Via Super Mario 3D All-Stars on Switch

With the Gamecube being my first console ever, it may come as a surprise to most that I’ve never played this one. Being in 2nd grade, and my brother being in 6th, I was susceptible to his assessment of quality and he was susceptible to the assessment of peers, which was almost always informed by the assessment of jaded lifers who couldn’t handle a little change and were skeptical/sour out the gate of the indigo lunchbox. So we passed. It wasn’t particularly missed in our home, and I don’t think it would have been cherished, regardless. My brother’s never cared for platformers, and my earliest Gamecube memories are already dominated by games I could never master anyway.
Almost certainly with the benefit of hindsight, and seeing that the overall-clad plumber is doing just fine in our modern era, I can confidently say Sunshine was an experiment well-conceived and well-executed. Perhaps they were wary of forcing an annoying sidekick down the player’s throat, but I could have actually gone for some more dialogue and interaction with F.L.U.D.D.
The hub world was fun, the tropical setting distinct enough to set a tone but broad enough to provide a variety of engaging levels, and there just wasn’t a time I picked up the controller that the world felt like a downer. As nostalgic as it is for many, this was a major drawback of Super Mario 64, with sparse NPCs and vacuous, liminal spaces. Isle Delfino, meanwhile, is full of Lil Dudes who may have their troubles but still bop along through the day.
The controls are tighter than 64, and while I still fell to my spacey doom plenty of times, I felt a much greater sense of command and security in my movements throughout this game.
It may have taken a couple decades, but I’m glad to have finally picked this up, especially at a time when I can appreciate it fully. Despite some shortcomings (Corona Mountain), I’d call this one an all-timer, with a setting that deserves more recognition and reference across Mario media.
Remember the day the sun dimmed.
Remember how it shone again.
Forget not Isle Delfino.

A charming, fun little relic of early 90s Lucasarts. I was in a mood for an easy platinum I could feel fairly guiltless about using a walkthrough for, and this offered to scratch that itch exactly. I didn't deviate from the walkthrough much at all, functionally making this a low-stress speed run, so I may redownload it sometime down the line to just enjoy poking around some more. I'm a sucker for 2D point-and-clicks like this, and it has such a distinctive identity about itself that it's hard not to think of fondly. Truly humbling to imagine having to solve these puzzles on my own, though.

People, including the developers, have been quick to talk about this game in the same breath as A Short Hike. Guess I need to play that one.
This game is a reset for the soul. I can’t think of anyone not enjoying it. Endlessly charming, jarringly innocent. How can a game be so good-natured?
Just like the perfect fall day, it is refreshing, inspiring, breezy in a way that triggers all the warmth you’ve ever felt, and so brief you spend the rest of your life chasing after it like the perfect orange leaf, only to be reminded that true beauty is in the spectrum of shades.

Having grown up on Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on Gamecube, I always felt a bit left in the dark as far as Sonic lore was concerned. While I’m not foolish enough to claim that I’m now fully up to speed (no pun intended), I do feel more enriched by this experience. Really fun seeing these early-ish iterations on hub worlds and what was surely a dynamic story approach for the time, having distinct characters whose stories weave through one another with unique play styles. While I’ve grown up taking Super Sonic for granted, that debut was still pretty great, and I’d love to see this storyline adapted for the big screen. The rich, mystical lore of Sonic seen here and in the classic Archie comics deserve to be enjoyed in all their thorough absurdity.