Super Mario 3D All Stars Part 2: Super Mario Sunshine

If you read part one of this little mini series you'll know that I didn't own a Nintendo 64 growing up. I didn't own any Nintendo console when I was a little kid, aside from a Game Boy but everyone owned that, and it's not like I could choose which console I would get since I was only little. But when the sixth generation of consoles rolled around I was old enough to decide which system I wanted and I knew exactly which one I was gonna get, the Nintendo GameCube. Why? Because I wanted a console with Mario on it. No joke, that was the reason. Hey cut me some slack I was ten.

So on Christmas 2002, I got up to open my presents and there under the tree was a GameCube and a handful of games. I still remember all the games I got too. I got Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Super Monkey Ball, 18 Wheeler, Burnout, Driven was there for some ungodly reason and of course there was Super Mario Sunshine, the very game I got the system for. I got the game I wanted but, well you know the phrase “be careful what you wish for”?

But let's not get into that right now. Super Mario 64 was a huge success for Nintendo so a sequel to it made sense. Several ideas and concepts were tossed around including the infamous Mario 128 demo that would later evolve into Pikmin but nothing really got off the ground. Super Mario Sunshine was the follow up to Mario 64 and was released on the Nintendo GameCube in 2002. Strangely enough it was not a launch title despite every other Nintendo console launching with a Mario game. I mean we had Luigi's Mansion but that's not the same thing. The GameCube was a very experimental time for Nintendo and Super Mario Sunshine is no exception. This is one of the strangest Mario games in the series likely owing to the fact that this was the first main series Mario game not to be directed by series creators Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. But I've prattled on long enough, let's take a look at Super Mario Sunshine and see how strange it is.

Mario and Princess Peach, having had enough of all the constant kidnapping shenanigans, have decided to take a much needed vacation on the tropical paradise of Isle Delfino. But when they arrive they find out that someone has been going around polluting the island with a paint like substance, someone who looks an awful lot like Mario. Despite having just arrived the inhabitants still blame Mario for all this and force him to clean up the island with the talking water pump F.L.U.D.D, that's Flash Liquidising Ultra Dowsing Device. The thing is the pollution isn't just messing up the serene beauty of the island, it's also caused the islands guardians, the Shine Sprites, to vanish leaving the island in perpetual darkness. To make matters worse, the actual perpetrator behind all of this kidnaps Princess Peach. It turns out this Mario imposter, dubbed Shadow Mario, was Bowser Jr. the son of the Koopa King who has been led to believe that Peach is his mother. So now Mario has to clean up the island, find the Shine Sprites and rescue Princess Peach. Some vacation huh.

That's a pretty unique set up for a Mario game. Sure you've got the typical Bowser kidnaps Peach plot but everything surrounding it is very different. For starters, the setting is very unique for this series. Isle Delfino doesn't feature any of the iconic Mario characters, instead of Toads we have the Pianta's and the Noki's who definitely fit the tropical island aesthetic. I like both designs and I especially like how they all have a unique design outside of being different colours. Even most of the enemies are all brand new, some are reoccurring from previous games but they have such weird designs here that they might as well be new. The game also has a lot more cutscenes, at least early on. After Peach is kidnapped the story kind of takes a back seat. Typical for a Mario game I know but it's odd the game would set itself up as being more story driven and not follow through with it. I do like how each level has it's own unique story. Some of them even develop as you play through each mission, makes it feel like you're actually helping the island rather than just collecting a bunch of shiny objects.

Visually speaking I think Sunshine holds up very well. The game is bright and colourful and since Sunshine takes place on a tropical island it can use that setting to create levels that fit with the idea of a tropical vacation. You'll, visit windmill villages, a sea side port, an amusement park, a beach and a haunted hotel that might be a reference to The Shining. This is the only Mario game I can think of that has such a specific theme to it's setting and I wish more Mario games would do that. I like it when games comes up with a specific idea and does everything with it. I also like that Sunshine was able to keep within it's theme and still have the levels feel varied and unique.

One visual detail I like is that if you look out to the horizon at certain points in a level you can actually see the other levels off in the distance. Isle Delfino is a small island and little details like that help show that. Isle Delfino is also way more lively than any level in Super Mario 64. Being on better hardware, Sunshine fills each level with NPC's that help make the world feel more lived in. The levels even feel more like actual places rather than levels with the exception of the secret levels but those are designed to be more gamey anyway.

