LEVEL-BY-LEVEL WALKTHROUGH:

*Note: Stories are called “Episodes” in the US version of Super Mario Sunshine.

*Note: Things like Yoshi and the two extra pump nozzles will open up automatically as you progress through the game. We are actually not sure exactly what triggers the nozzles in Dolphic Town...it seems to be multiple factors. Just keep getting Shines, especially in the earlier levels, and they will eventually open up. Yoshi will become available after you beat Story Four of Pinna Park. Once you have the required Shine(s), a cut-scene will automatically take place when you return to town. Water Mario will take off with whatever item you’re about to unlock, and you just have to chase and spray him as usual. Then you can save and the item he was carrying will be permanently enabled. This note will be repeated elsewhere in the guide to make sure everyone sees it.

Level 1, Bianco Hills

When you first arrive at the island, you'll have to pick up your water pack and take out your first piranha plant. After this, you'll see an interesting cinema where Mario is tried and sentenced for defacing the island. At this point the game actually begins. The first thing you must do is take out a plant in the front center of town which will raise a statue. After this, a being of water that looks a lot like Mario grabs the princess. Don't worry, this isn't another "rescue the princess game". You're going to get her back in just a second. Look around to the left and right until you locate the Water Mario with the princess. Chase him down and spray him with your water cannon. Continue this until he drops the princess (takes a few laps). At this point the Water Mario will make a portal in the newly raised statue in the front center of town. Go spray it down and use the A button to follow him into the first world of Super Mario Sunshine.

Story #1 - Notice that the cut scene shows you an area covered in paint. You'll have to find your way over the wall that bisects the area. There are a number of ways to do this, but the easiest is to climb the water wheel at the end of town. Once on the other side, do battle with the plant as you've done previously for a shine.

Story #2 - Your second quest will require you to take the newly formed ramp to get to a giant windmill with a piranha plant on top. Use your jet pack to hover your way around and around the tower until you reach the top. Ride the windmill blades to the top and get ready to do battle. This plant won't die quite as easy as the previous ones. To beat the boss, you must run around following the plants mouth. When he opens it, fill him up with water and watch him topple over. Now it's time to smash his stomach by jumping and hitting the L button. Rinse and repeat three times for the kill. If you let him cough up a lot of baby plants and paint, you're going to have a really hard time beating him.

Story #3 - Make your way to the cave shown in the opening cut-scene to find your first obstacle course. This isn't really very difficult. Just make sure you rotate the camera to the side for the giant cubes at the end (this will make it much easier to stand in between them).

Story #4 - Time to find some red coins. The area shown in the cut-scene has eight red coins. Find them all to unlock a Shine. Note that all eight coins are in the general area shown in the cut-scene. You won't have to go scouring the entire level. To help find the coins, keep an eye out for circular shadows on the ground. Red Coins are (apparently) special and always cast a shadow directly below them regardless of where the Sun is. Also use the first person look to help spot some of the more obscure coins.

Story #5 - This one can be a little tricky to get started. First of all, you need to get over to the sleeping Piranha Plant shown in the cut-scene. To do this, either grab a rocket pack and blast your way up (you'll need this to get the blue coin), or you can find the building with two towers that has a power line attached to the cliffs. You can only scale one side of this building (using your water pack and spin jump), but it can be done. Follow the wire to the plant. Once you're there, notice that those little annoying blow fish keep getting stuck on your nozzle. Use these guys as a weapon and attack the plant. He'll start flying around on bat wings!. Just beautiful. You can either use the blow fish or water to take him to the ground. Once you do that, you fight him like the other plants, but he'll take off again between rounds. You'll have to chase him all over the level.

Story#6 - Make your way to the back of the giant windmill building and then make a flying leap to reach the logs in front of a second cave. Once inside, you'll have to navigate another obstacle course. Just take your time and when the block you're on tries to flip jump to a different colored block. For the rotating cube, you can actually stay on by simply walking from one side to another as it turns. You'll need to wall jump to get on and off of the first cube. The end is just like the beginning. Just make sure you switch between red and blue blocks as they flip.

Story #7 - Chase the Water Mario around and spray him with ... water. You can spray and run at the same time if you don't click the R button. Use this to your advantage. This shouldn't take very long to beat. Once the imposter is on the ground, approach him for a Shine.

