Super Mario Sunshine is 10 Years old

[Ketchup]

Well kinda,

^JP July 19, 2002

^NA August 26, 2002

^EU October 4, 2002

^AU October 11, 2002

I thought making a post now between the American and the European would kinda make sense. One of my first import games i'd even gotten and in a lot of ways it didn't disappoint. Even today graphically it still looks amazing and its one of only a few games to ever give off a huge sense of warmth, especially thanks to the over saturated graphics. The sense of scale in this game is something i never really noticed at the time even though it was so obvious. Levels are huge in all sorts of directions rarely seen since. I actually like the fludd, theres something odd about making everything clean thats just fun. But lets not forget the void levels with that amazing humming tune.

Sure there were a few problems like dodgy camera controls, the blue coins and the yoshi that would die if it touched water but for 90% of the game it was pure fun and really does feel like a great follow up to Mario 64. Huge worlds and loads to explore with some clever stars to get. In fact it is actually quite difficult at times. I could write a huge post going on about this game but i won't as i don't have time so enjoy some pictures.

One last thing, it makes me feel very sad that this game is now 10 years old, it feels like only a few months ago i was playing this for the first time and writing on the edge forums. Sigh.

[max renn]

The only time I've jumped in videogame water and felt 'warm'. My brain played weird tricks on me with that game.

A classic.

[Droo]

Weirdly, I've never played it. I've just today finished Mario Galaxy for the first time (and bought MG2).

Perhaps if this works on the Wii (does it?) i'll pick it up...

[Keiths_Dad]

An absolutely brilliant game. I'm currently planning a retro binge due to the lack of interesting titles scheduled for the next few months, and this will probably be one of the first I play through. In an excellent launch period for the Cube, this was the high point.

[wev]

The only 3D Mario I've enjoyed, even though it was bastard hard (I just can't get on with Mario Galaxy for some reason and haven't started Mario Galaxy 2).

[SMD]

I loved it up until the end, massively disappointing then but a nice departure from the norm of Mario platformers. History has been kinder to it because everyone was expecting Super Mario 64 2. It really lacked the polish that you expect from a Mario game, though.

[max renn]

Genuine question, no troll, what areas did you feel it lacked polish?

[Ketchup]

The level to the boss was terrible as was the battle itself. You could feel the game struggle to run it.

The back of the ferris wheel everyone mentions and any shine that required yoshi being near water.

Most of the problems were either the camera or falling through floors/objects but for the most part it's a great game.

Oh and I hate cosmic mario being introduced as he is really annoying in the later games.

[Lorfarius]

I think it was just a victim of its time. Everyone was just expecting the end of times after Mario 64 and I'm not sure it could ever live up to such hype.

[DarhkFox]

To be honest i mostly thought it was decent.

It was the last game that i have ever phoned into work sick when it arrived! (I got the NTSC USA version).

The day i got it, i stayed in bed and spent about 8 hours straight with it. I very much enjoyed it, till later levels and boring blue coin challenges.

Never did finish it, its the only console mario game i havent actually (excluding the spin offs etc).

I think partly as a friend finished it round mine, kinda put me off from playing after that.

[redballoon]

It was my 1st Japanese imported game. It was all trial and error figuring out if I was saving my game or not...but that was part of the fun!

[Ivanho]

Bought this when it first came out. Completed earlier this year as my daughter wanted to see Bowser.

Great fun but bastard hard in places, and the water dissolving Yoshi is very annoying!

[SeanR]

I inherited a jpn copy from... Someone. Think I gave it to spanx

[SMD]

Genuine question, no troll, what areas did you feel it lacked polish?

As Sack Man 64 pointed out, the camera and falling through floors/objects were sloppy. The pirate ships for example when trying to get the red coins were terrible for this. The void levels held up much better, though I haven't played it in a while.