Super Mario Sunshine holds up very well visually and the remaster on 3D All Stars only further eventuates that. The game still runs at 30 FPS like the original, sad they didn't increase it to 60 but apparently that can cause issues so I get why they didn't, but the game has been upscaled to 1080p resolution and it looks great. In handheld mode the resolution does drop to 720p but that's still an improvement over the original. The game has also been upgraded to be in widescreen and it looks great though in cutscenes they had to zoom in the image and crop some of it out, don't worry nothing important was cut out. The cutscenes also have this weird blur effect when thing move too quickly, likely a side effect from the upscaling. I won't hold that against them because there was likely nothing else they could do. They did a pretty good job remastering Sunshine overall, even though I would have liked to have seen the game run at 60 FPS.

Sunshine's soundtrack keeps with the tropical theme the game has, crafting music that wouldn't feel out of place blaring out the speakers at a beach side resort. While I don't think the music is as good as Super Mario 64 it still has some good tracks. Delfino Plaza might be my favourite hub world theme in the series and I also enjoy the track that plays during the secret stages as well. I do find the soundtrack a tad repetitive as it uses the main theme as a basis for almost every song but it is a good main theme so it's not that big an issue. Super Mario Sunshine is also one of the only Mario games with voice acting, and I mean actual acting and not just brief sound bites. It's not the best voice acting but it fits the game just fine. It has a Saturday morning cartoon feel which does fit with Mario. The only voice that really bugged me was Bowser, he sounds so generic in this game. Other than that though the voice acting is fine for what it is.

And now we move on to the gameplay and this, this is where the problems start. But let's not get into that just yet, got to build up to that. Let's start with the first thing you'll notice when you start playing the game, the controls. Sweet jumping Jesus, what an improvement this is. The control in Super Mario 64 was somewhat stiff but in Sunshine everything is as smooth as butter. Everything feels so much more snappy and precise, I felt like I was 100% in control at all times. The control is just so good. Almost too good. It's very precise which does make going over small ledges a little more difficult. Mario can also be a little slippery when it comes to stopping, I fell off a few times because I couldn't stop myself when making a jump. But that doesn't stop Mario Sunshine from feeling really good to play. I would argue that it has the best control in any 3D Mario game, topped only perhaps by Super Mario Odyssey.

The camera is also a lot better this time around. Rather than swapping between different angles ala Mario 64, you now have full 360 degree control over it which is much better. One thing I like about the camera is that when it gets behind a wall it shows Mario's location via a silhouette so you don't lose track of him. It still isn't perfect as it can still be a bother in some of the tighter areas but it's still a massive improvement over the original.

Mario has access to most of the moves he had in the previous game and they all feel better to use now. The backwards somersault was especially useful since you don't have to get a running start to use it now and the wall jumping is much easier even if it can be finicky when it comes to angling it right. Mario has seen some changes to his move set, he can no longer punch or kick and crouching has been removed entirely, so any move done in that pose is gone as well. I don't mind losing the backflip since the backwards somersault can do it's job just as well but I do miss the long jump. Granted you don't really need it but I still miss it, that's one of my favourite moves to pull off. You still have the slide which can act as a pseudo long jump but it's not the same.

Mario does have some new additions to his move set though. The first is the spin jump which is immensely satisfying to pull off. You can get some serious height and distance with this thing if you pull it off right. Then there's the biggest new addition to Mario's arsenal, F.L.U.D.D. This is the aspect that seems to make or break the game for most people. F.L.U.D.D can shoot a stream of water from it's nozzle that can clean up goop or stun enemies. It's here where I need to mention the control changes made to 3D All-Stars. Super Mario Sunshine was designed around the GameCube controller, in particular the analogue trigger buttons. These gave you better control over the water pressure since the harder you pressed the harder the pressure. Since the Switch doesn't have analogue triggers the 3D All-Stars version of Sunshine instead has two buttons to control the water pressure instead. One lets you move and shoot while the other keeps Mario in place and let's you aim the water stream. It's not as intuitive as the original but it's the best they could do given the circumstances.