Story #8 - Another red coin hunt. Just traverse the series of wires to get most of the coins. The tricky part is getting the last few coins. You can either to a spinning jump from one wire to the next (hang on with your hands and spray water to start spinning around), or you can jump and hover from the top of the windmill (that's what I did). There are also a few coins right above the water, so don't miss those. Most are on the high wires though and you can reach them by simply walking the wires and jumping up in the air.

100 Coins - Collect 100 coins. This can be rather difficult, but also a lot of fun because you'll have to explore every inch of the level to come up with 100 coins. The story number you choose can help a lot though. I found the 100 coins using the eight and final story. It may not be the best one, but it worked for me. You'll definitely have to kill enemies to find a lot of the coins. Check the tree tops. Check all the high wires. Check underwater for blue coins as you make your way around the lake getting the gold coins on top. There are coins everywhere, but you usually have to hunt for them. Spray water at the small gear to shake some coins from the bells for example. Spray water at EVERYTHING. Lots of little things spit out a coin or two when you spray them with water. One useful trick to pick up some extra coins involves the little yellow guys that pop out of red flower circles(not Pokey, the short dudes). Spray them all the way into a wall and they'll spit out three coins instead of the one you get for just jumping on them. When you get the 100 coins, look for the Shine on top of a windmill pole in the very center of town (use first person look to spot the Shine if you can't find it).

Secret 1 - After clearing 1-3, go back to the cave and jump on the red button. This will initiate a red coin challenge. You'll have one minute to make your way through the course finding all the red coins. One coin is on the first series of blocks. Four of them are at the corners of the rising/moving squares. Three of them are on the rotating stars next to the cube area. Use your water pack to hover. Once you get all eight, move to the end to get that extra Shine.

Secret 2 - After clearing 1-6, select the 1-6 story again and make your way to the cave again. Do NOT pick up the propeller attachment. You'll want your jet pack attachment. When you get inside, you'll have to pound the red button to start the red coin challenge. This time you have a minute and a half. You should find three coins before you get onto the giant block that goes upwards to the second half of the level. You'll get two coins and an extra life while riding up to the second half (stay under the shadows to make things easier). The last three coins are in the flipping red/blue block section. One is at the right corner (towards the front of the level), one's at the back left corner and one is in the very middle. If you get both extra lives before you get here (not too difficult) you'll be gaining lives, which will make this much easier.

Level 2, Ricco Harbor

Once the piranha plant takes over the dock (you'll see a cut-scene), then you can attack it to open the portal to level 2. You should also note that this little hut you uncovered will also trade one Shine for every ten blue coins you bring in. One of the prime places to find blue coins is by spraying down the little "M"s that are all over each level. The coins are hidden in many other places as well.

Story #1 - Work your way to the top of the town using the cranes. When you get to the boxes (nice looking eh?) hold the B button to grab the tentacle and pull like crazy. Now you get to fight a big squid. To beat the squid, spray water at it and step on its tentacles after they try to attack you. Once you've flattened one, grab it as you did before and pull. Repeat until it has no more. Then go pull the cork out of its mouth. Repeat the tentacle/cork thing again and you'll beat it.

Story #2 - Find the wooden platform shown in the opening cinema and ride one of the three creatures into the oil tunnel (just follow the coins). When you get inside you'll have to complete a race for a Shine. Remember that you can jump by pressing A while racing.

Story #3 - You need to get to the very top of that yellow structure and jump in for you Shine. The easiest way to get up there is by find a certain boat that is far away from the island directly under the blue catwalks and near a fence. You can jump off the boat’s smokestack (do a U-turn or spin jump) and then hover over to the fence. Punch through to the other side of the fence and jump and hover onto the blue catwalk. Take a left and jump/hover around the obstruction that is in your way. Jump/hover to the next level. From here just follow the catwalks and use the trampolines to climb higher and higher until you can jump into the giant yellow thing.

