Reviewed: July 24, 2003
Reviewed by: Jason Porter
Publisher
Nintendo
Developer
Nintendo
Released: August 26, 2002
Genre: Platform
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone
10
10
9
8
9.5
Supported Features:
When Luigi's Mansion was revealed to be the Mario Brothers' GameCube premiere, people were startled to say the least. True, Luigi has never gotten his fair share of the credit owed to the franchise, but why on earth would Nintendo take such a huge gamble by releasing a product with (almost) no Mario to be seen, especially with the stiff competition from Sony and Microsoft at that time? Why didn't they release a traditional platformer, rather than a quirky and rather experimental title? Why did we have to keep waiting for so long? Why, indeed.
The wait is finally over, and the only answer I have is that perfection takes time. Super Mario Sunshine for the Nintendo GameCube is a new high-water mark in platform gaming. You, as in the past, assume the role of Mario. His squeaky N64 voice and trademark red cap are here, along with other beloved standards such as Princess Peach, Yoshi and Boo Diddlies.
This time, everyone's favorite overweight Italian plumber is looking forward to taking a vacation on the tropical resort, Isle Delfino. Fortunately for the game, someone posing as Mario has been covering everything in thick, toxic paint and graffiti. Of course, Mario is the only one who can fix things, and the game sets off with this classically simple premise.
Early on, you meet the F.L.U.D.D. (Flash Liquidizing Ultra Dousing Device), a water pack with interchangeable nozzles that replace traditional fire-flowers and mushrooms. Together with your new accessory, you set off to restore Isle Delfino to its former glory... and of course, eventually you end up having to save the Princess from Bowser.
Gameplay in Sunshine is remarkably similar to that of Super Mario 64. You run, slide and triple-jump your way through expansive levels filled with weird little secrets and even weirder enemies. Controls are smooth and amazingly precise this time around: I counted four different speeds at which Mario can run/walk, depending on how hard you engage the analog stick. Also as in Mario 64, Sunshine has the occasional camera angle problem, but a bevy of intuitive camera controls can fix that most of the time. Overall, the controls are deceptively simple, and the play is deep yet intuitive.
The biggest addition to the controls (and one of the tougher things to get the hang of) comes in the form of your water pack, F.L.U.D.D. Depending on which nozzle you use, you can either spray water ahead of Mario or cause him to hover in the air for a short time at the beginning of the game. Later, you can acquire nozzles that let you rocket insanely high up in the air or let you speed down straightaways at a breakneck pace.
Each nozzle has its own control nuances that must be learned (the spray nozzle, for example, can be used while running, aimed while Mario stands still, or utilized in a spinning jump attack). This seems difficult at first, but the levels are cleverly designed so that you get a firm grasp of all of them in due time. Controlling F.L.U.D.D. isn't perfect; many times it took me six or seven tries to get Mario to land where I wanted him to. However, it's hard to see how it could have been done better without detracting from the challenge of the game...
...and boy, is it a challenge. The object of play is to collect golden star-like things with eyes called Shine Sprites that have all hidden themselves away in hard-to-reach places. There are a total of 120 of these things to find throughout the course of the game, and they aren't always easy to obtain.
The level selection is similar to that of SM64 and Spyro in that you jump through portals from a "base area" to get to different worlds, which are organized into a series of mission objectives. However, the base area alone has more sub-quests to accomplish than any other platformer in my recent memory. You can find hidden 1-ups, gather fruit for happy islanders and search for the many mini-levels hidden all over the place.
Speaking of the mini-levels, they pay homage to old-school Mario Bros. games, both in their music (a revamped SMB1 theme) and gameplay, which emphasizes lightning-quick reflexes and insane jumping skills over exploring or defeating enemies.
Sunshine's graphics are flat-out wonderful. Everything is bright, cartoony and smooth, some of the smoothest pure-polygonal graphics I've ever seen. Character and enemy design are a high point. I especially liked the drooling, goofy-looking Boo Diddlies hiding the attic of a hotel. Animation is perfectly fluid, and textures and patterns add a lot to the experience. Watching Mario spray water, you'll sometimes catch yourself simply marveling at the look of it as a mist of clear globules arcs across the screen.
While this description may make Sunshine sound like a game designed just for little kids, it isn't. Rather than being juvenile, the sublimely weird, often-psychedelic graphics draw the player into the game's magic. They might seem simple at first, but they're actually as nice as any comparable platforming game. The decision to go with the bright, eye-popping visual scheme was obviously a conscious one on the part of the developers, and they couldn't have done a better job.
First of all, there is minimal (and I do mean minimal) voice acting in this game. This is probably a good thing. Although they did finally manage to make Princess Peach sound like an actual female and not a hairy man doing a falsetto (MarioKart 64, anyone?), F.L.U.D.D.'s robotic drone is just awful. It probably wouldn't have been as bad if the damn thing didn't yell "Mario!" every time our protagonist walked near a power-up nozzle, but as it is, I actually found myself practicing to make sure I could get the nozzles by dropping onto them from above, thus negating F.L.U.D.D.'s monotone exclamations. Wisely, they don't give any lines to Mario longer than "Woo-hoo!" and "Here we go!". I like his voice, but it would be painful to listen to him give a speech.
The music and sound effects, however, are spot-on and amazing. Every world has a theme to it that gets in your head and stays there for weeks without being annoying. Enemies make traditionally bizarre noises when you defeat them, and as in Luigi's Mansion, NPCs you talk to make weird, semi-intelligible mumbling noises when talking. They fit the game well and complement the overall charm of playing it. The classic Mario theme remix is fun to listen to, and the trademark sounds (going down a pipe, stomping a Goomba) are all here. There was nothing about the ambient noise or music that I found to be lacking.
If you want to talk value in a platformer, this game has it in spades. The game can be beaten by defeating Bowser, but some cool secrets aren't available unless you collect all 120 Shine Sprites. The fact that you can continue to play after you beat the game is enough to make me sing its praises alone, but finding and more importantly collecting all of the Sprites will keep most gamers happily occupied for weeks.
Even if you do manage to collect all of them, a lot of the levels warrant replay simply due to their difficulty. Sunshine is occasionally extremely difficult (try the Corona Mountain path on for size to see what I mean) which is a good thing for hardcore gamers who may want to keep trying until they can *always* defeat a certain level. About the only drawback is that it is, after all, a platformer. It only has one play mode and there's only one storyline, but relative to other games in the genre, Sunshine's replayability is through the roof.
If you're even casually into platformers, Sunshine will have you wrapped around its little finger for a long, long time. This game has mass appeal, deep and challenging gameplay, and a whole lot of charm and fan service. If you don't mind the minor annoyance of F.L.U.D.D.'s voice or the occasional insignificant camera problem, you will fall in love with this game. The wait is over at long, long last.