F.L.U.D.D also has access to three additional nozzles he can swap between with the X button. By default he has the Hover Nozzle which lets Mario hover in the air for a short time. It's very useful for saving yourself from a bad jump or crossing long distances. This is also why the long jump was removed, if he had access to that and the Hover Nozzle he would break the game in half. The other two nozzles have to be equipped by finding specially marked boxes and replace the Hover Nozzle when equipped. Kind of wish they were permanent upgrades but that might have made Mario too powerful. The firs is the Rocket Nozzle which shoots Mario up to the sky and the other is the Turbo Nozzle which makes Mario move incredibly fast. I like the different modes F.L.U.D.D has access to though the Rocket and Turbo Nozzles aren't used that much, but they are available in some stages if you want to use them instead. They aren't as situational as the Caps in Mario 64.

F.L.U.D.D runs on water and will eventually run out but you can refill it by jumping into any nearby water source. Water is everywhere on the island so don't worry about running out. As I said earlier F.L.U.D.D is the make or break point for a lot of people in this game but I personally don't mind him at all. It's not like he changes the gameplay too drastically or anything. You still do a lot of the traditional Mario platforming you would expect and F.L.U.D.D feels like a natural part of the move set. He doesn't feel intrusive and there are plenty of secret areas where F.L.U.D.D is taken away and you have to rely on Mario's core platforming abilities, which were some of the best parts of the game in my opinion.

F.L.U.D.D is not the problem with Super Mario Sunshine. The problem is with the structure and the difficulty. Let's start with the structure. Super Mario Sunshine on the surface appears to follow the same structure as 64. You have a hub world, Delfino Plaza in this case, containing a selection of levels each containing a selection of missions that reward you with a Shine Sprite. Unlike in Mario 64 where you could do whatever mission you wanted, Sunshine instead has you do every mission in order. This is because the level actually changes depending on the mission you pick. Sunshine is far more linear than 64 is and it doesn't end there.

Unlike in Super Mario 64 where you had to collect a certain number of Power Stars to get to the final fight with Bowser, here the only thing way to get to Bowser is to complete the Shadow Mario missions in every level, which is always episode 7. So the number of Shine Sprites is irrelevant, all that matters is completing the first 7 episodes in every level. Sunshine has 120 Shine Sprites to collect which is the same as the number of Power Stars in Mario 64 but unlike 64 the game is not structured around this. Because Sunshine only makes the first seven episodes in every level relevant it makes almost half the games Shine Sprites little more than filler. There are 11 Shine Sprites per level, since there are fewer levels than in 64, but that means that a third of the levels missions are just pointless filler. This also means that the secret Shine Sprites you can find in Delfino Plaza are rendered meaningless since they don't contribute to anything.

Why did they design it this way? People often complain that Sunshine is too different from 64 but my issue is that it isn't different enough. Sunshine can't seem to decide what it wants to be. It's stuck between a more linear story driven platformer or the traditional Mario 3D platformer formula and it can't quite find the balance between the two.

Now this wouldn't be so bad if there was any kind of reward for getting all of the Shine Sprites but there isn't. All you get for collecting them all is a thank you message, that's all. I wouldn't mind this so much if collecting them all was fun but this is where the second problem sets in. Super Mario Sunshine is one of the most frustrating Mario games ever made when going for 100%. Now if your just playing the game normally it's great. The level design is fantastic and the main missions are actually pretty fun. Some are frustrating like the Chucksters and the manta ray fight but for the most part they're pretty good. But the optional missions are some of the most frustrating bullshit I have ever encountered.

Let's start with the 100 coin missions. They're back and they're even worse here. Not only are coins more sparse this time around but only certain missions have enough coins to actually complete them. So good luck figuring out which one it is. Full confession here, I didn't actually go for 100% in this game due to time constraints, a certain orange marsupial returns on Friday so I want to get this series done by then, but I did do a good chunk of the side missions. The only ones I didn't do was the 100 coin missions, except for one that I did on accident, but even just playing the game normally I could tell what a humungous pain they would be. Hey I did them in Mario 64 so I know what a pain they can be.

But the side missions I did do were some of the worst levels in a Mario game. The Pachinko minigame, riding the roller coaster to pop the balloons, getting that stupid watermelon over the bridge, all bad but not nearly as bad as the crown king of shit that is the toxic river ride. Let me walk you through this. Firstly in order to get to the mission you need to bring Yoshi over to a pipe covered in toxic goop only he can remove. Oh wait I forgot to mention Yoshi didn't I. Well that's because he's a bit of an afterthought in this game. Only a few missions actually require him and most of them just involve unlocking secret areas that take Yoshi away when you enter them. He isn't bad to play, though the projectile vomiting is disconcerting, but he's horribly underutilised.

