Happy 24th anniversary to Super Mario Sunshine!

Yoshi18

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One more year and this game will be a quarter of a century old. This game might just be one of the hardest games I've ever played. I bet it's even harder than Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Seriously though, The Watermelon Festival episode is literally impossible. Another one that's very hard (but luckily not impossible) is The Manta Storm, but except for those episodes, the game is pretty fun and very good!
 
This game might just be one of the hardest games I've ever played
i agree but not in a good way imo. it's hard unintentionally, due to a variety of unpolished physics. i've beaten the perfect run but still have yet to even make it to bowser in super mario sunshine because the difficulty the jank provides is just not fun imo.

this game is absolutely oozing with charm and personality though, and it has a ton of great ideas. i'd love if it got a remake where its original vision was executed, just with Odyssey's level of polish and some quality of life tweaks (like the lilypad level not requiring an entire voyage to access every time)
 
Happy anniversary to this game. I still remember getting it on my 16th birthday back in 2019 (which was about half a year before I joined this site) and I always enjoyed it moderately, but to be candid it's my least favourite 3D Mario game by a wide margin, and I think the difficulty/jank is probably the main reason for me. Unlike FTG64 I have beaten the main story though. I don't think I ever intend on beating it 100% but I'll almost certainly come back to it someday.
 
easily the worst 3D mario game but it also says something about the general quality of these games where that still puts it as like a 7.5/10 at worst lol
Same lol. Like it's the worst 3D Mario game but I don't hate it in the slightest (except for certain episodes) and that says a lot if this is the worst 3D Mario game
 
Before ever playing this game, I knew it was the black sheep of the 3D Mario games. It doesn't feature classic Mario enemies, has an actual story, and has these weird knockoff power star imitations called the shine sprites. But.... Sitting down to 100% this game on the Game Cube was probably the most interesting and most fun experience I've ever had with a 3D Mario game.

As for the jank and difficulty, I actually like it. When something is difficult and takes days to complete, it tends to stick with me more. There are times that I wish the modern 3D Mario games were this difficult. Besides that, the thing I like most about this game is how creative the hidden shine sprites and blue coins are. Having to spraying down the only yellow bird in a level so that it produces a shine sprite? Genius.

For the entire game being beach themed, the level settings are quite creative. My favorite setting would probably be Noki Bay, with all its hidden passageways scaling its giant wall. My second favorite would be Hotel Delfino with "Mysterious Hotel Delfino" being my favorite mission in the game.

There's so much more I could say about this game. It's easily one of my favorite games of all time.
 
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Super Mario Sunshine was the first 3D Mario platformer my sister just put down the controller and stopped playing it, after realizing that she doesn't have to put up with this shit. We've played every other 3D Mario platformer to completion.

It's bad.

Seriously though, The Watermelon Festival episode is literally impossible.

You can kill the cataquacks.
 
I liked using Fludd with the different nozzle abilities. The Camera and Wall Jumping is improved from Super Mario 64. I really like how Mario controls in this game, although I wish they didn't get rid of the long jump. I can't deny the moments of jank and weird decisions in this game. It's not hard to see why its usually considered not as good as the other 3D Mario games.

Game is fun when playing it causally, but 100 percenting it? Ehhh...

I like most of the levels, although it was disappointing that there were only half the amount of main levels of 64.

The Final Boss was underwhelming (basically just ground pounding five places), but the level getting to the final boss was actually a bit of a challenge. The boat was awkward to control. I actually dislike the Pinball level more that the Instant Kill River, but the method getting to the River was stupid though.
 
Super Mario Sunshine was the first 3D Mario platformer my sister just put down the controller and stopped playing it, after realizing that she doesn't have to put up with this shit. We've played every other 3D Mario platformer to completion.

It's bad.



You can kill the cataquacks.
Not all of them. And even then; that watermelon is even more fragile than dropped glass. It's unbearable.
 
The dune buds can kill all of them.
 
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