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Super Mario Sunshine

by Mike Sklens - July 29, 2002, 1:29 pm EDT

What's this? More Mario Sunshine impressions? You better beleive it! Possible minor spoilers ahoy.

I never get excited about games until I’m just about to have them. It’s just the way I am. Some people will obsess over a game for months and dream about it every night until release. I’m not like that. I’ll read up on a game and get some info. But it’s not until the very few days before I actually get to play the game that I get excited. I played very little of Mario at E3. I can’t really understand why I didn’t play it as much as some other people. Maybe it’s because I was too obsessed with beating David’s Metroid Prime time (which I did do). At E3, Mario came off as a very solid evolution of Mario64. And what I played at E3, I sucked at. It could have been the lights and the techno music, I dunno. I seem to be much better at it now. The few days before I finally got my hands on my copy of Mario Sunshine were an anxious wait indeed, which is odd seeing as how I only enjoyed the game at E3, and wasn’t in love with it.

I put the disc in and booted up my GameCube and was welcomed with an old school coin sound effect, and at that moment I knew that I would be enjoying this game a lot more. Certain parts of Mario Sunshine are filled with old school charm. After the opening story the first thing I did was nab the first shine right away. I’d been waiting to see that lovely “SHINE GET!” ever since I left LA. After that it was on to the hub of the world, where I gleefully ran around for a while and had some fun with the new Mario. Right now, I’m 30 shines in and loving every minute of it.

Graphically, Mario Sunshine is solid. It’s not mind blowing like Resident Evil or Metroid Prime, but it’s very pretty. It’s extremely colorful and everything oozes with Miyamoto’s touch. There are some graphical glitches, mostly in the Pinna Park level. The sound is another awesome aspect title. I completely adore the soundtrack and want a copy of it right now. Of particular note is the remixed underground music when you chase your watery rival and the music in the soul-crushing challenge stages, particularly the latter. The sound effects are also fantastic; with a ton of old school ones returning.

You may notice that I didn’t talk much about the graphics and sound. That’s for a reason. Both of them are vastly surpassed by the gameplay. Mario controls extremely accurately. Some people have been talking about how the camera is bad, but I disagree. These people simply haven’t learned how to use the camera. You can’t just stick it in once place and leave it there. Controlling the camera is a skill, and once you acquire it you’re in like Flint. Sunshine’s gameplay is the star (or should I say shine) attraction here. You will be doing everything in Mario Sunshine. There is no other game where you can climb on grates, propel yourself on a lily pad with a water pack, and hunt ghosts all in the same gaming session.

Another thing I’d like to focus on are the “challenge stages.” In these stages your nemesis steals your water backpack leaving you without the safety net of your hover jets. Then you are thrust into an old school Mario love-fest. These stages are diabolically simple and insanely complex at the same time. The simple part is the objective, get from point A to point B and shine the get. The complex part is getting there. They hearken back to the old school days of platforming when nothing was extremely easy and it took real talent and skill to get to the end. Everything about these stages screams old school, especially the fantastic music. Most of them involve running on spinning or disappearing blocks to get to the other side of the level. Most of them are pretty short so far, but I hear that later stages can take quite some time to complete.

Super Mario Sunshine is the best game released on the GameCube as of yet, and it would easily be the best game of the year if it weren’t for competition from other such Nintendo titles like Zelda and Metroid. If you have a modded GameCube, I expect you to go play Mario after you finish reading this because you better already have it. If you don’t have a modded GameCube, you better go place you preorder because when Mario hits, you won’t want to have to wait for it.

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GC

Game Profile

Super Mario Sunshine Box Art

Genre Action
Developer Nintendo
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Super Mario Sunshine
Release Aug 25, 2002
PublisherNintendo
RatingEveryone
jpn: Super Mario Sunshine
Release Jul 19, 2002
PublisherNintendo
RatingAll Ages
eu: Super Mario Sunshine
Release Oct 04, 2002
PublisherNintendo
Rating3+

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