Retro|Spective 075R: Super Mario

[Neon Ignition]

Game 50 - Super Smash Bros Melee
To some, the finest hour of the Smash Bros line, this sequel made the rare move from Nintendo of providing a visual showcase for the Gamecube expanding on the character roster and stages considerably whilst refining the gameplay and adding in trophies to collect and numerous new modes of play.







A Smash Hit with You?

[nakamura]

Super Circuit was and is excellent. Only the audio kinda let's it down but not because it's bad, but GBA audio often doesn't enhance racing games .

[Neon Ignition]

Game 51 - Super Mario Sunshine
Gamers finally received the fabled sequel to Mario 64 with this water pack powered follow up which saw Mario exploring an island resort where he had been accused of trashing the local area with paint. Using the water pack to expand on Mario's move set from the previous game, this new entry proved a popular choice but failed to resonate as strongly due to criticisms levied against the skittish controls and less than impressive visuals.







Was the game a light in your gaming life?

[Mayhem]

Sunshine failed to grab my as much as SM64, not due to the visuals or controls, but as some of the shine puzzles were incredibly frustrating, and there were so many coin grabs needed. In fact, I think it's the only Mario game from that sort of period I didn't feel like I wanted to get every single star (I mean Shine!) and did enough just to complete the game.

[wakka]

Mario Sunshine is a strange game, underdeveloped and riven with problems yet still with pockets of real Mario magic.

I listened to the Get Played podcast (highly recommended, btw) episode on it recently, and on there they pointed out that the game's poor rep is in large part due to the fact that it's a Mario game, and the expectations for Mario are very high. They said that if it wasn't Mario and it was a Dreamcast game called Super Wally's Soak Soak World or something, it would probably be a cult classic that people would forever be demanding a revival of. And I think there's some truth to that.

[Atticus]

Sunshine is a game I always want to like (or feel I should like) more than I actually do. Never finished it but I have it in the 3D Collection now on Switch so I will give it another go at some point.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Sunshine was never, ever as bad as so many people have tried to make out. Rough around the edges in some parts? Sure. But 3D Mario quality shines (no pun intended) through the majority of it. Comparing it to a true all-time great like SM64 was always unfair - not even EAD can hit a 100% success rate.

This is partly why the port of Sunshine on 3D All-Stars irritated me. A true bells-and-whistles, all-stops-pulled-out HD remastering of Sunshine would've shown its true qualities instead of Nintendo doing their usual half-arsed bare minimum schtick.

In hindsight, Super Mario Sunshine is very much Koizumi-san's prototype for what would eventually become Super Mario Odyssey - Cappy and F.L.U.D.D. are incredibly similar in the overall context of how they work to assist Mario and that's not even mentioning the overall mechanics of how both games work.

[wakka]

Agreed re: FLUDD/Cappy. Spraying water in front of you then sliding on your belly to move quickly is not unlike flinging Cappy and then bouncing off him. The similarity struck me when I played through Sunshine a year or two back. Cappy is much more satisfyingly implemented, but FLUDD is like a prototype in many ways.

[Neon Ignition]

I definitely agree that the game would be very well thought of if branded differently.

But bracketing that with how it is a Mario game? Well, it's inescapably the worst 3D Mario by a fair margin. The weird thing is the inconsistency in what people dislike about it. Take the games late section leading up to Bowser, often hated... always... easy?

But so much of it comes down to how the controls for FLUDD just aren't intuitive, the camera doesn't keep up with the action well and Mario handles like he's on Red Bull. It has always spoken volumes that the void space sections were well thought of, it's almost an admittance of failure that the bits without any of the bells and whistles or core gameplay addition are better thought of and even then they're far from Mario 3D at its finest.

Sunshine is a solid 8/10 game hidden within a 4/10 Mario 3D game and was probably the first time in owning the Gamecube where I felt a little winded by the experience. It was a fairly ugly game, something that would sully Mario Kart for two entries as well, and you knew it would be a long time till another entry game came along. But even revisiting it later, whether on Switch or running tarted up at 60fps on PC - the game isn't capable of singing the way other Mario's do.

[Nu-Eclipse]

The very fact that Sunshine draws such incredibly laughable overreaction for criticism like the comment above me says it all.

Anybody choosing to be remotely serious for one nanosecond knows that it is nowhere near as bad as made out to be.

[Neon Ignition]

It's probably the one 3D Mario where sections exist on a reasonably regular basis where player failure isn't entirely on the player. It's easily the only entry too where it feels like another year in development could have benefitted the end game.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 52 - Mario Party 4
The shift in platform didn't slow the party down as the next entry arrived and with it came the visual bump you would expect from a new console entry. Reviews weren't overly enamored with the game though as that's all it brought with no real advancements beyond that.






Was there still life in the party at this point?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 53 - Game & Watch Gallery 4
The GBA compilations just kept on coming with this entry having the highest count in the series so far having 11 games within its plastic shell. The collection would be the final entry in this series.






A great final blowout?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 54 - WarioWare Inc.: Mega Microgames!
With mere seconds on the clock players are given a simple task to complete in this game that presented the player with very little but emerged to win over the hearts of reviewers and gamers. A redesigned Wario led the game alongside a cast of very un-Mario like side characters with the title being critically acclaimed providing a surprising win for Nintendo who weren't even aware it was in development for much of its gestation as a handful of team members secretly pieced it together.







Did playing this game make you aWare of its greatness?

[wakka]

I absolutely love this game and have played it through a number of times over the years. It’s similar in concept to Bishi Bashi Special but the way it threads the levels together into playlists is a really clever idea.

The surreal dadaist feel is so cool, too. It could easily have been all boring Mushroom Kingdom themed stuff, but instead you’re sniffing a big drip of snot into an anime girl’s nose, keeping a cat out of the rain, or helping Wario eat a sandwich.

Although it doesn’t take that long to beat the main campaign, there are some fun endless mini games built in too. The paper plane one was particularly addictive and had a great little soundtrack.

Unfortunately some of the later titles didn’t quite live up to its standards, but the original is a perfectly formed little game.