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Super Mario Sunshine Game Review

Super Mario Sunshine is a 2002 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the second 3D Mario game and one of the more problematic entries in the franchise.

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“Someday when I’m bigger,

I wanna fight that Mario again!“

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Now, this game’s audience reception nowadays is quite contentious. Some people absolutely love it. Others just despise it. I would say that I do not belong in either of those extremes. I find it to be quite solid, though very troublesome in many of its aspects. It was and remains one of the most popular GameCube games and I personally played it on the excellent Dolphin emulator.

Taking place on a tropical Isle Delfino, the movie honors the Italian culture wonderfully through the names of the game’s worlds. Mario is ordered to clean up this island after a figure called Shadow Mario messed it up. The logistics behind this plot is absolutely ludicrous. None of it makes sense, especially the part with Bowser and Peach. That was super silly. However, I kind of loved it precisely for that silliness as it fits the childlike nature of the franchise.

The game has a solid plot when all is said and done and the whole summer vacation vibe and setting was different and unique for the series. Another thing that was solely present in this game was the extensive voice acting. That was done for better and for worse. The sound mixing in those cut-scenes was atrocious, leaving some moments difficult to decipher. Still, these scenes were quite fun and some of the voices are excellent with Bowser being particularly terrific. I also liked those odd creatures inhabiting the island, again a unique creation.

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Many critics pinpoint similarities between this Mario entry and ‘Super Mario 64’, which was the revolutionary 3D game for the franchise and for the entire gaming industry. Personally, I have to disagree with the statement that the two are similar. They couldn’t be further apart from each other. There are some elements that are repeated, but for the most part this game is its own thing for better and for worse.

You again get a hub world, but that hub world is so much more interesting than the castle in the aforementioned game. Yes, I absolutely adored Isle Delfino, one of the best sections of the game by far. The whole summer vacation atmosphere was best conveyed here and the whole look of the gondolas and the canals pleasantly reminded me of Venice. From this hub world, you can get to all the other worlds in the game in a mechanic that wasn’t too difficult to understand, which was refreshing.

Of the nine worlds that the game has, Corona Mountain is the weakest one. I have to say that I still respected this final level for being so original in its mechanics. However, controlling that boat by water and jumping on those clouds was more infuriatingly difficult than anything else and the final boss fight was just okay. In fact, most of the bosses in this game aren’t terrific, though there are some exceptions – all the Petey Pirahna bosses were superbly constructed.

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Ricco Harbor itself was too short. It felt limited in scope as all the levels there were confined to that harbor. I did love the surfing levels, though these could get frustratingly hard to control due to bad camera angles. I respected Noki Bay for feeling different than all the other worlds. It was quite annoying when you’d fall down and you have to climb all the way up, but still this vertical level was well constructed and in particular that level with the invisible rock climbing was brilliant.

Pianta Village has very annoying levels set beneath this area. Those were too hard for me. The world overall looks great and it’s a well designed area, but it was nothing special in terms of the gameplay. Sirena Beach was hit-or-miss for me. I loved it and I hated it at the same time. The hotel setting was fantastic. It set itself apart from other worlds by introducing the hotel guests and ghosts.

But that hotel was also impossible to traverse and find all the red coins without the help of the internet. And this area features the worst level in the entire game, one that took me almost an hour to complete, and that is that terrible level where you have to sprinkle all those rays until they all dissipate. Another incredibly hard level was the timed sprinkling. There was no reason for this world to have the two most difficult levels in it.

But the worlds that I just loved are Pinna Park, Gelato Beach and Bianco Hills. Pinna Park is immensely underrated. I especially loved climbing and jumping around it, searching for coins. The music in the game is mostly very strong, though not as special as in the previous entries, but some worlds feature beautiful themes and this is among the best and most endearing ones. It’s such a fun world.

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Gelato Beach was gorgeous as it made use of its beautiful water the most. It has the mountain and the docks, thus being quite diverse in design. Hunting the red coins in the corals was by far the best time to be had here. Bianco Hills remains my favorite world. It is the first and most charming one. It is the only one that reminded me of classic Mario games, it features a mountain design that is pleasantly similar to ‘Super Mario 64’ and the bosses here are the best in the entire game.

