The FLUDD backpack isn’t there just to spray water on any goop you find, this new tool augmenting Mario’s movement in many different ways. The aesthetics and trappings of Super Mario Sunshine are impressive without a doubt and would make for a memorable adventure on their own, but this 3D platforming collectathon has an interesting addition to the running and jumping Mario usually uses to get around. While the voice acting added to the story cutscenes can be a little cheesy and there are some songs that are more mellow or carried over from previous titles, the sound profile of Super Mario Sunshine is a solid fit for this island adventure that helps this stand above most Mario titles when it comes to truly capturing a design concept and exploring it to its fullest. Ricco Harbor’s bustling port has an energetic sound with bombastic brass to evoke ship horns, Gelato Beach’s steel drums give the sunny seaside level plenty of pep, and Delfino Plaza itself has a tune that captures that desire to head out into this new island with its constant bouncy energy and shift between instruments like the song itself was walking around town. You don’t get to explore the entire island on foot, but each level takes you to a different highlight of this fictional world that plays into island theming, and even when stages like Gelato Beach and Sirena Beach focus on the same place on an island, Sirena takes you mostly into the seaside hotel while Gelato focuses on the shoreline for its challenges.Įven the game’s music sticks to this tropical aesthetic superbly, each song perfectly matching the location’s concept and tone. You even drop by the island’s theme park and visit the villages that the locals live in. You visit the sunset soaked Sirena Beach with its lavish but unfortunately haunted hotel and casino. You’ll find yourself in their port town Ricco Harbor where you leap around the ships and docking equipment. When you do set off to explore a new area to collect Shine Sprites, you aren’t teleported to some far off land, but a different part of the island. They mill about at the fruit market in a city so filled with palm trees that they actually sprout of the Pianta populace’s heads, a small canal cuts into the city already surrounded by water, and fountains, statues, and a lighthouse all help make this place interesting to explore in between visiting the game’s main locations. Delfino Plaza itself is already a thematically appropriate hubworld, this town bustling with the grass skirt wearing Pianta people. Super Mario Sunshine’s unity in theming is immensely impressive when you consider how excellent all the different levels turned out. Eventually Mario will run into this Shadow Mario, predictably have the Princess kidnapped by him, and have another task added to what was meant to be a relaxing vacation, but even though he’s back to jumping around areas and collecting shiny objects to save the day once more, Isle Delfino isn’t the kind of hub world you navigate before you head off to explore entirely disconnected locations. Having a FLUDD water pack strapped to his back, he’s told he must make things right by cleaning up the island, but to truly help this sun-drenched tropical paradise return to its former glory, he must also help collect the Shine Sprites that scattered due to the imposter’s mischief. Isle Delfino really is meant to be an island getaway and not a host to platform game obstacle courses, but when Mario and Princess Peach drop by the island for a much deserved break, Mario is immediately misidentified as the shadowy character who has been going around the island covering it with goopy graffiti. However, for Super Mario Sunshine, our intrepid hero chose to take a break from the his world-trotting adventures and went on vacation, and while circumstance would call on him to step up and save the princess once again, his vacation destination ends up being one of the best places Mario has ever explored despite all of its locations stemming from the single concept of a tropical island getaway. Diversity in level types allows for new enemies and hazards to easily slip into the adventure while injecting some fresh new aesthetics along the way. Whenever Mario goes on an adventure, it tends to take him to all kinds of different environments, Mario traveling from grasslands and deserts to volcanic lands and underwater worlds. While Mario is often the platform game trendsetter, establishing how a platforming character should control in both 2D and 3D space, you can usually count on the portly plumber to stick to a few tried and true concepts.
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