I wouldn't have thought possible without getting my hands on Sunshine again.
There is an overall lack of consideration in how levels are constructed, and so the camera will often snag right near the start of platforming sequences or when manually aiming the camera to survey the environment. During Episode 1 of Sirena Beach: The Manta Storm, the camera got stuck on a palm tree while Mario was using his jetpack to douse manta rays, which then multiply like Gremlins. As I was trying to get my bearings, Mario fell onto several manta rays, which caused him to leap back into a puddle of goop, which then caused him to bound forward into more manta rays. Mario's screaming was deafening. I still hear it when I fall asleep.
Episode 3: The Blue Coin Economy
In true collect-a-thon fashion, you enter a variety of different stages all connected by a hub world, but unlike Mario 64 where stars can mostly be collected out of order, Sunshine locks you into a more rigid structure. This is because each area tells its own story, like Noki Bay, whose waters have become toxic and require several attempts to purify, gradually changing the level over time. This is a novel concept which consequently boxes the player into completing a set number of episodes in each world. Not only can you not skip Shines which you might simply find unenjoyable to collect, but you must defeat Shadow Mario in each world in order to complete the game. The 50 Shine minimum to see Sunshine's end credits does not translate to "any 50 Shines will do" and instead means "these specific 50 shines, at least. You can get more for like... fun, I guess?"
There is nothing more "fun, I guess?" than the Blue Coins, which seems to be the one universal sore point for Mario Sunshine even among its defenders. There are 30 of these hidden in each level, and every 10 collected earns you another Shine. Functionally, these are meant to encourage the player to more thoroughly explore each level, drawing them to points of interest that each episode's required path might otherwise force them to skip. This is yet another consequence of the more linear nature of Sunshine. You might end up missing whole chunks of levels because you're never asked to go there, so blue coins provide motivation to branch off, beckoning to you and appealing to that dark desire that exists within all of us to do everything, to do it all.
You should not, though. Please exercise some self-restraint. Sometimes I want to drink an entire 8-pack of NOS, but I don't because I know it would be bad for me. Likewise, you should NEVER collect blue coins. All these get you is a post card at the end of the game. You could just look that up on the Internet. Here, I'll even give it to you free of charge.
The problem with blue coins isn't necessarily how many there are, but that they only contribute to 100% completion. There's no reason to interact with them whatsoever because - as we've established - you cannot complete the game by collecting any Shines you please. If you were to cash in half of the total number of blue coins, then the resulting 12 Shines earned mean absolutely nothing despite the effort it took to collect them. This issue could've been entirely side-stepped if blue coins served another purpose, like upgrading F.L.U.D.D. or unlocking some other form of bonus content which progressively opens up the more you cash in. This would not only keep the incentive to collect them but make them even more worthwhile as skipping any would not be so detrimental.
Oh, and you can't check to see what blue coins you've earned in what levels, the game only marks which levels you found every blue coin in and how many you have total. This just makes hunting for them even more of a pain without a guide and a spreadsheet to track them with, so you don't get confused. Some blue coins also appear only in specific episodes, so you need to make repeated trips into levels as well.
While I think the blue coins speak to larger issues with Sunshine's overall design, they are optional, and I am by my own admission hyper-fixating on them. I guess that's what I get for collecting um... 70% of the things.
And not to be entirely negative, I will say that there is some strong level theming in Sunshine. All of it feeds back into that core Summer aesthetic, placing a focus on locations like sun-bleached villages, beaches, a harbor, and a hotel/casino among other places, rather than adhering to tired tropes like desert or ice levels. Although there is one lava level, Corona Mountain, which is pretty much a straight line with really tepid challenges that ends in a flaccid boss fight. Bit anti-climatic.
Episode 4: The Mario Narrative
Some (me) might call Mario Sunshine an embarrassment and a gross misstep in the mainline Mario series. And some (me) might have even hated it so much at the time of its release that they traded it in for pennies on the dollar to a GameStop the second they finished it. Those very people (ME) may have even checked Ebay since then and lamented the fact that they could've swindled some poor fools out of 75 bucks a few years ago before 3D All-Stars brought prices back down to a more "reasonable" 40$.
We all make mistakes. Even Nintendo.