For the record, I bought a Gamecube to play this game and I still think it's one of the nicest looking Mario games. It's a shame that the setting didn't allow it to vary beyond the summer holiday theme but other games in the series more than make up for that. Definitely needs replaying.

[gone fishin]

Brilliant game (and it works on the Wii) although very, very frustrating at times. Especially the old skool, sans jetpack levels. Jesus, they were torture at times.

Still, I remember being amazed by it all. Especially when you were high up... it seemed like quite a leap from SM64 in terms of graphics.

[max renn]

As Sack Man 64 pointed out, the camera and falling through floors/objects were sloppy. The pirate ships for example when trying to get the red coins were terrible for this. The void levels held up much better, though I haven't played it in a while.

For the record, I bought a Gamecube to play this game and I still think it's one of the nicest looking Mario games. It's a shame that the setting didn't allow it to vary beyond the summer holiday theme but other games in the series more than make up for that. Definitely needs replaying.

Oh yeah I forgot about the pirate ship bits - tinted glasses and all that innit. The void levels

[Oh Danny Boy]

i'll go against the grain here and say that for me this was the worst Mario, as bad as Mario USA. As someone said earlier it certainly lacked polish which was disappointing as you wouldn't expect that from a mario game. Buggy, poor camera and almost cruel at times. So many collecting tasks you'd think Rare had a hand in it. And if that wasn't tedious enough you had the endless clean up jobs with the fludd. The fludd...on one hand it felt beneficial, in fact it was, allowing for you to float and thus allowing you to accurately control where you land from a jump but on the other hand it was almost an admittance by nintendo that the game was flawed so that it needed an extra mechanism to assist the player with the task of successfully navigating platforms. The void levels was its high point, i'd play a whole game worth of those void levels, Mario platforming at its finest.

The game also lacked the freedom that Mario 64 possessed, not being able to do any shine within a level at any time and having to pass through all the levels in a linear fashion felt like a step back from Mario 64. Even more so that the game itself didn't actually play like a mario game and felt much like a completely different game with the Mario characters tacked on. I'd probably be far more forgiving of its flaws if it was a new IP but making it a mario game was always going to draw comparisons with Mario64 which was a superior game in every way.

[SMD]

It might be a bad Mario game but it's still a fine platformer.

As a sequel to Mario 64, yeah it's disappointing and I remember it being slammed at the time for it - but really as a game in its own right, it's still decent and there are some things it does that haven't really been done since.

[Unofficial Who]

I got this with my Gamecube for my 30th. Put it aside to play a little later after a quick go.

Ten years have passed.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

[Tetchy]

10 years. Woah! I still remember getting my copy from DVDBoxOffice (my then go to guys for NGC US imports) the first week of September 2002.

I liked that Nintendo moved away from mushroom based levels to the tropical setting and the music (of the levels I played) & SFX were just brilliant (I still hum the Delfino Plaza Mario theme from time to time ). I also liked the idea and possibilities of FLUDD, but to me the execution of the game itself left a lot to be desired. I didn't actually get very far in it because of the dodgy camera controls, totally spoilt my enjoyment of what to me should have been an immense game at the time.

Have gone back to it since and have tried to work past the camera issues but they are so overwhelmingly difficult that the game get's switched off after 15 minutes or so.

As an aside, anyone with a decent PC should get the Dolphin emulator and then "procure" themselves a copy of this. Like most NGC games it was lovely looking at the time, but it just looks sublime when running on today's hardware.

[merman]

First game I played when I got my 'Cube as a Christmas present.

The cave sections without Fludd are superb 3D platforming.

I like the variety of the above ground sections, with things like the Sunbird and the melon rolling changing the control method.

But indoors the camera struggles, and the whole issue with Yoshi disappearing when he touches water is what made me stop playing.