Each area has a level where you go after Shadow Mario. It is difficult at first, but once you realize that you can jump and spray while in air, thus covering more area, it will be a breeze to get through. The same goes for the sprinting levels. The game features three different jumps, a mechanic that I really appreciated. Mario maneuvers and covers a lot of ground with ease here and that is something that this game does better than its predecessors.

The spraying levels were the worst and hardest ones while the red coins hunt could be frustrating as they were littered in the strangest spots at times, but some could be great nonetheless. But helping the villagers and each area having its own story was interesting. From the weird eel level to even a rail shooter one, the game has these odd levels that do not fit with the rest of the experience, but at least they made Sunshine very versatile and diverse.

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Sunshine has 120 stars to collect or the so-called Shine Sprites. I would say that it’s extremely difficult to get most of these, so it’s not really worth it going after each of the Shines just for you to get burned with no reward whatsoever for 100 percent completing the game. There are also these blue coins that can buy you certain Shines. That was a fine element, but the blue coins were scattered in literally every single level and in very difficult locations, again making this side mission almost pointless to go after.

The main addition that changed the entire game mechanic here was the inclusion of the F.L.U.D.D. device, which is basically a watering nozzle. You can at first squirt and hover by pushing different buttons. Let’s just say that it took me quite a while not just to get used to the idea of a Mario game not really being about jumping around, but also it took me a lot of time to figure out how to use this damn thing. But when I did get accustomed to it, I have to say that I started really loving it as it gives you so much power to explore all the areas more freely.

Yes, I abused the hover function wholeheartedly. I loved this mechanic and it was just so much fun flying around the levels with this nozzle. When you use all of the water in the nozzle, you can replenish it in a pool of water in what was a great touch by the creators. The squirting mechanic is damaged heavily by the terrible control system, but more on that later. It is mostly used to spray down enemies and infected areas.

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There is also a rocket nozzle introduced later in the game that is crucial in helping you arrive to the levels’ highest points. Basically, the nozzle is this game in its entirety with the only exception being the platforming levels with the cubes. Each world has one of these levels and I really enjoyed them for bringing back the classic Mario vibes in music and jumping mechanics.

They did not fit the rest of the game whatsoever, but they were superb, especially for how demanding it is to get passed those geometrical objects. The physics-based mechanic was quite inspiring here. I did not care for the Yoshi elements. They could have been discarded entirely and the game wouldn’t lose anything, though the mechanic of colors, fruits and spitting juice was quite interesting.

Super Mario Sunshine is one of the best graphical achievements of its period. The game is actually very underrated in that regard as it is not stressed enough just how gorgeous it looks. Every single world looks very colorful and just pleasing to the eye. The character designs were per usual incredible while the highlight was the water. It was essential for this water-heavy game to have amazing effects and animation of this substance and that is exactly what the creators did by making the water seem so polished and just stunning to behold. It actually still looks great even today.

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In terms of the sound, it’s pretty good. The various sounds of water splashing around were great. Mario’s signature yells and catchphrase were amazing and it was particularly funny listening to his “Mama!” after being hit by fire. The only problem in the audio department lies in those somewhat unfortunate cutscenes. I did appreciate that the game has them and that it relies on storytelling a bit more for a change, but the story is too silly and the voice acting was mostly very poor here. The sound mixing during those scenes is just terrible, making it too difficult to players to even hear anything properly.

Super Mario Sunshine has horrible camera, even worse than its predecessor, which wasn’t easy to do, but they did eclipse their previous bad efforts somehow. There are times where I got so frustrated that it really diminished my enjoyment of the game. It is basically not fixed, meaning that you have to move the camera around, but the game is hard enough without that, so the end result is this infuriatingly difficult game that did not need to be like this.

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But the world building is excellent, the controls are great when you get used to them and the game runs smoothly enough that it was still a pleasant time to be had. It is also a rather long gaming experience, which was quite impressive for its time. I just wish that it was more polished in controls and some gameplay mechanics.