That's something I've chewed on while reflecting on this game. Would I think so harshly of it if it weren't a Mario game? It would still be bad, certainly, but it wouldn't betray a level of trust or an expectation of quality which the larger Mario series had set. Even a game six years its senior and which released on the edge of 3D gaming hitting the mainstream manages to outstrip it in structure, level design, and even controls. Perhaps that just speaks to how impressive Mario 64 is, but it's not unreasonable to think Nintendo could top it given the time and advances in game development. In 2002, Mario Sunshine downright hurt. Even so, I don't think it's appropriate to grade it on the Mario Scale.
Even if you chalk some it up to a difference in vision - due either to Miyamoto desiring something unique or Koizumi's directorial style - simple things like the way Mario plays should feel far more refined. Instead, Sunshine is sloppy game, one that uses Mario 64's bones and constructs them into something familiar but all too crude.
BUT IS IT A SUMMAH GAME?
man i don't give a shit
One of the detriments of having unskippable 10 minute cutscene at the beginning of the game is that it makes starting over a slog and limit the child player from being able to enjoy their new 'toy'.
One of the positives of a 10 minute unskippable cutscene though is it makes it feel cinematic if you do a decent job of it. The turbulence private plane ride opener with peach, F.L.U.D.D. yapping about how horrible everything is, and Bowser tearing up with his bastard son makes it feel so unnecessarily cinematic it might as well be a movie for me.
Which it is, when people bring up the mario movie, this is all I'll think about and all I'll want to think about. Bless up F.L.U.D.D. I hope they are doing well. I miss the lil dude. They should stop dicking around and make a SM Sunshine 2 already.
One of the positives of a 10 minute unskippable cutscene though is it makes it feel cinematic if you do a decent job of it. The turbulence private plane ride opener with peach, F.L.U.D.D. yapping about how horrible everything is, and Bowser tearing up with his bastard son makes it feel so unnecessarily cinematic it might as well be a movie for me.
Which it is, when people bring up the mario movie, this is all I'll think about and all I'll want to think about. Bless up F.L.U.D.D. I hope they are doing well. I miss the lil dude. They should stop dicking around and make a SM Sunshine 2 already.
mario pissing game adaptation
Over the years I've attempted to play Mario Sunshine a number of times and with every attempt I got further but ultimately I would end up dropping it due to not vibing with the controls. I don't think the Fludd was a good replacement for the long jump or the crouch jump. The freedom of doing any level whenever the player feels like is totally gone instead forcing you go through the first seven shines in each level no matter how monotonous or just downright terrible they are. Aesthetically the game is nice and to be fair the first few levels were fine. The frustration didn't set in until the second half of the game with the last three levels. Also is it just me or is the camera worse here than in Mario 64?
The most charming game of all time. I love the absolutely idiotic enemy names. Hey bro it’s me Bussy Popping Stu here. Only issue is that I have an inexplicable phobia of Bowser Jr. I also hate the Koopalings. Only good Bowser kids are the ones from Mario Party. The implied turtle human sex is funny though.
i can't remember if i heard someone say it or if i'd said it first, but the best way i can describe super mario sunshine is "if sonic team was allowed to make a mario game, for better and for worse". let's start with positives, because i do think there are some great things at play here.
the aesthetic and presentation is top-notch. i love the vibrant, warm palette this game uses. those melty oranges, pinks and reds juxtaposed with cool ocean blues and tropic beiges and greens give sunshine a cohesion and identity completely its own. i don't mind that the entire game is this setting; in fact, i think it's incredibly creative with how aspects of the tropical setting are highlighted throughout the game. robust docksides, molten volcanoes, haunted resorts... it's affable and presents with pure soul front to back. the early levels, particularly the first two, have that combination of linear structure with sandbox potential that keeps them feeling fresh for your entire run through them, and very reminiscent of the appeal of 64's level design. i think when fludd is implemented optimally, some of the platforming challenges and exploration that becomes feasible is pretty remarkable in its scale, and in theory gives every level the potential to be a tall tall mountain or a thwomp's fortress.
