Super Mario Sunshine Review

By Red Koopa

 
Super Mario Sunshine is probably considered to be a black sheep in the Mario series. Some people liked it and some people didn’t and some were divided about it. Well here’s what I think about this game. Remember this is only my opinion so it’s not official in any way. I don’t own anything in this game, everything is owned by Nintendo.
 

Story: 5/5

Pretty good story; Mario and Peach are taking a vacation and they arrive to find a polluted island. The local islanders blame Mario and force him to clean up the island and recover the island’s source of power, the Shine Sprites. This is not borrowed from Super Mario World! It’s completely original because Peach doesn’t get kidnapped until later in the game.
 

Graphics: 5\5

These are some darn good graphics. I’m not lying, they are really good. Mario looks great as do Peach and the Toads. The water looks very real to me. The levels looked really good, especially Bianco Hills and Sirena Beach. I thought the Piantas looked realistic as well as the Nokis. I thought that the colors were a lot better than in other Mario games at that time. Even by today’s standards I still think the graphics are as good as the Wii’s graphics. These were very good graphics for a GameCube game. Crazy Packers Fan complained that objects were blurry in the distance, but that’s because of the heat waves.
 

Controls: 4\5

The controls can be a bit hard at first but you get the hang of it quickly. I like the addition of FLUDD. FLUDD can be very useful and can get you out of some tight spots. There’s regular FLUDD, where you just squirt water. There’s the Hover Nozzle, where you squirt water and hover in the air for a short time. The Rocket Nozzle shoots you up into the air, which can let you access high areas you normally couldn’t get to. The Turbo Nozzle isn’t used very much but it makes you go really fast. The only thing wrong about the controls are the timed jumps, like the spin jump. They can be hard to time, but it’s not enough to make me hate the controls.
 

Music: 5\5

I know I’m giving a lot of perfect scores, but this game deserves it. The music sounds great! I’m used to humming the Ricco Harbor tune a lot because I like it so much. The soundtrack may not be as good as the Galaxy games, which are orchestrated, but this still has good music that will stick in your head, like the boss theme or the Delfino Plaza theme. They did a good job with the instruments in each level’s theme song.
 

Characters: 4/5

Not a perfect score?  Well they were still good with the characters. Mario, Peach and the Toads are back and are joined by Peach’s new steward Toadworth, who makes his first appearance here. Other new characters include the Piantas and Nokis. You also have the main villain, Shadow Mario, as well as many enemies appearing for the first time. Why did I take off a point? They didn’t have Goomba or Koopa Troopa! Every main Mario game always has Goomba and Koopa Troopa. Yes, it’s a new island with many new enemies, but they still managed to appear in the Galaxy games and that’s a whole new universe to explore, so why can’t they have Goombas and Koopa Troopas here?

One thing that I like was that they brought back Yoshi. Yoshi is very useful and has some new abilities. He can spray juice and melt goop that FLUDD can’t melt. It’s really cool that Yoshi can eat fruit and change colors depending on that fruit. However, Yoshi’s downside is that he dies whenever he touches, water which really stinks because water is everywhere in this game. Plus Yoshi could swim in water in Super Mario World so why not here?
 

Levels: 4/5

The levels were really fun. I’m putting this into two categories: The outdoor levels and the secret levels.

Outdoor Levels: 5/5
Every outdoor level was fun! I didn’t have a problem with any of them. I love the ones in Bianco Hills the most! I also liked the ones in Pinna Park, Sirena Beach, Gelato Becach, and Pianta Village. They were challenging and are my favorite parts of the game. You got to goof off and do whatever you want as well. I just can’t find anything wrong about the outdoor levels. They were challenging, fun, creative, and most of all, memorable.

Secret Levels: 3/5
This was very deserving of 3 stars. This was the one of two main flaws in the game. The other is that stupid camera! These so-called secret levels are actually required to beat the game despite their name. I HATE these levels! The only part I like about them is the original Super Mario Bros. song remix. You know why? Because once you enter them Shadow Mario appears and takes FLUDD. That means you have to platform your way to the Shine Sprite without FLUDD. Seems easy enough, but if you die just once you have to start all over again from the beginning .The only secret levels that were hard for me were Pianta Village episode 5 and Noki Bay episode 6. Those took me at least 20 tries before I beat them. DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED WITH THE RED COIN MISSIONS THERE!
 

Difficulty: 5/5

It can be difficult at times, but it’s not as bad as people say it is. The only hard parts are the secret levels. It can be quite difficult if you are going for all 120 Shine Sprites, but it can be done. I have collected all 120 Shines myself. The camera can increase the difficulty in secret levels, but it’s not that bad. People might call this a collectathon much like Donkey Kong 64, but the only collecting part is the blue coins. Those were annoying and I had to go on Youtube to find them all, but its not as bad a collecathon as Donkey Kong 64 was. I’m not saying Donkey Kong 64 was a bad game, which it wasn’t, it’s just collecting the blue coins was annoying sometimes. The game will sometimes glitch up, but that’s pretty rare and happened to me two or three times in all the times I’ve played through it. Overall, to me the difficulty is perfect
 

Fun Factor!: 5/5

A very fun game! You’ll enjoy playing this game. You’ll pick it up, play it, enjoy it, put it away, and pull it out again. I’ve beaten this game but I still pull it out and play it sometimes. This is a game that you will enjoy playing for years to come. You’ll just love it.
 

Overall: 36/40

A must buy if you still have a GameCube. Even if you don’t, play it on the Wii! I personally enjoy it a lot. It’s a great 3D Mario game for everyone. I personally love Super Mario Sunshine. It’s not as good as Super Mario Galaxy but I think it’s better than the original Super Mario 64. If you’re a Mario fan or if you like tropical island games or if you’re a platformer, you’ll want this on your game shelf. This is a game you will love for years to come!

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