Super Mario Sunshine

I know what you're thinking. You saw the four stars in the featured image and the four stars in the excerpt and clicked in to see if I was trolling by saying Super Mario Sunshine is actually really good. Now, to say it's really good would be a stretch but it is still a servicable title, even if there are elements that don't work as intended or are just plain baffling.

Now for the sake of this review, I replayed the Switch edition in the collected Super Mario 3D All-Stars, that assembled Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy. The game itself follows Mario as he arrives on Isle Delfino on vacation and is promptly arrested for polluting the island. After a sham trial, he's sentenced to clean up all the graffiti as penalty for the crime with the help of a robotic pressure washer named F.L.U.D.D.

Narrative issues aside, the game runs pretty well, even if the controls are a little loose. The loose controls and friction issues only really come into play in the levels where F.L.U.D.D. is stolen and it's just straight platforming, but readjusting to those isn't the end of the world for how infrequent the levels are. Still, they happen enough in the main course of gameplay that they are an understandable sticking point for the game. As someone who got stuck on the one where you have to have the Piantas throw you at just the right angle or the one where you have to precision platform on rotating square Yoshi eggs, I feel the frustration.

The greatest strength of the game, and probably the thing that carries it to the four-star rating more than anything else, is the vibrance and variety of the worlds in Isle Delfino. Each section feels unique and different while still cohesively belonging to the overall theme of being Mario on a tropical vacation. In fairness, this is a strength of a lot of the games of the early/mid-2000s on the GameCube, but this one does it in a 3D environment with unique gameplay mechanics that are very much a product of its time.

Aside from the control issues, the only real major issue are some of the quality of life features that the game is lacking for people who are actually setting out to complete the game. The big one that plagues my replays to this day is the lack of a blue coin counter or tracking system to make sure you are actually getting all the blue coins.

If you're someone who never played Super Mario Sunshine before, or you're someone who's considering revisiting it, it's definitely worth the time, if for no other reason than to get a good grasp on what it means to get experimental both with gameplay mechanics and with setting. This coupled with Luigi's Mansion signaled an intent by Nintendo to use their new hardware in a way that expanded their respective franchises and everyone was better off for it.

★ ★ ★ ★

Super Mario Sunshine
Developed By: Nintendo
Release Date: August 22nd, 2002 (Super Mario 3D All-Stars: September 18th, 2020)
Platform: GameCube (Super Mario 3D All-Stars: Nintendo Switch)