unfortunately, this is where the sonic team comparison hits full stride, and the charm and conceptual virtue hit a wall thanks to the rushed, janky, and flawed-from-the-outline execution. where super mario 64 allowed for unprecedented (and dare i say unmatched) freedom in how, when, and what the player engages with each stage, sunshine demands the majority of missions, even the tedious and egregious as generally agreed upon by most players, to be completed in order for any major progress towards new stages to be allowed. levels may have you in a stronghold with excruciating missions over and over when all you want to do is progress to the next stage with next to nothing you can do about it. not to mention, the rushed development bears its fangs harder the longer you sink into sunshine's depths. the final stage is outright unfinished, and the preceding stages aren't much better. every so often the game will hit you with gimmick levels, like the fludd-less platforming stages, the infamous sandbird or blooper racing, but these mechanics are so underdeveloped and the controls so clearly not set up with these in mind that it often feels like the game is working against you. uninspired, repetitive boss battles culminating in one i actually asked "that's IT???" aloud to my friend as the post-fight cutscene rolled don't exactly incentivize much in the way of desire to continue past the ending... and considering 100%ing mario sunshine is an actual of self-flagellation in and of itself, i'd say you're better off letting that sleeping dog lie.
like much of nintendo's gamecube support, a conceptually interesting and distinct entry meant to spark a revitalization of a longstanding franchise to extremely esoteric effect. this one doesn't shine the brightest.
the aesthetic and presentation is top-notch. i love the vibrant, warm palette this game uses. those melty oranges, pinks and reds juxtaposed with cool ocean blues and tropic beiges and greens give sunshine a cohesion and identity completely its own. i don't mind that the entire game is this setting; in fact, i think it's incredibly creative with how aspects of the tropical setting are highlighted throughout the game. robust docksides, molten volcanoes, haunted resorts... it's affable and presents with pure soul front to back. the early levels, particularly the first two, have that combination of linear structure with sandbox potential that keeps them feeling fresh for your entire run through them, and very reminiscent of the appeal of 64's level design. i think when fludd is implemented optimally, some of the platforming challenges and exploration that becomes feasible is pretty remarkable in its scale, and in theory gives every level the potential to be a tall tall mountain or a thwomp's fortress.
unfortunately, this is where the sonic team comparison hits full stride, and the charm and conceptual virtue hit a wall thanks to the rushed, janky, and flawed-from-the-outline execution. where super mario 64 allowed for unprecedented (and dare i say unmatched) freedom in how, when, and what the player engages with each stage, sunshine demands the majority of missions, even the tedious and egregious as generally agreed upon by most players, to be completed in order for any major progress towards new stages to be allowed. levels may have you in a stronghold with excruciating missions over and over when all you want to do is progress to the next stage with next to nothing you can do about it. not to mention, the rushed development bears its fangs harder the longer you sink into sunshine's depths. the final stage is outright unfinished, and the preceding stages aren't much better. every so often the game will hit you with gimmick levels, like the fludd-less platforming stages, the infamous sandbird or blooper racing, but these mechanics are so underdeveloped and the controls so clearly not set up with these in mind that it often feels like the game is working against you. uninspired, repetitive boss battles culminating in one i actually asked "that's IT???" aloud to my friend as the post-fight cutscene rolled don't exactly incentivize much in the way of desire to continue past the ending... and considering 100%ing mario sunshine is an actual of self-flagellation in and of itself, i'd say you're better off letting that sleeping dog lie.
like much of nintendo's gamecube support, a conceptually interesting and distinct entry meant to spark a revitalization of a longstanding franchise to extremely esoteric effect. this one doesn't shine the brightest.
hating this game is simply a skill issue
I don't think anyone expected the sequel to Super Mario 64 to be anything like this. As if the staff at Nintendo went on an extended drug binge and one of them said "guys, what if Mario went to Italy with a water pistol?" and then after a bunch of laughter and sobering up, they ran with it for an entire game. But here we are, and coming back to Sunshine after many years, I like it more than ever for how weird and un-Nintendo it feels.
Most Nintendo games are finished for one. This has a real patchwork feel to it, a leaking bucket plugged up with what feels like test levels and blue coins, two hundred and fucking forty of them to be exact. So many moments in this game made me go full AVGN, turn to the side and say "what the fuck were they thinking??" into an invisible camera, because they were rushed to the point the difficulty in many places wasn't tested at all. Compared to the round planet of Galaxy, there's sharp edges all over the place here.
But despite their desperate attempts to reach 120 shines, there's a very solid core here. There's never been a Mario game so committed to creating what feels like it could be a real place; levels that blend sensical environmental details with totally ludicrous geometry end up coming across really well. I think the success of Isle Delfino is one of the game's biggest strengths, trading out the variety of Super Mario 64 for levels more considered and consistent. It also helps that Mario is super fun to control here. I was shocked to remember you can't even crouch in this game, never mind long jump, but the addition of FLUDD and the spin jump keeps the platforming engaging, pushing you to challenge yourself. Having said that, it's definitely part of a downward trend towards making Mario easier, but less satisfying, to control which continues into Galaxy.
