Super Mario Sunshine develops upon SM64 in some compelling ways. It manages to have the same expressive, fluid movement that SM64 does whilst making it also so distinctly different both from SM64's movement but also from the movement systems of any other 3d platformer of the time thanks to the integration of FLUDD, which in turn leads to these compelling extreme cases of verticality. Probably the most meaningful and enjoyable thing going on here is that unlike in SM64 where stages feel very abstract, here the main stages feel like believable spaces making them much more enjoyable to just exist in. There are some really fun moments to be had here just manoeuvring around these levels and enjoying the easy-going mood of this island and in this regard Sunshine feels like a big step forward from SM64.
Unfortunately at some point you have to actually try and progress in the game, instead of just messing around in these inviting spaces, and at that point Sunshine rapidly falls apart. The secret levels, where you lose FLUDD and have to traverse piles of moving blocks in a more traditional style, are a nice idea in terms of re-contextualising your move-set and abilities, but it often feels that unlike in SM64 here Mario literally isn't designed with these sorts of challenges in mind, and on top of that there's such a bizarre, surreal, almost-ugly aesthetic to them that they almost feel unfinished and thrown-together. Some of the novelty levels suffer similarly in terms of feeling unfinished, and are even just outright buggy at points (the pachinko machine is the obvious example here, but another one of these levels had me clip around a wall to my death multiple times).
Mini-bosses that are interesting to fight exactly once are re-used a few times with minimal changes. There's zero indication of how many blue coins you've found in any individual level. You're able to access levels you're literally unable to complete yet with no indication you can't complete them; I was allowed into a level that required a Yoshi to complete, didn't know I needed to unlock Yoshi elsewhere first in order for the egg to spawn, and so spent ten minutes wandering around trying to figure out where on earth its egg could possibly be. FLUDD is really not built for some of the more precision-focused aiming challenges (a part in "The Secret of Casino Delfino" relating to this is egregious and miserable and I'm glad I had friends hanging out with me to mock it with), and hit-boxes are just kind of garbage sometimes. The races are all just trivially easy, as are many of the Shadow Mario chases, which makes the harsh difficulty spikes the game has all the more jarring by contrast. There are just so many sprites in the game, even outside of the secrets, that are just so bizarrely, clearly not-fun either in terms of these difficulty spikes or just various design elements, and it's rough that they end up taking up a vast bulk of your playtime (in addition to the aforementioned "The Secret of Casino Delfino", I found "Yoshi's Fruit Adventure" and "The Watermelon Festival" particularly frustrating to the point where I just abandoned both of them).
If Super Mario Sunshine had ended on a more compelling note maybe I'd be more forgiving towards it, but the final mountain sequence has basically no redeeming qualities, especially when contrasted with how the Bowser levels in SM64 were among the highlights of that game in terms of platforming, and the final boss felt like such a strange anti-climax to me. It's frustrating because I do think Super Mario Sunshine has some really cool ideas, iterates nicely upon the groundwork that SM64 laid, and just has some really enjoyable vibes to it, but the low-points are so low and such a mess that it's very hard for me to really think about the game in positive terms.
Unfortunately at some point you have to actually try and progress in the game, instead of just messing around in these inviting spaces, and at that point Sunshine rapidly falls apart. The secret levels, where you lose FLUDD and have to traverse piles of moving blocks in a more traditional style, are a nice idea in terms of re-contextualising your move-set and abilities, but it often feels that unlike in SM64 here Mario literally isn't designed with these sorts of challenges in mind, and on top of that there's such a bizarre, surreal, almost-ugly aesthetic to them that they almost feel unfinished and thrown-together. Some of the novelty levels suffer similarly in terms of feeling unfinished, and are even just outright buggy at points (the pachinko machine is the obvious example here, but another one of these levels had me clip around a wall to my death multiple times).
Mini-bosses that are interesting to fight exactly once are re-used a few times with minimal changes. There's zero indication of how many blue coins you've found in any individual level. You're able to access levels you're literally unable to complete yet with no indication you can't complete them; I was allowed into a level that required a Yoshi to complete, didn't know I needed to unlock Yoshi elsewhere first in order for the egg to spawn, and so spent ten minutes wandering around trying to figure out where on earth its egg could possibly be. FLUDD is really not built for some of the more precision-focused aiming challenges (a part in "The Secret of Casino Delfino" relating to this is egregious and miserable and I'm glad I had friends hanging out with me to mock it with), and hit-boxes are just kind of garbage sometimes. The races are all just trivially easy, as are many of the Shadow Mario chases, which makes the harsh difficulty spikes the game has all the more jarring by contrast. There are just so many sprites in the game, even outside of the secrets, that are just so bizarrely, clearly not-fun either in terms of these difficulty spikes or just various design elements, and it's rough that they end up taking up a vast bulk of your playtime (in addition to the aforementioned "The Secret of Casino Delfino", I found "Yoshi's Fruit Adventure" and "The Watermelon Festival" particularly frustrating to the point where I just abandoned both of them).
If Super Mario Sunshine had ended on a more compelling note maybe I'd be more forgiving towards it, but the final mountain sequence has basically no redeeming qualities, especially when contrasted with how the Bowser levels in SM64 were among the highlights of that game in terms of platforming, and the final boss felt like such a strange anti-climax to me. It's frustrating because I do think Super Mario Sunshine has some really cool ideas, iterates nicely upon the groundwork that SM64 laid, and just has some really enjoyable vibes to it, but the low-points are so low and such a mess that it's very hard for me to really think about the game in positive terms.