But back to the river mission. The pipe Yoshi needs to unplug is located on an island far out from the plaza. The problem is that Yoshi can't swim, he disintegrates whenever he touches water. So how do you get to the island then? You have to ride these boats to the island and they are the slowest boats in existence. I've seen sloths on sleeping pills in molasses move faster than these boats. So you get to the pipe, unblock it, jump in and then you have to ride a disintegrating lily pad over toxic water that kills you instantly if you jump into it. You have to collect 8 Red Coins on the way down and if you fail to get them all by the end or get a game over you have to start the entire process all over again. This is one of the most tedious things I have ever played. I actually gave up on it because I couldn't stand waiting around on those boats any more.

I don't mind a game being hard but Sunshine's problem isn't that a lot of these missions are hard it's that they're time consuming. They either take too long to get to or involve a lot of waiting around. I don't mind a challenge but this shit is just tedious.

Since I mentioned the Red Coins, can I ask what Sunshine's deal with these is? This game seams to have a fetish for these things. Even the secret areas have an additional Red Coin mission if you re-enter them. A lot of the Red Coin missions are timed too and I hate timed missions, they always give me anxiety. I didn't care for the Red Coins in Mario 64 but here they come across as padding. Speaking of padding let's talk about the Blue Coins. These are special coins you can find scattered everywhere and you can use them to buy Shine Sprites from two tanooki's in Delfino Plaza. Between these guys selling off the Islands power source and Tom Nook Nintendo has now convinced me that tanooki's are evil money grubbing pricks. But these Blue Coins man, Sunshine becomes a completely different game when you're looking for these things. Some are hidden in such obscure places I'm convinced you need a guide or pure luck just to find them. They also feel like little more than filler too. I mean, they already are filler based on how this game is designed but still.

But here's what really kills Super Mario Sunshine for me. It's not hard because of well designed and tricky challenges, it's hard because of how jank this game is. I am convinced that Super Mario Sunshine doesn't know what physics are. Take slopes for example. Slopes are one of the most inconsistent things about Sunshine, sometimes Mario can run up a 70 degree angle and defy every law of gravity in the process or sometimes the slightest bump can send him careening into oblivion. Remember that pachinko mission I mentioned earlier, this is the absolute worst example of this. I have no clue how this thing is supposed to work. Even Bethesda would be shocked at how broken this thing is. This is popular in Japan? For God's sake why?

Super Mario Sunshine is one of the more polarising Mario games out there. A lot of fans weren't keen on it when it was released. A lot of people didn't really take to F.L.U.D.D and they thought it was too different to Mario 64. but just as many people cite Super Mario Sunshine as one of their favourites and I can kind of see why. For all of my complaining about the structural issues with the game and the absurd difficulty of some of the missions, there is a lot to like about Sunshine. The setting is so unique for the series and given that the Mario series plays it a bit too safe these days, Sunshine's own brand of unique weirdness is refreshing.

I do like Super Mario Sunshine. There are even parts that I love. I think Delfino Plaza, despite having some of the worst missions in the game, is the best hub world in the series and seeing it slowly get brighter over time is immensely satisfying. I love the visual style, I love the controls I even love the weird story. I would argue that Sunshine's high points are higher than Mario 64's, but by that same token it's low points are much lower. Mario 64 is worse in certain aspects but it's also more consistent which makes it the better game in my opinion.

And that's the real tragedy with Super Mario Sunshine, it's got some good stuff here. It's got some really great stuff here, but it's also got a lot of bad to go with it. I can see why it has the following it has because it does things that very few Mario games do but I can also see why it isn't as popular as some his more well regarded adventures. If you play the game normally it can be a great time but going for 100% it can be a tedious, frustrating, aggravatingly long experience. I am very conflicted when it comes to Super Mario Sunshine. There is just as much I hate as there is that I love. I can't call it a bad game by any means but it's definitely the worst game in this collection but it's still worthy of a look for how unique it is. This game has it's fans and they are devout, I just can't say I'm one of them.

Next time we finish off Super Mario 3D All Stars with what is considered the finest of Mario's 3D adventures, Super Mario Galaxy. I loved this game when it first came out but will it have the same magic it had back then? Only one way to find out. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.