Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Sunshine
U.S. Release Date: August 26, 2002
The GameCube Archives Score: 9.2/10
If one game is emblematic of my lackluster initial run with the Nintendo GameCube, it's 2002's Super Mario Sunshine. While I did find isolated pleasures with games like Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4, most of my experience with the GameCube was more similar to my experience with Mario's 128-bit adventure. I halfheartedly bought the game the week that it was released, played it for a few weeks, was disappointed, and never played it again until...right now, 20 years later. Back in the fall of '02, I was also experiencing the worst depressive period of my life, dealing with some heavy stuff a 20-year old shouldn't, and not really in the mood for a sunny, happy video game. Maybe that's why (the admittedly perfect) Metroid Prime did a much better job of capturing my interest a few months later. As for Sunshine, at the time it received some high critical praise, but also some mixed reviews that called its controls and gameplay into question. It reputation, 20 years on, is controversial. 20 years on, though, I've finally played through it. I've finally come around to the GameCube after revisiting it over the last few years. Have I also now come around to its major Mario game?
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| This game could kill a vampire |
Nintendo was faced with a tough decision after 1996's Mario 64. They'd just near flawlessly brought Mario from 2D to 3D. Now, would they simply do a 128-bit version of Mario 64? Up to this point, Mario had a nearly immaculate console legacy. His first and third games for the NES, and both of his SNES games are perfect. While Mario 64 has just a few camera issues as Mario first enters a 3D world, that game is still essentially perfect. Any GameCube Mario Game would need to not only set itself apart from Mario 64 in the gameplay department, but do so without even the most minute error.
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| Don't screw it up, plumber!!! |
The setup for Super Mario Sunshine features the kind of ingenuity Nintendo is famous for. Mario and his, uh...companion, Princess Peach, are headed on a plane to vacation at the tropical Isle Delfino. Peach is looking forward to the sun, and Mario is looking forward to the seafood, but looks like there's only trouble on the menu.
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| Hey, I don't make the bad metaphor rules, I just work here |
As our duo land, the airstrip is covered with some kind of mucky paint, and being attacked by a giant piranha plant. Mario is handed some kind of experimental sentient water backpack called "F.L.U.D.D.," and tasked with cleaning up the airstrip and defeating the enemy. At this moment, the gameplay starts, as the player is given control of Mario and his F.L.U.D.D. unit. If you played Mario 64, the basic controls will be familiar. Use the joystick to run in any horizontal 3D direction, press "A" to jump, pull the joystick to the side and jump to do a somersault, pull back and jump to do a backflip. The only major move missing here is the long jump, which I miss most likely due to familiarity's sake.
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| Hey, I can't help that I'm sentimental |
The major change, or addition I should say, is the F.L.U.D.D. pack. To start with, the pack can be used either as a spraying hose or as a limited time jetpack that allows Mario to float for a few seconds. The player can switch between functions with the GameCube controller's "L" trigger, while utilizing the pack with the "R" trigger. While the pack works fairly well, there are some issues that were a bit shocking in 2002, but don't feel nearly so bad now. The first is that the jetpack controls are a bit stiff. If you're just jumping ahead and then attempting to hover forward to reach a distant platform, it works fine. But if you try to change directions, and if you particularly try to turn around, Mario suddenly becomes stuck in invisible floating mud. This is frustrating, especially during some of the game's more difficult challenges, where the issue leads to missing a jump and dying. The second issue, dealing with the sprayer function, is less frustrating. The "R" trigger is pressure-sensitive, meaning you have to hold the button down lightly at times, particularly while performing a task involving spraying and running simultaneously. While this works okay, it doesn't exactly feel great on your finger. More frustrating is the way you sometimes need to stand still near a ledge to spray something. Sometimes, when you're trying to aim your sprayer, Mario will inexplicably walk in the direction you're trying to aim, often running off the ledge. This is infuriating, but can thankfully be remedied if the player hits "Y." "Y" is basically used to freeze Mario in place so that the player can control the camera. It's meant to be used to look around, but as you can spray while using it, I often found it most useful in combatting the "running while spraying" issue.
