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Playing Super Mario Sunshine is like pulling teeth.

Scotty W

Gold Member
I have never played through this game before, but everything about it is touched with frustration. The frustration seems to be built in to the game design itself. Just from the first level:

- Look for Blue coins.
-Because you can’t angle the camera up, watch the shadow of the pirhana plant and then shoot it down. This is a recurrent source of annoyance.
-Constantly attack you with minor enemies while you try to perform a basic task.
-Spend a few minutes spraying Metal Mario as he runs pointlessly around.
-The cloud that waits for you to land on a high up platform and then knocks you off, forcing you to repeat the climb again.
- Jumping OUT of the dirty lake is needlessly annoying.
-What were they thinking making the bonus stages so difficult ON THE FIRST LEVEL?

I have to force myself to play this. When I finally accomplish something difficult, I don’t feel satisfaction, but annoyance toward the designer. I am a huge Mario fan, but I am mot having fun.
 

Andyliini

Member
I agree, it's by far the worst game Nintendo has ever produced. I have no idea how so many bad idead were crammed into a single product. I too had huge problems with some star sprites and would have probably never found all of the blue coind without a guide.

Thankfully Galaxy fixed all of it's problems.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Scotty W Scotty W Sorry, completely disagree, and I've been playing it recently on the cube. It is the pinnacle of mario platforming for anyone that loves a game with an easy to play, hard to master learning curve. It has the best music of nearly any Nintendo adventure game IMHO.

My only gripe with the game is that it had nothing extra to give on total completion - getting everything IIRC.

We're currently playing through Sack Boy's Big Adventure which is a brilliant homage to platforming, with some really difficult/rewarding levels, but it still isn't quite ever at Sunshine's level.
 
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Punished Miku

Gold Member
It's the most difficult 3D Mario by far. I personally loved it.

When I played it the first time though, we had a group of about 4 people who all obsessed over Mario 64, and played it constantly. We would trade off every shine, or blue coin. The difficulty is just too much for some people to handle alone. We'd have many coins or shines that took a few of us trying to get.

I think it's not flawless, but probably my favorite Mario. Love the setting and the graphics style. Love the difficulty and complex platforming. You may just want to spread it out over time and get a couple shines / coins then call it a night. We also had to use a guide to get 100% back in the day, but we did it.
 

Stuart360

Member
I havent looking into this to see if its true but i have always thought that Sunshine didnt start out as a Mario game, and was just converted to a Mario game later in development, Mario Bros 2 style.
I'm probably totally wrong on that but thats the feeling the game always gave me back then.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Sunshine is the worst 3D mario, and it's not even close
  1. Mario Sunshine
  2. Mario 64
  3. Mario Galaxy 1
  4. Mario Odyssey
  5. Mario Galaxy 2
  6. 3D Land
  7. 3D World
That's about where I would rank them personally. Sunshine has one of the more complicated movesets. 3D World easily has the least complicated move set and feels a bit worse to control than all the others.
 
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01011001

Banned
  1. Mario Sunshine
  2. Mario 64
  3. Mario Odyssey
  4. Mario Galaxy 1
  5. Mario Galaxy 2
  6. 3D Land
  7. 3D World
That's about where I would rank them personally. Sunshine has one of the more complicated movesets. 3D World easily has the least complicated move set and feels a bit worse to control than all the others.

it having a deep moveset sadly doesn't outweigh the issues it has for me.

the camera is an abomination, clipping through everything and behind everything, which being hard to control.

the movement often feels sluggish, especially using the jetpack

and just the flow of the game is really weird, with kinda boring level design/layout and annoying sequences.

also I would argue, Odyssey's movement is way more advanced (and feels like 30times better as well)
 
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Saber

Gold Member
Aways tried to play this game, honestly. Maybe 5 or 6 times.

But aways ends up quitting after 2 zones. Theres something cool in this game but theres also things that keep away from playing it.
 

