I played more of this game this week than I have since I was a kid; I did not beat it, but I do think I've ran out of patience for it, for the time being.
This might be the fastest, tightest handling that Mario has had in a 3D game, but there isn't a single environment that this control feels natural in. It's similar to how the speed increase and expanded moveset of the Switch version of 3D World completely changes the feel of that game, but here it isn't even clear how the pieces were meant to fit. It feels like they moved fast and broke stuff and never got a chance to put it back together. They ripped out half of Mario's moves and replaced them with this crazy new idea, and FLUDD does certainly have moments when it's utilized well, but it really feels stapled on. The level design mostly suffers in the same way that World does compared to the NES games, Mario's greater capacity for midair correction results in spaces without focus.
And yet nearly a quarter of the main shines are secret areas that do try to give more directed, linear platforming challenges, and they take these corrective maneuvers away! Without these Mario's options are far too limited, yet in these moments Sunshine may require more precision than any other 3D Mario game. The lack of a long-jump is a point of contention, some say it should be here, some say it would be overpowered when combined with FLUDD; I say the game isn't remotely put-together enough for these kinds of balance concerns to matter, and that the long-jump's absence is the least of my concerns. Mario no longer has the somersault, he has no safe way to get air, you either need the space to sideflip or take a gamble on whether a spin-jump will send you in the right direction. Mario no longer has the mid-air kick to halt himself in midair. If you overshoot by a hair in these secret areas, you are dead. In SM64, the dive was dependent on Mario's speed, here pressing the B button in midair launches him forward from a complete horizontal standstill (I certainly appreciate now that future games require pressing Z+B, which is a much more deliberate input).
And yet sometimes I prefer the secret levels, because at the very least failing one doesn't boot you out of the level. In SM64 if you run into a wall while riding a koopa shell, you fall off; in Sunshine if you run into a wall while riding a blooper, you die and get booted out. In SM64 if you loose a race with Koopa the Quick, he says "better luck next time!" and you can exit the level yourself or explore and find another star. In Sunshine, if you lose a race with Il Piantissimo, you die and get booted out. When you get booted out in SM64, Mario says "Mama Mia!", stands up, and you jump back in and select the star again. In Sunshine, you get a cutscene reintroducing you to Delfino plaza, you jump back in, you select the shine, you get another cutscene showing off the level. All of these is punctuated by time-consuming (though admittedly stylish) animations and short, but very much extant, loading from disc. I you do get a game over in a secret stage, heaven forbid, you'll often have quite a trek to go through to get back.
The game has a lot of stuff that we just don't see in a lot of other Mario games. It has a unique, consistent setting that we only see again in pretty small doses in the Galaxy games. It has a number of what could be described as "physics puzzles" where games both before and after would focus almost entirely on discrete actions. It has a roster of mostly new enemies, and what enemies do return from other games do so with a unique appearance. It implies continuity with Luigi's Mansion in a way that feels more "real" than some of the easter eggs we see in the RPGs and such. It's not hard to see why people like it, and even I find a lot to enjoy; it's one of very few GameCube games I care enough about to keep in Dolphin, but it's also a game I care about enough to be bothered by how different it feels playing in an emulator with an Xbox controller. Even so I think this is without a doubt one of the weakest entries in the series.
I think my single favorite think about the game is the "text boxes". What other game puts the dialogue on curved lines like this, how many other games put their dialogue in something that isn't just a literal box, period?
This might be the fastest, tightest handling that Mario has had in a 3D game, but there isn't a single environment that this control feels natural in. It's similar to how the speed increase and expanded moveset of the Switch version of 3D World completely changes the feel of that game, but here it isn't even clear how the pieces were meant to fit. It feels like they moved fast and broke stuff and never got a chance to put it back together. They ripped out half of Mario's moves and replaced them with this crazy new idea, and FLUDD does certainly have moments when it's utilized well, but it really feels stapled on. The level design mostly suffers in the same way that World does compared to the NES games, Mario's greater capacity for midair correction results in spaces without focus.
And yet nearly a quarter of the main shines are secret areas that do try to give more directed, linear platforming challenges, and they take these corrective maneuvers away! Without these Mario's options are far too limited, yet in these moments Sunshine may require more precision than any other 3D Mario game. The lack of a long-jump is a point of contention, some say it should be here, some say it would be overpowered when combined with FLUDD; I say the game isn't remotely put-together enough for these kinds of balance concerns to matter, and that the long-jump's absence is the least of my concerns. Mario no longer has the somersault, he has no safe way to get air, you either need the space to sideflip or take a gamble on whether a spin-jump will send you in the right direction. Mario no longer has the mid-air kick to halt himself in midair. If you overshoot by a hair in these secret areas, you are dead. In SM64, the dive was dependent on Mario's speed, here pressing the B button in midair launches him forward from a complete horizontal standstill (I certainly appreciate now that future games require pressing Z+B, which is a much more deliberate input).
And yet sometimes I prefer the secret levels, because at the very least failing one doesn't boot you out of the level. In SM64 if you run into a wall while riding a koopa shell, you fall off; in Sunshine if you run into a wall while riding a blooper, you die and get booted out. In SM64 if you loose a race with Koopa the Quick, he says "better luck next time!" and you can exit the level yourself or explore and find another star. In Sunshine, if you lose a race with Il Piantissimo, you die and get booted out. When you get booted out in SM64, Mario says "Mama Mia!", stands up, and you jump back in and select the star again. In Sunshine, you get a cutscene reintroducing you to Delfino plaza, you jump back in, you select the shine, you get another cutscene showing off the level. All of these is punctuated by time-consuming (though admittedly stylish) animations and short, but very much extant, loading from disc. I you do get a game over in a secret stage, heaven forbid, you'll often have quite a trek to go through to get back.
The game has a lot of stuff that we just don't see in a lot of other Mario games. It has a unique, consistent setting that we only see again in pretty small doses in the Galaxy games. It has a number of what could be described as "physics puzzles" where games both before and after would focus almost entirely on discrete actions. It has a roster of mostly new enemies, and what enemies do return from other games do so with a unique appearance. It implies continuity with Luigi's Mansion in a way that feels more "real" than some of the easter eggs we see in the RPGs and such. It's not hard to see why people like it, and even I find a lot to enjoy; it's one of very few GameCube games I care enough about to keep in Dolphin, but it's also a game I care about enough to be bothered by how different it feels playing in an emulator with an Xbox controller. Even so I think this is without a doubt one of the weakest entries in the series.
I think my single favorite think about the game is the "text boxes". What other game puts the dialogue on curved lines like this, how many other games put their dialogue in something that isn't just a literal box, period?