So yeah. I had a really cool time with it. Just don't go for every blue coin, it's not worth it.
Most Nintendo games are finished for one. This has a real patchwork feel to it, a leaking bucket plugged up with what feels like test levels and blue coins, two hundred and fucking forty of them to be exact. So many moments in this game made me go full AVGN, turn to the side and say "what the fuck were they thinking??" into an invisible camera, because they were rushed to the point the difficulty in many places wasn't tested at all. Compared to the round planet of Galaxy, there's sharp edges all over the place here.
But despite their desperate attempts to reach 120 shines, there's a very solid core here. There's never been a Mario game so committed to creating what feels like it could be a real place; levels that blend sensical environmental details with totally ludicrous geometry end up coming across really well. I think the success of Isle Delfino is one of the game's biggest strengths, trading out the variety of Super Mario 64 for levels more considered and consistent. It also helps that Mario is super fun to control here. I was shocked to remember you can't even crouch in this game, never mind long jump, but the addition of FLUDD and the spin jump keeps the platforming engaging, pushing you to challenge yourself. Having said that, it's definitely part of a downward trend towards making Mario easier, but less satisfying, to control which continues into Galaxy.
So yeah. I had a really cool time with it. Just don't go for every blue coin, it's not worth it.
I kind of braced myself for "imminent cringe" with this one, based on the weirdly sour takes people tend to have on it (mainly from fans of other 3D Mario games); I never had problems with the infamous Pachinko Machine or the Lilypad Reds when I was a kid, but I wondered if I just blocked it out of my memory or something. Upon this replay, however, I had 0 issues with Pachinko Machine and one death on Lilypad Reds, which gives Lilypad Reds a spot in a like 6-way tie in 2nd place for most deaths in this game (1), while first in most deaths is the deservedly infamous Pianta Village secret level with the Chucksters. "I'm a Chuckster!!" ... shudders. Anyways, after the main playthrough going for 100%, I died the most on Rico Harbor trying to get the red coins while surfing on the Blooper(?)
I think the "plot" is utterly ridiculous but it's also really funny, there's also a surprising amount of flavor text from all of the different Piantas and Nokis, with only a few points of "unfinished"-ness feeling from some of them still retaining their dialogue from the very beginning of the game despite events progressing. There's also this air of sarcasm in a couple exchanges, like the hotel owner on Serena Beach saying something along the lines of "We were hoping to trick you-- I mean, we were hoping you'd help us out in the hotel.", little things like that which I associate with this era of Nintendo, with quippy (witty?) dialogue like this peaking in Luigi's Mansion (imo). I highly encourage players to take their time and smell the roses here, there's a lot of nice little details in the dialogue that almost no other Mario games have attempted in this capacity since.
The controls are incredibly tight for Mario's base movement kit, with Fludd being used to varying degrees of success but one thing that's used here surprisingly a lot is the analog aspect of the triggers, it makes doing goo cleanup runs a lot easier when you have a gentle half-press of the trigger and can keep running with Fludd. While I think the movement kit makes up for it in a lot of ways, I do agree that not having a long jump is kind of a bummer, I don't think putting "strafe" in the game was remotely necessary and the mechanic is never utilized for anything specific. I still think it's an excellent kit overall though, with my only gripe being that needing to go to the boxes to swap nozzles is a bit of a drag; a quick-swap for unlocked nozzles in a stage would do wonders.
I generally really like the level design throughout, I appreciate that more than most Mario games these feel like places that are inhabited rather than glorified obstacle courses; something they've tried to casually lean into as "oh yeah of course everyone uses cannons and airships and slip pipes in casual day to day traversal" with games like 3D World and Odyssey (tho Odyssey balances it significantly better). I also appreciate that instead of just repeating SM64's thing, they did more with the individual shines, ranging from fairly minor to drastically different level-altering "episodes". The one thing that bugs me about the game progression-wise isn't necessarily the relatively "linear" level unlock progression compared to SM64, but having to just chase down Shadow Mario in every single stage to get to the finale is pretty lame; I'm not sure why they didn't just go with a shine sprite goal instead, especially since the Shadow Mario levels in the back half levels are pretty trivial. The worst level and shine is probably Gelato Beach and the Watermelon Festival shine. The Chuckster level is a close 2nd on principle alone. Pachinko and Lilypad haters are weak.
