Mario Sunshine for the Nintendo Gamecube is the predecessor 3D platformer following in the footsteps of the incredibly successful Super Mario 64. The two games have a lot of similarities but also significant diversion and certainly their own identities. Mario’s moves are more or less the same although I’m pissed that long jump and backflip are gone. But in addition he now has the sentient water tank called FLUDD on his back which allows him to shoot things with water and also serves as a jet pack. Well nothing can’t be improved by adding a jet pack so that was a good move. It is still bizarre that even with a jetpack the fastest way to get around is to spam dive to make Mario skip across the ground on his stomach like a stone on water. That doesn’t make sense on so many levels.
I’ve played many Mario games before, (unless you’re counting as a percentage from overall Mario games,) but none of the more recent ones on consoles like the Galaxy games. This was the first time I’d heard many of these characters speak in full sentences. It was weird. So that’s what Bowser sounds like… I don’t know. I guess I was expecting to hear King Koopa from the shitty TV show.
The HUD is overly designed. I hate that text box… or boxes… or curved slots? For individual text lines? Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone exercise such flagrant disregard for graphic design in such a critical feature of a video game. It makes overbearing sounds as the text types out too. Oh, well while we’re at it, could we also have fireworks that go off every time it completes a new word and then a little trumpet fanfare sound every time it moves down a line too? Every time you stop for two seconds these stats comes up to suffocate your view. Look, if I want to see all that shit I’ll pause the game and look at it. Right now I’m trying to either figure something out or enjoy the scenery. In Delfino Plaza there’s this stupid message text crawl at the bottom which I have never read. A lot of stuff should have been simplified here.
I actually like the setting of the tropical island a lot and the fact that you can actually see the other levels off in the distance like you’re in a legitimate geographical location that has relevance to the other locations is really cool. But when I look closer, some of the set pieces and even some of the levels in general are really hit and miss. I liked the resort level just because the sun is perpetually setting there and the shadows are long. It’s just an odd time of the day that you rarely see highlighted in videogames. The splitting manta ray boss was a bit excessive though. And then I realize that every other chapter in the level takes place inside the hotel which just feels really confining for Mario. It is a different take on things which I appreciate to some degree but why so much of it?
I like Pinna Park I love the rollercoaster. But at the same time I hate how many of the rides don’t look real and useable. On the ferris wheel at the top of the hill, there’s no dock or ramp where the gondolas go through to indicate where people could board. No one ever rides it. The wheel doesn’t stop. You can’t get inside the gondolas. The only one that can use the fucking ferris wheel is Mario and that’s only if he executes a perfectly timed misty flip with a shitty camera angle onto the roof of a gondola. Amusement park patrons aren’t going to jump over a death defying gap to ride on the goddamn roof of the ferris wheel gondola. Same thing for the inverted ship rides. There are no seats. You can’t go inside of them. You can only stand on the deck until it swings so high, you fall off of it. What is even the point of this? Mario can’t even ride it. Everything feels like a facade or a decoration.
I did the minimum number of chapters on Ricco Harbor because just looking at it makes me angry. The platforming design is just so bad. It’s like they just tossed a bunch of mesh partitions together at random and said here, go apeshit. There doesn’t seem to be a clearly defined sensible path through it. They just saw that it was possible to get to the top of it and called it good. Oh and don’t forget to add a ton of shit to knock the player off so that they can have even more fun climbing up it again. A lot of stuff is like that. You stop and look at it for a long time and go, “Is this what I do?” I feel like most of the platforming sections that I solved, I solved because I found an exploit somehow with the jetpack, not because I mastered a well crafted puzzle.
In SM64 probably 80% of the stars you could get without having to enter the specific chapter at the beginning of the level. You could select Boil the Bully going into Lethal Lava Land and end up going exploring instead and get the star for Red Hot Log Rolling or Hot Foot Into the Volcano. You didn’t have to commit to doing a single specific star which was good because It fostered a sense of adventure in the player and didn’t stifle them finding their own fun or objective. In Sunshine not only do you have to commit to a single scenario and a single achievable shine sprite but you have to do each one of them in order. If you get stuck on one, you can’t even access the ones after it until you beat it and there are ALWAYS going to be ones you don’t like and have no interest in doing. Why make us do them? It’s like if you went to Disneyland but had to adhere to a strict sequential regimen of a single attraction per hour and everything else was boarded up and inaccessible. Can’t do Space Mountain until you suffer through Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.
Easily the worst part of this game is the isolated floating platform segments where they take away your FLUDD and stick you in some unincorporated bottomless pit room with a linear course that leads to a star. It often ends up being an extremely tedious gauntlet of trial and error that is entirely devoid of fun. The only reason I try to do them is so I can do something else which is an awful paradox to be trapped in. Why am I here? What does this have to do with anything? It doesn’t fit into the layout of the levels at all. They aren’t even in the levels. It’s like the designers had no more ideas on how to incorporate puzzles or games into the levels so they had to resort to just throwing in these arbitrary segments as filler. This looks like something someone made fucking around in Gary's Mod for half an hour. They feel like some kind of bonus stage or challenge mode which I would never bother with especially when they're all about as terrible as Rainbow Ride. Sometimes these segments are tied directly to the chapter select at the beginning of the level so you just go directly to them at the start without even entering the true level. Other times you find them in warp pipes or caves or whatever hole or doorway you come across and that is just the absolute fucking worst. Not only did you have to get to that spot which in itself can sometimes be a hassle but instead of being rewarded with a boss or cool sub area to explore, you get this nonsensical garbage.