Story #4 - Work your way towards the tower that the cut-scene showed you. Find a manhole cover and ground pound it. Walk down the underground passageway and take the first junction to the side to get on top of a large building (if by some chance there are boxes on top of the exit cover, you'll have to go up using the cranes as you did for the first Shine). Once here, do a spin jump or back flip and hover to get on the platform with the blue coin. Now you're just one more jump away from the top of the tower. Before you go inside, get the blue coin hovering on top of the tower (but you'll need a rocket jump to get it). Inside you'll find yet another one of those rather difficult platforming levels. At least the background is really cool in this one. Also, look at the grain on the wooden blocks; it all four sides properly match the grain on the end of the block. Now... make your way across the first platforms carefully. There are a few ways to stay on the rotating blocks. Personally, I like to just walk from one face to the next as it turns. If you try to jump in a certain direction you often miscalculate and end up in the bottomless pit. When you reach the middle, wall jump to the one up (or spin jump). The rotating gear pieces are fairly easy if you jump from the teeth (high parts). After you navigate them, you'll have to deal with the hard part. The best advice I can give for this is to adjust the camera to find an angle that you like best (I like to pull it back all the way until I have a top down view). Two more bits of advice. If you're still jumping from one turning face of a single block to another to stay on... you may want to stop now. It's much easier to do this by walking. And when you get halfway through these last blocks, don't be tempted by the second extra life since you've already gotten one here.

Story #5 - Another squid fight. Handle this one just like the first. To get on top of the helicopter platform, use the sewers or crane to reach the second level. Then use the awnings to get on top of the roofs so you can reach the walkway to the heli-pad. You may want to try and get the squid to attack you closer in than before so you have some room to pull on its tentacles. If you to fall off the platform, be sure to use the B button to dive under the oil or you'll die very quickly (and after you get under the water you need to swim to fresh water ASAP or you'll drown. Fun stuff.

Story #6 - Yet another red coin collection spree. This time you'll have to do it from the back of one of those frog-like creatures. If you hit a wall you die, so try not to. This may require patience since it's rather difficult. Make sure you hit the red button to get started. This isn't easy, but try and follow the trail of coins. If you don't, chances are you'll never find all the red coins in two minutes or you'll smash into a wall first. Once you jump and get the sixth coin, get ready to deviate from the coin path for the last ones. Follow the coins until you see a slender walkway held up by four posts. The seventh is under there. If you follow the coins to the eighth red coin, you'll run right into a small boat. Of course, you could jump over it and get the coin, but it's much easier to go around. After you have all eight, ride back to the dock and jump onto the dock with your creature and pick up the Shine (not as easy as it sounds).

Story #7 - Chase Water Mario until he climbs onto the boat and gets up on top of the blue catwalks. Now chase him around here spraying him water until he gives up a Shine.

Story #8 - To get this Shine, you need Yoshi. You don't have Yoshi yet do you? Come back later... you have Yoshi now? Good. Use the fruit machines (pound the top) to get the right fruit for Yoshi. Once you've freed him from his egg, go over to the very edge of town where the fish are jumping out of the water. Spray them with Yoshi Juice to make platforms. I think you can figure out the rest. Oh, and when you get to the last platform, spray that weird orange stuff with Yoshi Juice. If you’re having trouble getting Yoshi all the way to the last platform, try spraying the yellow junk from afar. Then you can ditch Yoshi and get up to the Shine with the rocket jump.

100 Coins - Generally speaking, the best story to gain the 100 coins on is the eighth one. Each level changes a lot between stories and the eighth one usually has the most modifications (and thus the most coins). Don't forget to get the coins in the underground and on top the tower. The catwalks have some (there is a place where you can drop off the catwalks and pick up four coins and a blue). Check on top of the new boat near the start. Also watch the cranes and get the packs of coins underwater. There are a few that rest just above the water out near ropes or border of the stage as well. Use your rocket jump to get them. When you get all the coins, the Shine will be located where you fought the first squid.

Secret 1 - Go back to the racing mini-game (2-2) and beat it in less than forty seconds to get a second Shine.

Secret 2 - Get back to the obstacle course from 2-4. Yet another red button and more red coins are here to collect. You'll have a minute thirty this time. The first three rotating blocks have three coins. Rather than hover up to the coins, try and do spin jumps to get them quickly. Two more coins are above the 1-UP mushroom. Wall jump to the top and use your hover jets to get these quickly. One more is above the middle gear. The last three are on the crazy spinning blocks at the end. Watch the shadows and use spin jumps to get the necessary height. Shine get.

Level 3, Mamma Beach

*Note: This level is called Gelato Beach in the US version of Super Mario Sunshine.

This is similar to unlocking the second level. Just find the area of town where the piranha plant has appeared and take it out to open the way to level 3.