While I think the 100% is miserable, I'm not going to let that affect my rating here because I don't recommend most people do 100%s for Mario games anyways. They've always been mediocre at best and terrible at worst. Sunshine was a pleasantly surprising playthrough for me, maybe enhanced a bit by playing it at 60FPS, but I don't understand people screeching over stuff like the Pachinko Machine because Watchmojo made a top 10 worst Mario levels list 10 years ago or whatever. My favorite piece from the OST probably. Update: Actually this one lol
I think the "plot" is utterly ridiculous but it's also really funny, there's also a surprising amount of flavor text from all of the different Piantas and Nokis, with only a few points of "unfinished"-ness feeling from some of them still retaining their dialogue from the very beginning of the game despite events progressing. There's also this air of sarcasm in a couple exchanges, like the hotel owner on Serena Beach saying something along the lines of "We were hoping to trick you-- I mean, we were hoping you'd help us out in the hotel.", little things like that which I associate with this era of Nintendo, with quippy (witty?) dialogue like this peaking in Luigi's Mansion (imo). I highly encourage players to take their time and smell the roses here, there's a lot of nice little details in the dialogue that almost no other Mario games have attempted in this capacity since.
The controls are incredibly tight for Mario's base movement kit, with Fludd being used to varying degrees of success but one thing that's used here surprisingly a lot is the analog aspect of the triggers, it makes doing goo cleanup runs a lot easier when you have a gentle half-press of the trigger and can keep running with Fludd. While I think the movement kit makes up for it in a lot of ways, I do agree that not having a long jump is kind of a bummer, I don't think putting "strafe" in the game was remotely necessary and the mechanic is never utilized for anything specific. I still think it's an excellent kit overall though, with my only gripe being that needing to go to the boxes to swap nozzles is a bit of a drag; a quick-swap for unlocked nozzles in a stage would do wonders.
I generally really like the level design throughout, I appreciate that more than most Mario games these feel like places that are inhabited rather than glorified obstacle courses; something they've tried to casually lean into as "oh yeah of course everyone uses cannons and airships and slip pipes in casual day to day traversal" with games like 3D World and Odyssey (tho Odyssey balances it significantly better). I also appreciate that instead of just repeating SM64's thing, they did more with the individual shines, ranging from fairly minor to drastically different level-altering "episodes". The one thing that bugs me about the game progression-wise isn't necessarily the relatively "linear" level unlock progression compared to SM64, but having to just chase down Shadow Mario in every single stage to get to the finale is pretty lame; I'm not sure why they didn't just go with a shine sprite goal instead, especially since the Shadow Mario levels in the back half levels are pretty trivial. The worst level and shine is probably Gelato Beach and the Watermelon Festival shine. The Chuckster level is a close 2nd on principle alone. Pachinko and Lilypad haters are weak.
While I think the 100% is miserable, I'm not going to let that affect my rating here because I don't recommend most people do 100%s for Mario games anyways. They've always been mediocre at best and terrible at worst. Sunshine was a pleasantly surprising playthrough for me, maybe enhanced a bit by playing it at 60FPS, but I don't understand people screeching over stuff like the Pachinko Machine because Watchmojo made a top 10 worst Mario levels list 10 years ago or whatever. My favorite piece from the OST probably. Update: Actually this one lol
It's a bit baffling to realize that Super Mario Sunshine is such a polarizing and maligned entry in the series for so many players. Playing it nowadays, it's hard to not fall in love with it's beautiful tropical vacation presentation and full commitment to it, despite its shortcomings.
Sunshine builds up on the foundation set up by the revolutionary Super Mario 64, giving the player a vast choice of movement options to tackle each stage of the game, with simple inputs for newcomers and a high skill ceiling for veterans.
Sunshine ditches out the long jump from 64, but it more than makes up for it with the introduction of it's main gimmick: the F.L.U.U.D., a water pack that Mario carries with him that let's him use water for a multitude of actions. With the fluud you get to hover around for a few secs to long distance platforms and to adjust your position, shoot water at enemies or at the floor so you can slide on it to go faster, and use it as both an horizontal or vertical rocket that shoots you at high speeds. This new mechanic feels right at home with Sunshine's more vast and expansive levels.
