GENRE
	Platformer
	DEVELOPER
	EAD
	PUBLISHER
	Nintendo
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1
	CONNECTIVITY
	no
	BUY NOW AT

Six years after Super Mario 64, EAD presents an encore performance of awesome gameplay and technical wizardry in its hallmark series. Yes, Mario’s finally back in this shiny iteration on the GameCube. Everyone’s favorite resident of the Mushroom Kingdom has strapped on a fancy contraption as his younger brother did last year, and isn’t afraid to get dirty while wiping up the paint polluting Isle Delfino and wiping out his impostor. But in taking this game in a conservative direction following in its predecessor’s footsteps, does Super Mario Sunshine manage to outshine Super Mario 64? Read on...

visuals

While at first glance, the graphics in Super Mario Sunshine may appear to be very bland and pastel, it’s a marked improvement over the very tentative first steps into 3-D we saw back on the Nintendo 64. Rather than boast little more than flat colors for textures and minimalist polygon figures, the sheer amount of detail present here is astounding if one merely takes the time to look beyond the ubiquitous cheery hues.

Most prominent of the graphical highlights that may be easily overlooked is the rendering of liquid. In any given area, viscous, multi-colored paint may occupy any countless number of points on the ground while waiting to be sprayed away by the nozzle on Mario’s water pump. The spray from this pump, FLUDD, is squirted realistically and lands on whatever surface it hits, erasing paint and other graffiti on contact. If a puddle forms, real-time reflections can be seen on its surface before evaporating into the air. Perhaps most striking of the water effects is the bump mapping on the skin of bodies of water whether they are flat or have waves.

All these water works aren’t without a price, however. Occasionally when hovering with the jet pack nozzle, the game’s frame-rate will take a very noticeable drop for seemingly no reason. Also, puddles may momentarily disappear from the screen when many are present at a time – that is, when a large surface area has been sprayed. There are also some very minor clipping issues with distant moving objects that are often missed if not specifically looking for them. The bump mapping on water, unfortunately, also suffers from clipping when far enough from sea level, particularly in Gelato Beach.

audio

The MIDI-driven musical elements in Super Mario Sunshine combine the charm of old-school SMB remixes with cheerful tropical ditties in keeping with the theme of the title.

Delfino Plaza sports an original composition that captures the essence of a bustling tropical port crossed with the Italian town of Venice, sharing water roads and gondolas. Other notable tunes include the tranquil themes of Noki Bay and Sirena Beach, providing the proper backdrop for a giant coral reef and sunset coast, respectively. The song for Pianta Village, for one, changes depending on how near or far Mario is to the music-playing and celebrating inhabitants of the pear-shaped islanders’ hometown. From a distance, the music seems very natural and almost like something out of Pikmin, whereas one can hear the constant and jubilant strumming of ukuleles when standing within earshot of the band.

These tropical themes are well punctuated by splashes of the soundtrack from the original Super Mario Bros., particularly using the 6-note intro of the underground theme for dramatic effect. In a much less sinister usage, the same tune is used whenever Mario navigates any number of networking pipes out-of-view from above the level surface. And in a very appropriate move, the classic SMB theme has been redone in almost an a cappella-style bop for the mini-games hidden within each level and presented in the style of Bowser’s stages from Super Mario 64.

Several of the decisions for voices, however, are just plain goofy. Charles Martinet’s talents are vastly underutilized for the voice of Mario, providing only the standard shouts and yells during action in addition to a few special quips for certain events; there’s no dialogue from the plumber to speak of. Princess Peach Toadstool has a new voice in this game, one much softer and perhaps a bit less in touch with reality than the previous one, despite her being the only one to notice the fake Mario defacing the island. One can only wonder why certain characters in the series speak for the first time in such a comical and nonsensical manner while primary figures are seemingly left out.

On the upside, the dialogue and audio cues uttered by the low-toned voice of Mario’s Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device refrain from being annoying at all, only utilized when absolutely necessary to provide important information.

gameplay

Super Mario Sunshine really just picks up where Super Mario 64 left off. It doesn’t take much time to reacquaint players with the controls and level of difficulty before diving headlong into what might as well be the 2nd half of an epic, but more on that later. The best way to describe Super Mario Sunshine might be as a game that uses the Super Mario 64 engine to offer up a new set of 120 objectives in a new environment, plus a few cool new features. On top of the standard control scheme left largely untouched from the previous go-around, Sunshine of course includes the all-purpose water pump.

Camera controls here must be controlled manually by and large. Having manual, analog control over the angle of each perspective in the course is fulfilling for everyone who struggled with the extremely limited digital controls of the previous game. When left to its own devices, the camera follows Mario almost as if being dragged along by a rope, whereas the player-controlled camera will of course always seem to capture just the right shot. Though the camera may get stuck against a physical object in the game and only rotate left when the player wants to rotate right, this is a minor quibble as it only ever takes an extra second to make whatever adjustment is necessary.

Super Mario Sunshine is just fun, plain and simple. The first several dozen Shine Sprites are gathered without even realizing it, having so much fun with exploring the island’s 7 lush worlds, fighting bosses, collecting red coins, chasing Water Mario, and running through old-school obstacle courses and mini-games. But before long, the game’s difficulty is ratcheted up from the standard Super Mario 64 setting to nearly match the frustration of The Lost Levels.

As the storyline progresses and eventually disappears at about the halfway mark through the game, accomplishing some tasks starts to feel remarkably like having to go all the way through one of The Lost Levels without dying, beginning again from square one if a big fall is taken. Such aerial acrobatics as walking across series of tightropes hundreds of feet in the air were never seen in Super Mario 64. Adding to this the sometimes fun but eventually painstaking collection of blue coins, the fact that our beloved Yoshi dissolves into a splatter of beautifully-rendered paint upon contact with water, and Mario Sunshine becomes a game that little brothers everywhere will find difficult to complete with every last Shine Sprite. At the same time, these challenges reward players for exploring and keep the game from being a pushover, respectively.

multiplayer

Luigi is seemingly nowhere to be found, sadly. It would’ve been a huge boon to be able to go through the game again as the green plumber, but maybe he just hasn’t been found yet. In either case, simultaneous cooperation on and exploration of the dolphin-shaped Isle Delfino would’ve taken the cake.

overall

Super Mario Sunshine is an excellent title, and almost certainly the very best GameCube title to date. It’s unfortunate that not only did the game direction take a more conservative route in sticking to the formula laid out in Super Mario 64, but also that reaction to this fantastic title in Japan has been rather muted. However, Super Mario Sunshine proves itself to rise above being merely a simple rehash and make a serious bid for game of the year. No self-respecting Cube owner should go without buying a copy of this hugely engrossing title. But why continue reading this when one can play it? Go!

9.7/10