Story #1 - See that plant? Yeah you see it. Go hose it down to open up the entrance to another obstacle course. This one isn't very hard at all though. Just move quickly over the sand blocks to stay alive.

Story #2 - Pretty mirrors eh? Well, maybe not with those creatures walking all over them. So do something about it. Work your way onto the mirrors by wall jumping and using your hover pack, or you can climb up the trails to get to them. Either way, once you're up there you'll have to spray the creatures until they are losing their balance. Then you jump up high and ground pound the other end of the mirror to send them flying. Repeat for each mirror then go get your Shine.

Story #3 - If you hadn't noticed, in the previous quest you freed a giant caterpillar. To destroy it, water the tiny saplings scattered around to make giant sand mounds that can flip the beast over. Then pound the segment of its body marked by an arrow. Simple.

Story #4 - Get on the hillside by watering the staircase plant. Now find the trail of coins that leads down the hill right onto the bouncy cloth roof next to the central building featured in the cut-scene. Bounce your way inside the hole to enter the golden bird stage. You can try to get a bunch of blue coins in this stage once you're comfortable, but you may want to start out with the reds only. To get them, travel around the bird and get seven coins. Now you simply have to ride the bird to the top of the pillar for the eighth coin and the subsequent Shine. Make sure you're ready to switch sides when the bird flips. You've done this before so this shouldn't be too difficult.

Story #5 - If you haven't figured out the fastest way to travel on land (and it isn't running) you'll be first to learn for this race. It actually is possible to win (just barely) by running and timing your jumps perfectly, but there is a much easier way. Whenever you encounter a straightaway, try hitting the B button repeatedly to dive. Since you can dive from the diving position, you can keep up that level of speed indefinitely. Just be sure to jump with the A button when you're ready to stop. Try and triple jump up the very first cliff. You'll need to wall jump up the area where there used to be a plant staircase. When you reach the top area, you should be ahead of your opponent. If not, you'll probably lose because when you try the diving trick I just mentioned, you'll run into him and be slowed down quite a bit. Once you reach the winner pole ahead of him, wait for him to come and give you your Shine.

Story #6 - Go to the reef pictured in the cut-scene and search for red coins. Six are hidden among the rocks and fixed sea life. The other two are swimming around with schools of fish. Sometimes the fish swim through rocks, so when you find a school, watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't have a red coin before moving on.

Story #7 - Another Water Mario chase. These are getting harder every time, but they were never very hard to begin with. Just follow the same pattern as Water Mario and spray him down until he ups his Shine.

Story #8 You have to the giant melon/balloon over to the fruit stand (there is a Shine in a jar there). It's at the top of the hill (where the race ended). You'll have to avoid enemies and such, which can be difficult. Try to knock out the round enemies as you approach them with a melon. If they attack the melon there is a very slim chance that it will survive. You could also run around the beach killing the enemies by making the sand sculptures explode up beneath them. The timing is tricky, of course, but it will save you a lot of headaches when you try to roll down the melon. When you get the melon to the bridge from the beach, go VERY slowly and don't make any sudden pushes. The Shine will pop out of the roof once you get the melon all the way to the end of the bridge.

100 Coins - Choose Story 8. First thing to do is find a melon and run it into a wall repeatedly. You get one coin each time you do this (it'll stop giving up coins after ten) Now take this melon over to the fruit stand as you did in 3-8 to get ten more coins. Repeat until the stand won't take any more melons. Now run across the beach and kill each of the round monsters once (they give you one coin each but only the first time you kill them). By doing this and getting the coins off the tree tops (use the rocket pack) you'll have almost enough. One of the huts among the mirrors has a ton of coins above it (of course, you'll have to avoid bees). Now head for the high wires and launch/hover to get the remaining coins (if you need any more). The Shine will be on the beach when you're done.

Secret 1 - Choose Story number 1 and head back to the obstacle course. Just as before, advance until you find the red button (grab the extra by pounding a nail in before you start the challenge). Once you're ready, get going. This really isn't very difficult. Once you learn the layout of the coins, you'll have plenty of time.

Secret 2 - Find the plant that creates a staircase into the ground when you spray it. Watch the wall at the end of the staircase... looks kinda like a Shine doesn't it? Spray that as well and go get your Shine (oh, and while we're here, you might want to know that the Yoshi Egg for this quest is available in Story 6).