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Why Everyone Hates It: By popular opinion, Super Mario Sunshine is a needless rehashing of Super Mario 64, bringing nothing new to the table, and introducing a new character deserving of hate.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: The take on the recent Mario game tradition of collecting odd colored coins to attain 100% completion is bizarrely vague and poorly documented in this outing.
Why I Like It Anyway: Most negativity directed at Sunshine seems to come either from people who have not actually played it, or have profoundly inaccurate memories regarding Super Mario 64 and the myriad 3D platformers from other developers which followed in its wake. Essentially, Sunshine is to 64 a feature length adaptation of a low-budget, 10 minute student film. The original was highly imaginative and innovative, but feels, at least by modern standards, more like a proof of concept than a complete work.
Most significantly, this means Sunshine's environments are quite a bit larger and more detailed. Levels from Super Mario 64 were interesting, but after completing all the challenges and looking back, what one was left with was usually a fairly large, mostly empty bowl with a few points of interest scattered about. Sunshine's levels on the other hand tend to be relatively huge and highly detailed, with some individual challenges set in their own sub-locations easily larger than any given level from 64, sometimes giving a Sunshine level the feel of a hub connecting several different areas. The actual nature of the challenges was also modernized some, making exploration and platforming more substansive compared to the earlier game's occasional reliance on simply leaving goals at the other end of visually striking but mechanically simple areas.
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There's more to Sunshine than just being a bigger and better SM64 however. It reintroduces elements lost in the jump to 3D in the form of Yoshi riding, and a consistently available power up which allows for some guided hovering after a jump, not unlike the earlier raccoon suit and cape. This of course ties into the main gimmick of the game, F.L.U.D.D. Every level, and a fair bit of the overworld hub, initially is covered in various hazardous viscous fluids, such as oil and paint, which enemies will also typically create and spread around. The player is generally incentivized to wash this away using a multi-functional water spraying device to achieve various goals, avoid damage, or just satisfy obsessive-compulsive tendencies. The catch of course being that the device in question has a limited supply clean water, which is also consumed by the jump-and-hover maneuver, requiring refills from other water sources periodically.
There's also some extremely clever and memorable concepts on display within the individual challenges, particularly in boss battles. For instance, there are giant squids whose rubbery arms can be snapped off, sending them twitching wildly across the area, a giant robot version of Bowser battled while riding a roller coaster, and one particularly surreal and interesting battle which stands out as one of the most impressive moments from any game of the era. An enormous manta ray, which is apparently comprised entirely of light shining down from above, lopes aimlessly about a coastal town, leaving behind a trail of electrifying sludge which of course must be avoided or washed away. Blasting it with enough water causes it to split into two smaller rays, wandering off in separate directions. Spritzing these causes them to divide again and again, disappearing only after reaching a size roughly on par with Mario's foot. Not long into the battle, one suddenly finds oneself surrounded by at least a good 30 or 40 of these light rays (pun not intended, but rather unavoidable), in a landscape completely covered in electric sludge, desperately leap-frogging from the safety of scattered umbrellas for water refills in enemy ridden fountains, trying to avoid the larger targets until the chaos of the tiniest ones has been brought under control some.
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Then of course there's my personal favorite part of the game. Hidden away within various levels are mysterious portals which suck Mario into platforming hell. F.L.U.D.D., which you will most likely have come to rely on for its double jump feature is taken away, the music changes to an odd a cappella rendition of the original Super Mario Bros. music, the background a swirling chaos of nostalgia, and the terrain a surprisingly challenging abstract obstacle course of pure platforming skill. These sections stand out in harsh contrast with the rest of the game as extreme challenges, of a sort found in only in the boss areas of 64, and two surprisingly vicious challenges in Super Mario Galaxy.
Plot wise, the game makes at least some attempt to mix things up as well. Instead of the traditional Mushroom Kingdom, here the setting is a string of tropical islands, where a number of stable characters are taking a vacation. The final boss battle is rather different in tone than the usual fair as well, and special mention must be made of Bowser Jr., debuting in this game, and making one wonder whatever happened to his other children who were introduced in SMB3. Specifically, when Bowser Jr. first appears, a quick cut scene ensues, where he explains his belief to the princess that she is his mother. She comes off as at least partly willing to believe the plausibility of this concern, which truly says something unsettling either about how vapid she really is, or her tawdry past. Food for thought in any event.
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Again, Super Mario Sunshine is a major, natural improvement on Super Mario 64. Presumably, its poor reception was less due to its actual quality, and more to the fact that it was released late enough into the GameCube's lifespan that it lost the feel of an essential title for anyone owning the system which usually comes with any first party launch game. Super Mario Galaxy of course is an even further refinement of what a 3D Mario game should be. Completely missing out on an excellent game because another excellent game is also available is a rather strange thing to do however, making that a poor excuse to give this one a miss.
Normally at this point, I would begin a rundown of the other games in the series, for the benefit of those who may have missed them, but this being arguably the best known and best loved series of all time, we'll focus only on those other Mario titles which it is not insulting to assume any given person may not have played. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a game of no small merit, although it can be easily confused with the similarly named DS game, New Super Mario Bros., which honestly did feel somewhat phoned in. Super Paper Mario is similarly easy to overlook, or at least confuse with Paper Mario. While Paper Mario is an RPG (which will very likely be covered in a future installment of this feature), Super Paper Mario is a platformer, with minor RPG-like elements thrown in more or less as an afterthought. The real appeal is in its odd, somewhat in-jokey humor, flipping levels from the original Super Mario Bros. on their side and revealing greater complexity, letting enemies pick up power ups and benefit from them, and generally having fun distorting the original source material. Lastly, attention really must be called to 1994's Game Boy Donkey Kong. Despite recycling the original's title with no additions, it is actually its own surprisingly long and involving game, doing some really interesting things with the basic premise, and eventually becoming something of a puzzle platformer.
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