2nd Op By

Kyle Orland 8.0 RATING

Mike did a great job in pointing out almost all of Super Mario Sunshine's technical flaws. The manual camera system is aggravating. The controls aren't tight enough. The addition of FLUDD is gimmicky. The game doesn't add enough to the platforming genre to warrant a six-year hiatus. These are all valid points, but they fail to address possibly the most important characteristic of Super Mario Sunshine:

For all its faults, Super Mario Sunshine is still fun to play.

In coming to this conclusion, I tried to determine if the game was fun simply because it was a Mario game. This was not the case. In fact, most of the things that I associated with Mario games were removed or bastardized in this latest sequel. Between the strange locale, the scores of Piantas frittering about and the now-water-soluble Yoshi, I found it hard to fit Super Mario Sunshine into my framework of what a Mario game should be. This fact initially disappointed me, but as soon as I started to consider Super Mario Sunshine as its own game and not as just the next step in a series, I began to enjoy it more and more.

What Super Mario Sunshine lacks in gameplay innovation, it makes up for in its solid level design. Running around in the large, colorful worlds of Super Mario Sunshine made me feel like a kid unleashed on a huge new playground, with a near endless supply of things to do. Simply exploring the game's huge world without a specific goal in mind can be very relaxing and rewarding, and the excitement of finding a new hidden area or making a tough jump in Super Mario Sunshine is just as strong as it was in Super Mario 64. It's a testament to the game's design that this sense of wonder manages to shine through despite the faulty mechanics mentioned earlier.

True, there is a slight sense of 'been there, done that' in performing familiar tasks like collecting 100 coins in each level, but the amazing variety of new things to do in Isle Delfino quickly pushes this feeling to the back of ones mind. In what other game is there the opportunity to surf on an octopus one minute, ride on a roller coaster the next, and roll a giant watermelon down a hill the minute after that? Sure, some of the challenges are overly repetitive (like chasing down Shadow Mario in every stage) and some are marred by faulty play mechanics (like the hidden, larger-than-life pachinko game), but there are so many fun and imaginative goals available that anyone with a hint of child left in them is sure to find something to like.

Unlike Mike, I found the game's overriding tropical theme to be a welcome change. Where is it written that every platforming game needs to have an ice level, a lava level, an underground level, etc.? Centering the game in an island setting made playing feel like an extended vacation. The music's soothing island rhythms and the sunny, pastel graphical style made the resort town of Isle Delfino a place that I was happy to return to again and again (and sad to leave once I entered the disappointing, lava-filled Bowser level).

So with all my praise for the design, style, and imaginativeness of Super Mario Sunshine, why did I give it only an 8.0? Here is where the technical flaws that Mike mentioned in his review begin to come into play. The Mario games have a history of providing some of the most precise controls and annoyance-free gameplay on the market, which is why it is particularly surprising that Super Mario Sunshine is lacking in both these areas. At many points, it felt like Nintendo was trying to rush the game out the door without completely testing and tweaking all of the game's features. One has to wonder what six more months of development time could have done to remedy these sizable technical problems.

But technical problems alone are not enough to completely overwhelm the high points of Super Mario Sunshine's design. I had a great deal of fun playing Super Mario Sunshine, and not just because I am a 'die-hard' Miyamato fanboy, but because the sense of fantasy and wonder that this game evokes are as strong in this game as they were in the strongest titles of the Mario series. Yes, videogames and gamers are growing up, but there is definitely still room in this industry for the childish escapism that even slightly flawed platformers like Super Mario Sunshine provide.

Public Opinion

Frogofdeath 8.0 Rating

Calling Super Mario Sunshine a half step back from Super Mario 64 would be like calling Super Mario World a half step back from Super Mario Bros. 3. The game is more like a half step forward. Sunshine doesn't revolutionize the video game world like Super Mario 64 did, instead it gives us something similar, but just different enough.

I found the game to have tight controls and vibrant, colorful worlds; two things I expect from a Mario game. The 'old-school' levels are a welcome addition, and I found Corona Mountain to be a throwback to earlier Mario games. It reminds me of the castle levels in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. Another plus is the great musical score.

While I don't find the camera to be as horrible as Mike says, it does have some major problems at times. I was also disappointed not to see some signature Mario levels as well as a lack of many classic Mario enemies. A Mario game without goombas just isn't complete! Yoshi is also an underutilized feature.

Overall, Sunshine is a good game and I would still put it near the top of the platform pile. There aren't many platformers that are better that Sunshine, and incidentally all of them happen to be on the Nintendo 64. Mario may not be revolutionizing the video game world with his latest outing, but what games really are?

Super Mario Sunshine doesn't try to have a comprehensive story, it doesn't try to wow you with emotion and character driven drama, or any of those other pathetic aspects that stupid people who just weren't there in the old school think constitute a videogame.

If you listen to Miyamoto's attitude toward games today and making games in general and then play Super Mario Sunshine you realise that it's just a videogame. And a very fun, engaging, and ultimately playable game at that.

The fact that I'm playing a game that has Mario in it six years since the last new one just isn't an issue to me. To me Mario hasn't been away at all, all of his very, very good games were all still there, ready for me to play. I became sick of Super Mario 64 close to finishing because it bought so many new elements to the series, and unfortunately some of them were unwelcome. The art direction didn't do the series justice (partly due to the hardware of course), and the music score was awful, some of Koji-san's worst.

Super Mario Sunshine is a sequel but it holds on to the good parts of Super Mario 64 and improves on it's predecessor in it's own unique ways. Just like Super Mario Bros. 2 and Yoshi's Island once did.

I feel that the 6.0 review is being a little harsh. Instead of reviewers being too light in there judgement because it's a Mario game I feel this reviewer is too harsh specifically because it is a Mario game.

Take the last 3 big platform games from the last couple of years. Is there one single innovative or original thing in Jak & Daxter? Is there much of any innovation in Sly Cooper? Does Ratchet & Clank really have anything new? The answer is for the most part, no, not really, none at all.

While I agree that Super Mario Sunshine is disappointing because of my expectations for the next game in the Mario series, it still manages to do many things that we haven't ever seen in character action games before.

In which other platform games can you "see a level get entirely covered with paint and wash it off", "roll watermelons", "squirt liquid in various directions", "fly with a jet pack", "stand on leaves and propel yourself backward", "jet across water and extreme speeds", "play on controlable swings", "roll objects around the level", "etc..."

I'm not saying the game is perfect. I agree 100% with all the camera criticisms. I just think that while in the Mario-only scale it might be a 6.0, but in the scale of comparision to other games of the same category it pretty much comes out on top.

Reader Second Opinions