Star-Lord

Member
  1. Mario Sunshine
  2. Mario 64
  3. Mario Odyssey
  4. Mario Galaxy 1
  5. Mario Galaxy 2
  6. 3D Land
  7. 3D World
That's about where I would rank them personally. Sunshine has one of the more complicated movesets. 3D World easily has the least complicated move set and feels a bit worse to control than all the others.
Miku, I generally agree with you on a lot of things, but this simply will not fly. Sunshine above Galaxy and 64? Oh, dear.
 

Bridges

Member
It's got plenty of issues but the majority of the really frustrating missions are optional. If you just stick to the mainline quests it's not so bad except certain parts.

The level of control and mobility you have with the FLUDD has yet to be matched
 

PaintTinJr

Member
I really enjoy a lot of the difficult stuff in 3d Marios, because it feels like it is my fault when I fail. The difficulty feels cheap, like the MK3 ai.

Will it get better?
The two questions I would have for you would be: 1) Are you prepared to master the camera control to the same level you can control the character ? because fast camera man skills in Sunshine are probably the number 1 problem good gamers have at failing tasks IMHO. And 2) How big a screen do you have access to play on? My first play through was on a 150" projection onto a wall - when progressive scan/480p was a thing with Panasonic Projectors.

Being able to per pixel control Mario's movement speed makes a big difference IMO, because the tough parts of walking at high heights - that a game like AC puts on rails with a fixed animation - are freeflow for mario and really require camera motion and player movement done in unison to succeed.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
I learned many years ago don’t play a Mario or Zelda game without a guide, I see many people have trouble with those games.
 

Star-Lord

Member
So this Mario is a hardcore game?
Sunshine and Mario 64 are the two hardest Mario games by far, with Sunshine just taking the top spot. Some of the main platforming sections require pin-point precision, otherwise instant death awaits. And some of the bonus stages and coin collecting stages are a ball ache. But overall, a damn enjoyable game that presents a worthy challenge.
 
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zeomax

Member
I agree, it's by far the worst game Nintendo has ever produced. I have no idea how so many bad idead were crammed into a single product. I too had huge problems with some star sprites and would have probably never found all of the blue coind without a guide.
At the time of this game Nintendo was trying the reduce the game development time to two years for their games. The devs had no time to give this game the finial polish. Thats why it has so many annoying parts.
 
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Star-Lord

Member
At the time of this game Nintendo was trying the reduce the game development time to two years for their games. The devs had no time to give this game the finial polish. Thats why it has so many annoying parts.
I don’t think it would require too much time to give it that final polish if Nintendo were to ever release a proper Sunshine HD port. Then it would just be french kiss.
 
I played it recently. I absolutely hate the inverted camera controls. Such a shame that many games don't let you change that from that time period.
 

Shut0wen

Member
Roller Coaster stage balloons.....
Tbf i remember that being hell when i was a kid, recently did it and done it on my 2nd try it aint that bad, same with the hotel, the worst is definitely corona mountain the final stage before getting to bowser
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
As much as I loved Sunshine back in it's day, I still think the best parts are those challenge stages where you don't have the water thing to propel yourself.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
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GET FUCKED
 
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Super Mario sunshine was a famous moment in Nintendo history where they took a page directly from dragon quest. Once stated by Hiroshi Yamauchi that people who play RPGs are depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games. 🤔 Interesting what game could he have been referring to at the time in Japan and what was the most popular oh snap dragon quest anyways.

So not to be outdone by dragon quest as the number one contender for games whose visuals and sound effects cause a distinct drop in dopamine and serotonin levels to the player and individual. Mariosunshine was born. It was Nintendo's darkest and finest moment. A game that not only memory holes the trauma you receive from it but also causes gamers to be depressed. After single handedly stealing the title of most depressing game since dragon quest RPGs Hiroshi Yamauchi was able to step down in 2002.
 
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