Super Mario Sunshine (2002)

What a terrible game. My main complaint is the absolutely awful controls. It requires way too much finesse in some of the challenges for how janky the controls and camera can be. I also find it hard to believe this is for children.

I'm going to give Odyssey a chance because it's already installed with the pack on Switch, but if that one is anywhere near this bad, I'll probably drop 3D Mario games permanently.

Finished Sunshine for the first time last week, and realized yesterday that it was the very last mainline Mario game I hadn't played. So obviously that means it's time for...

A Totally Subjective Ranking of Every Mario Platformer!

1. Odyssey
2. SMB 1
3. Mario 64
4. Yoshi's Island (Super Mario World 2)
5. NSMB Wii
6. NSMB U
7. 3D World
8. Wario Land 1 (Super Mario Land 3)
9. New Super Luigi U
10. Wonder
11. Galaxy 2
12. NSMB 1
13. SMB 3
14. SMB2 Japan (Lost Levels)
15. NSMB 2
16. World
17. 3D Land
18. Sunshine
19. Bowser's Fury
20. Galaxy 1
21. Mario Run
22. Land 1
23. Land 2
24. SMB2 USA (Doki Doki Panic)

Which Mario platformers are your favorite?

This is easily the hardest 3D Mario game ever.

Mario without the FLUDD doesn’t control well, he slips too much. Getting some Shines requires you to do things you wouldn’t normally think of, like spraying water to a random location or use Yoshi in a certain way. The secret levels are so hard that people prefer using the bugs in the game to beat them.

Alright, 13 Shines in, I think I am liking this game. I still hit a few challenges I find incredibly frustrating. But, the game lets you restart a lost game with no progress gone, so that is nice. And I am really enjoying the variety of tasks I have to do.

I still am pretty bad at the game, but it is growing on me. The music is probably the best feature, what a banger OST

Lets see how this goes. I bought Mario 3D All Stars after loving Odyssey. But Mario 64 was too tough for me to revisit. I didn't love it when it came out, and all the things I didn't like in it were worst 20 something years later.

So far, Sunshine is fun, but I am having a bit of trouble with the controls. Music and art is great. The first level was fun and I started to get a grip on some of the hose abilities.

In all my life, I haven't seen a more cryptic collectable than this game's blue coins.

Each chapter have around 6-8 episodes. The blue coins can be anywhere, in any chapter, in any episode. Most of them are invisible and you have to do something illogical to make them appear. But the worst part if that if you miss ONE blue coin, there is no way to know where IN THE WHOLE GAME it is. Ludicrous...

I consider myself a huuuuge Mario fan. Super Mario World and Mario 64 are two of my top 5 games. I was late to the party on owning a GameCube, and I had Super Mario Sunshine, but never got into all those years ago. Now with Super Mario 3D AllStars on the Switch, I thought I would give it a try. Also, I put the game entirely in Spanish so I could practice my beginner-level Spanish too.

And now I’m remembering why this game didn’t grab me like 64 or World did - It’s HARD. I think the most frustrating part is these hard levels are in the beginning. I only have like 10 or so shines and none of them have really been easy. And I heard the game just gets harder. The janky camera isn’t helping and I really hate the secret levels because I die so much. I don’t remember 0-lives dying in ANY mario game, but I’ve done it several times. Thank goodness it just takes you back to the last save.

I really want to like this. The FLUDD is a cool premise (I think it’s called ACQUA in the Spanish version). The graphics looks really good. But the water aiming is SO hard. And then the plat forming is SO hard. So much falling, dying, and falling again. Plus if I could just turn off those goop monsters coming at me from every corner that would be great.

I don’t want to abandon this, but with every level taking SO long I’m not really enjoying myself either. Maybe I’ll feel differently if I play Galaxy? Part of these janky controls are why I’m scared to ever revisit Mario 64 again for fear it won’t hold up..