[Red Alignment]

I bought Super Mario Sunshine on the UK launch day, and quickly came to the conclusion that it was a real mess of a game, to my crushing disappointment. Like Wind Waker the following year, the game was quite obviously rush-released before it was properly, ready and lacks level of polish you expect from Nintendo's first-party games. First there was the clipping and camera issues, that became apparent within the first quarter of an hour's play. Then the Fludd pack too... I mean, it would've been an interesting as an occasional power-up, but building 90%+ of the gameplay around it? Awful design decision, that one. There was just a layer of half-baked amateurishness over the game that I couldn't have expected in my worst predictions.

I have to be honest that Super Mario Sunshine negatively coloured my feelings towards the GameCube during that generation. I was massively looking forward to a sequel to Super Mario 64, and the sequel not matching up to the predecessor by the degree that it did really knocked my confidence in the format. (Same deal with Wind Waker compared to Ocarina and Majora.) Now these days I have a collection of dozens of GameCube games, and hold the format in higher esteem than the Wii, but I never enjoyed the GC era as much as the N64 era because of the disappointment I felt with the big Mario game.

[SMD]

In fairness, the N64's best titles wowed us because there was nothing like it. Mario 64 was such a huge leap ahead of Super Mario World. As you said, looking back the Gamecube era was fantastic but it didn't exactly fit expectations at the time - most games were largely experimental in some way. It's easy to forget there were many who were sceptical about Metroid Prime before release and of course there's the wailing over Zelda's art style. Everyone expected Super Mario 128 and the realistic looking Zelda demo ended up just letting people down a la Metal Gear Solid 2.

Mario Sunshine would've easily benefitted from an extra 6 months or so polishing, which is probably why Nintendo have ended up just delaying stuff constantly.

[DarhkFox]

I know people bash the whole dolphino setting but surely this was Nintendo trying something different than the same out mushroom kingdom style levels. I wasn't a big fan but it's spawned settings for some of my favourite tracks in th Mario kart series.

[Barnard]

The sea around the island was amazing. It looked so pretty, with the gentle waves making Mario bob up and down, that I just wanted to go on holiday myself.

The battle with Pirahna Pete in the windmill was epic.

[sid]

The edge review of this is one of their best imo

http://www.edge-online.com/reviews/super-mario-sunshine-review

Superb

[Keyboard Koala]

Remember how everyone went crazy on the old Edge forum in anticipation of their review? Good times...

[Broker]

After Mario World, this is my favourite Mario game. I love 64, but it’s so ordinary (Mario-wise), and Galaxy for me goes too far in the other direction. Sunshine has a lovely sense of place, a real feeling and it’s wonderfully summery and cheery. I honestly don’t think I could love it any more, even that bastard level at the docks where you have to get the fruit to get Yoshi, then spray the fish to make the platforms.

I still remember the madness on here when someone discovered the book behind the door in the bottle. Everyone was shifting their camera to try to see it and then Pickford (I think) said that he’d finally figured it out and got Luigi out of it, leading to some genuine madness from everyone else as they tried to replicate his trick.

[DarhkFox]

Does anyone remember the 3D conspiracy?

Nintendo released a few pictures (of the game) and the images looked shifted. There were rumors it looked 3D and that the Gamecube would get some kind of 3d add on.

Eventually the game came out and nothing..

Several years later it turned out the game was being developed in 3D and that there was to be a special "screen" that you could place over your TV to make it 3D. Nothing since.

[Ketchup]

Does anyone remember the 3D conspiracy?

Nintendo released a few pictures (of the game) and the images looked shifted. There were rumors it looked 3D and that the Gamecube would get some kind of 3d add on.

Eventually the game came out and nothing..

Several years later it turned out the game was being developed in 3D and that there was to be a special "screen" that you could place over your TV to make it 3D. Nothing since.

Yeah i remember the 3D thing hugely, all because of this image.

But Mario Sunshine was never developed to be 3D. Luigis Mansion was tested with basically a screen you added to your Gamecube, Making it a portable 3D gamecube but the screens back then were too expensive even for such a small size.