Most of the time it’s not even a coherent platforming course. It’s just random shit that’s hard to jump on suspended in space. Do you remember where you went when you entered the pyramid in Shifting Sand Land in SM64? You went inside a MOTHERFUCKING PYRAMID, that’s where. The inside of a pyramid which had enemies, interesting, thematic, dynamic platforming and hazards. It even had a boss in there. You know where you didn’t go? Some lazy-ass abstract purgatory occupied primarily by levitating square watermelons and enormous sugarcubes. Every time I go in one of these places, I’m fooled into having a short burst of anticipation for new exploration, adventure, creativity and FUN. I expect it to be like the pyramid or the sunken ship or the volcano. Where will this hole lead? What will be in there? Oh, nevermind, it’s one of these… again. It’s like if you opened a buried treasure chest and inside was just a piece of shit. I can recall only one time where going in a hole gave a good payoff in Sunshine and it was the underwater cave with the ruins in Noki Bay.
So actually getting to the premise, there’s an evil Mario going around vandalizing the island and Mario who happens to stop by the island because… food, gets a community service court order to clean things up. Just plead guilty, Mario. We know it was you. You looked exactly like a satanic T-1000 and went around painting shit with a giant paintbrush. That was you, right? Well it turns out Shadow Mario is actually Bowser Jr. who has apparently mastered the art of shapeshifting somehow. Then the princess gets kidnapped. I’d complain about this story being played out but I like Castlevania so... Anyway, there’s a little simily I like to use to explain Bowser Jr’s role in the Mario universe. Bowser Jr. is like shit… That’s all. I don’t know why the Mario team feels demonically compelled to create a baby/kid version of every single Mario character. The games can be childlike but they don’t need to be made infantile by turning them into the fucking Muppet Babies. You know where I don’t want to see babies ever? In a video game that I’m playing. It’s like Nintendo’s target age demographic is aging inversely to the age of their actual fans.
There are puzzles that keep reappearing throughout the game like the eight red coins. I never minded that one because it was flexible enough that it could be integrated into any level in an interesting way and still feel fresh and fun. (e.g. the Red Coin Fish (but not the bird)) But how many times do I have to see that stupid giant squid with the cork in it’s mouth. You are also obligated to hunt down Shadow Mario once per level which is actually what progresses the story. This is simple in concept but annoying. You just chase him around the level, trying to hit him with enough water to stop him. This would have been a lot more fun if they actually designed some way to run, aim and shoot simultaneously. Instead you have to either stop to shoot which is only useful in the short moments that Shadow Mario stops when you fall behind which is lame or you shoot in short bursts while jumping which is lame and highly inaccurate. A couple of times I lost track of Shadow Mario and didn’t know where he was. Needless to say, I lost interest. Gee, it sure would be cool if there was some other objective I could work on right now instead. I guess I could collect a hundred coins for a star. Wonder which will take longer...
I’ve never been a fan of Mario’s vocalizations. They’re just stupid. No one sounds like that. I guess they weren't that annoying in SM64 save for the incessant hooting he does when he has low energy. Unfortunately they got worse in Sunshine. Not only does he hoot with low energy, he also does his yah wah hoo’s (etcetera) in a listless monotone like he’s Ben Stein which unfortunately is not as funny as it sounds. It’s like he’s contractually obligated to do it even when it’s exhausting or contrary to how he truly feels. It’s weird. Then there’s the gratuitous fast paced grunting when he carries anything and the constant Woowoowoowoowoowoowoo when he does hand over hand monkeybars like he’s Jabberjaw or Curly from the Three Stooges. Why?
In one chapter there’s a contest to find the largest watermelon on the beach and roll it to the competition official. On the way there is all manner of enemies and obstacles that can break the watermelon and make you have to start over. So I find a watermelon that’s bigger than everyone else’s and successfully bring it in and the guy says this.
Says the guy hiding his blind lazy eyes behind sunglasses. I assume his hand is clutching an invisible cane. Complete, bold faced, weapons grade horseshit. Just come out and say it. Say “I want the one way up on top of the hill because it’s the biggest pain in the ass to get.” You don’t need to be coy with me. I’ve played video games before. I’ve seen this trite phenomena many a time now.
Yoshi, (yoshies?) are in the game and rideable though I don’t really know why. Instances where they appear are so few and they don’t have much of a purpose. They basically only exist to remove undulating gelatin zig-zags, that block all of maybe five things in the whole game. Any time you have to use Yoshi to do something, the challenge is centered around the fact that Yoshi controls like complete ass compared to Mario with a jetpack. This whole thing has a similar feel to many of the characters and game mechanics in Banjo Tooie. It’s just one of those things that the developers clearly wanted in and were grasping for any excuses to include regardless of whether it made sense or added anything worthwhile. Each time you have to find a yoshi egg somewhere but you can only hatch it if you bring it the correct kind of fruit. And here is mostly the only reason to include fruits in the game. Instead of making and shooting eggs, the yoshi piss a stream of colorful juice out of their mouths to simulate FLUDD mechanics. In place of the water gauge you have a stomach full of juice. This is both the yoshi’s life and ammo gauge. It also drains slowly over time. if you don’t keep feeding your yoshi with fruit, they evaporate. They also evaporate if they touch water. They also have a three light years long tongue. This must be some different kind of yoshi breed because it pretty much flies in the face of everything I’ve learned as a yoshi biologist up to this point. Also why have they not died out from natural selection if they can’t go without eating every two minutes and can’t fucking touch water?
In closing here are some arbitrary gripes. It’s great how coins that pop out of something last all of half a millisecond before disappearing. What the hell? Did that bird just try to take a shit on me? That damn Delfino Plaza song sounds like a sped up version of the Motel Six song and is going to drive me insane if I hear it one more time. Who is this racing dumb fuck? Let’s all give him a round of applause for winning the Delfino Ugliest Stupid-Ass Motherfucker Competition out of a whole island of mutant goo monsters and a princess who looks like a sentient inflatable sex doll.