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| Yes, I get that "running while spraying" sounds inappropriate. My bad. |
These aren't catastrophic issues, and there are mitigating techniques for each, but to a hypercritical 20-year-old who expected Nintendo perfection, they felt that way. I have to stress, the most recent entries in Nintendo series at that point were, for Zelda, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask; for Metroid, Super Metroid, and for Mario, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and Mario 64. Those games all feel fine-tuned by video game developing Da Vinci's. To suddenly have an entry in one of those series not be perfect felt unreal. When the also not perfect The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was released the next year, I started to feel like, outside of Metroid Prime, the GameCube was either the beginning of Nintendo's demise, or a place where it was casting off all of its most ill-advised ideas. However, after 20 more years of seeing Nintendo release games under a wide umbrella of quality, I can finally give Super Mario Sunshine a break. Despite some irritating issues with its controls, Super Mario Sunshine is a very good game.
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| A wealth of good things! |
The high quality of this game starts with the delightful Nintendo details. These are there from the charming opening flight to Delfino cutscene, with the in-flight infomercial featuring some great voice-acting and funny imagery. Once the game settles into the Delfino overworld, the fine details shine even brighter. Delfino features brilliant art design, a tropical village full of stucco towers, red tile roofs, palm trees, a catchy Mediterranean music theme, and flowing water. This is a bright game with a near Dreamcast aesthetic, though I don't think anything on the Dreamcast looks quite this sharp. 2002 reviews complained that some of the textures in Sunshine are lousy, and there are a few that I agree are a little too blurry, but overall, this game looks great. It's easy to tell that Nintendo (Sunshine was developed by their famed EAD division) was particularly proud with the water animation here, as they feature it as often as possible.
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| The Nintendo attention to detail is meticulous, beautiful, wonderful. I love the ripples in the water, the reflection of the windmill, but my favorite detail is the circle of flowers around the platform, only there to add some extra beauty, joy, and whimsy. So many touches like this. |
The game's "worlds" are technically a part of Delfino, but the player must perform tasks in the overworld or previous worlds to access them, and all feel like they were made with love. That love is on display from the first moment Mario enters the first world, Bianco Hills. At the start, there's a concrete path leading down a hill, and a distant windmill. The path is lined with open sprinklers, and merely an excuse for exhilaration, as Mario can dive (jump, then press "B") and slide down the path on his belly. There's no reason to do this other than the pure joy in the tactile sensation, but it's great. Similarly, there are several different species of friendly citizens living in Delfino, some endemic to different worlds. Most of these are only there to offer a single sentence to Mario, to add more aesthetic pleasure and joy to the game.
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| The only thing I can compare moments like this to are the loops in the first Sonic the Hedgehog. |
Plenty of worlds contain visual details that are only there to add flavor, like bathing suit changing rooms and a fish market in Ricco Harbor, or a spring bubbling back behind the hotel on Sirena Beach. However, these visual delights are sometimes integrated into the gameplay. My favorite area, a beautifully drawn, colorful coral reef, a short distance from the shore of Gelato Beach, features even more colorful fish who dart around its rocky angles. Right when you enter the area, the reef just seems like a very pleasant extraneous detail. However, it eventually becomes key to completing the game.
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| Something else I love about this game, if you look beyond my coral reef: when you are in a particular world/area of Delfino, you can see the neighboring worlds off in the distance. This gives a great sense of geography and is another touch that makes the world feel lived in. |
Each of the game's worlds have eight shine sprite events. There are 120 shine sprites in Sunshine, and Mario must collect them all to 100% the game, though only needs 50 to beat the game. Collecting shine sprites not only helps Mario unlock new worlds and events, but different nozzles for his F.L.U.D.D. pack (like a high jump one, or a turbo nozzle). When you enter a world, you select a shine sprite event for that world. You'll then enter that world during that event, where something is going on in that respective world that you'll have to remedy, so that you can earn a shine sprite (and gain the satisfaction of helping, right?). The first task in the first world involves defeating a piranha plant so that you can grab a shine sprite on top of the windmill. Tasks come in many shapes and forms: fighting a boss, cleaning up a Shadow Mario mess, chasing down Shadow Mario. Shadow Mario? Yes, it seems the person creating messes and causing trouble on Delfino is a strange, shadow version of Mario. You'll have to solve the mystery of Shadow Mario, as well.