Sunshine is unique in the 3D Mario canon by building a much more cohesive and connected selection of stages that all revolve around the same thematic aesthetic. The stages don't just feel like abstracted platforming locations solely made for the player, instead having in-world purpose and sense. Pinna Park is just a functional amusement park where the moving platforms are main attractions you would go on in real life, Bianco Hills is a regular village with windmills and and a lake that you can explore around, and Ricco Harbor is just a port with many scaffoldings and boats to jump around in. This focus on establishing Delfino Island as a real place you can go to really gives Sunshine a very strong identity and creativeness that makes it stand out from the rest of the franchise.
Unfortunately, there's definitely some problems with Sunshine. The progression structure makes it so you can't just tackle what Shines you want to advance and beat the game, unlike Mario 64, restricting the player to the same Shines every playthrough. There's a sense that the fluud had potential for more than what we got, considering the limited nozzle options and the lack of underwater levels that could have made use of it. And yes, there are some Shines that are absolute stinkers. The Pachinko level is janked beyond belief, not being possible to fully excel or perfect it. The watermelon mission will test your patience to the limit. And the lilypad lvel will be one of the most infurating and unfair time wasters you will ever experience in your life that will make you wanna throw the controller at a wall.
But I don't see how those few unfortunate events in Sunshine cast this entry as the "black sheep" of the series. It's still a standout in the still untouched 3D Mario series, and represents a vision that I wish more Mario games would tap into in the future. Don't listen to the haters, give this one a go.
Sunshine builds up on the foundation set up by the revolutionary Super Mario 64, giving the player a vast choice of movement options to tackle each stage of the game, with simple inputs for newcomers and a high skill ceiling for veterans.
Sunshine ditches out the long jump from 64, but it more than makes up for it with the introduction of it's main gimmick: the F.L.U.U.D., a water pack that Mario carries with him that let's him use water for a multitude of actions. With the fluud you get to hover around for a few secs to long distance platforms and to adjust your position, shoot water at enemies or at the floor so you can slide on it to go faster, and use it as both an horizontal or vertical rocket that shoots you at high speeds. This new mechanic feels right at home with Sunshine's more vast and expansive levels.
Sunshine is unique in the 3D Mario canon by building a much more cohesive and connected selection of stages that all revolve around the same thematic aesthetic. The stages don't just feel like abstracted platforming locations solely made for the player, instead having in-world purpose and sense. Pinna Park is just a functional amusement park where the moving platforms are main attractions you would go on in real life, Bianco Hills is a regular village with windmills and and a lake that you can explore around, and Ricco Harbor is just a port with many scaffoldings and boats to jump around in. This focus on establishing Delfino Island as a real place you can go to really gives Sunshine a very strong identity and creativeness that makes it stand out from the rest of the franchise.
Unfortunately, there's definitely some problems with Sunshine. The progression structure makes it so you can't just tackle what Shines you want to advance and beat the game, unlike Mario 64, restricting the player to the same Shines every playthrough. There's a sense that the fluud had potential for more than what we got, considering the limited nozzle options and the lack of underwater levels that could have made use of it. And yes, there are some Shines that are absolute stinkers. The Pachinko level is janked beyond belief, not being possible to fully excel or perfect it. The watermelon mission will test your patience to the limit. And the lilypad lvel will be one of the most infurating and unfair time wasters you will ever experience in your life that will make you wanna throw the controller at a wall.
But I don't see how those few unfortunate events in Sunshine cast this entry as the "black sheep" of the series. It's still a standout in the still untouched 3D Mario series, and represents a vision that I wish more Mario games would tap into in the future. Don't listen to the haters, give this one a go.
Si un gringo opina que Sunshine es el peor Mario, no estoy de acuerdo
Si un gringo habla de lo mal que la paso con el pachinko, ignoro
Si un gringo pierde todas sus vidas en Corona Mountain, me río
Si Mario Sunshine tiene 100 fanáticos, yo soy uno de ellos
Si Mario Sunshine tiene 1 fan, yo soy ese fan
Si Mario Sunshine no tiene a alguien que lo banque, es porque ya no estoy en este mundo
Si un gringo habla de lo mal que la paso con el pachinko, ignoro
Si un gringo pierde todas sus vidas en Corona Mountain, me río
Si Mario Sunshine tiene 100 fanáticos, yo soy uno de ellos
Si Mario Sunshine tiene 1 fan, yo soy ese fan
Si Mario Sunshine no tiene a alguien que lo banque, es porque ya no estoy en este mundo
Odd take, probably because this wasn't my first 3D Mario game, but the movement in this game feels very clunky and janky at times, it was still fun, but it felt kinda bullshit sometimes.