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| Though honestly, I'd rather hang out at my reef. |
I personally enjoy seeing just what kind of event the game will throw at me next. I like how the worlds change in subtle or not-so-subtle ways for each event. Sometimes an event will be built up to, like a Watermelon Festival on Gelato Beach that ends up being the final event. In Gelato's previous events, the critters in that world will be telling you the festival is coming, adding an even more fun, lived-in vibe to the game. Before that, though, the sixth event on Gelato Beach takes my favorite coral reef, and hides eight red coins around it. Collect all eight and get a shine sprite. There are a few chill, relaxing shine sprite events like this. There are a lot more that are of moderate difficulty. However, there are several that a quite challenging. In the Nintendo tradition, you can beat the game without tackling the hardest challenges...but to get the best ending, you must get all 120 shine sprites, and you must tackle the most difficult challenges. As an old-school gamer who loves a challenge, some of the game's more diabolical shine sprite events are my favorites.
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| Oh, it's my 120th shine sprite. No big deal or anything. |
The hardest moments come in the form of throwback challenges, where Mario gets sucked into a pipe or something similar, and has to complete a series of difficult platforming challenges without the F.L.U.D.D. pack, in order to reach a shine sprite at the end. The backgrounds of these stages even often feature 2D sprites, to get the player into the old school spirit. Each world contains two hidden shine sprites, as well, and one of these often involves returning to the throwback challenges, and having to complete a red coin, timed challenge event. These are often the most difficult challenges in the game, and completing them feels like a real achievement. The greatest challenge, though, is finding each of the eight world's hidden 30 blue coins. Again, you don't have to find all of these to finish the game, but you earn a shine sprite for every ten blue coins you collect, so you'll need to collect them all to get the game's best ending...and that leads me to the point I find myself making more and more for these types of games. Use a guide.
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| Of course, a guide isn't going to complete these platforming challenges for you |
Yes, use a guide.
This game isn't perfect. The controls make some of the
challenges more difficult than they need to be. Keeping track of what blue
coins you've collected is nearly impossible. Without a guide, you can still
beat this game after 25-35 hours, enjoy yourself, and see the game's funny,
satisfying ending. That game is a high eight on my scale. However, if you complete that much of the game by yourself, grab a guide for the rest, and you'll see portions of
this game you never realized were there. If you've enjoyed
Super Mario Sunshine for those 30 hours, using the guide to go back
through each world and grab all of the blue coins and stray shine sprites feels like a highly
enjoyable victory lap that stretches this game to around 40-50 hours. This
fully experienced version of Sunshine is a 9.2/10 for me. I enjoyed
myself so much playing that way this time through. It brought out all of the game's great details even more. Of those details, I've only mentioned a few. Even on a production value level, there are some great ones.
For instance, pressing the Z-button brings up a map of Delfino. From there, the player
can see how many shine sprites, blue coins, and regular coins (yep,
Sunshine has the original Mario gold coins, as well) they've collected. However, if you
click on any particular world on the map, you'll be shown a travel advertisement poster for that particular area, along with a tourist write-up. It's so
cool, and such a great, fun touch.
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| I somehow only barely mentioned the soundtrack for this game. The Isle Delfino Square/Overworld theme is insanely memorable, but the rest of the music, while very good, doesn't quite stand out as strongly. Still, its' a very good soundtrack, with a nice, cohesive, Mediterranean village flavor, and some fun new versions of classic Mario themes. |
My favorite little touch, though is quite minor. The game tells you early on that F.L.U.D.D. was created by Gadd Science, Inc., run by Professor E. Gadd...the same Professor E. Gadd who was a character in and who invented the ghost-sucking vacuum from the previous year's Luigi's Mansion, which I also finally played through in recent years and enjoyed. That's right, there's a whole GameCube universe! I love the GameCube now, and I love Super Mario Sunshine. Sure, neither the GameCube nor Super Mario Sunshine are perfect, but the heart and the joy found in this game and this console resonate with me in 2022. We need more of this now. Consider me a fan.
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