Super Mario Sunshine - Nintendo Gamecube

    Hello! What's up? That's cool. How do I know what your doing? Uhhhh... Well, I may or may not have a secret army of tiny robots that invade heating systems. Anyway, on to the game!

   Basic Info: Super Mario Sunshine was first  released in the US in the August of 2002. At the time of it's release, it was only the 2nd 3D Mario platformer to have been released. (The first was Super Mario 64, released in 1996) The game game itself sold over 5.5 million copies, and was the 10th best selling game of 2002.

     Summary: The main plot is as follows: Mario, Princess Peach, Toadsworth, and several Toads go to the paradise island of Isle Delfino. But when they arrive, they find the whole island covered in graffiti! This graffiti has caused all of the islands "Shine Sprites" to go away to unknown places. The Shine Sprites are what provide the light to the whole Isle of Delfino, so without these Sprites, the whole island is plunged into darkness. In a strange turn of events, Mario somehow manages to get blamed for the mess, and is given a sentence of cleaning the whole island, using a device called FLUDD. FLUDD is essentially a backpack that can shoot water. 

     Most of this game is made up of going through various levels and attempting to find the Shine Sprites in these levels. You do this with the assistance of FLUDD, and the various residents of Isle Delfino. There are also some levels in which FLUDD is stolen from you, and you must find the Shine Sprite with your platforming skills alone. 

     The Good: The graphics are very pretty, especially for the GameCube. The FLUDD backpack adds a great aspect to the game, that for the most part, works very well. The controls are very tight, and you can preform many different moves with just a few buttons. There's a few levels that require you to ride a Yoshi. These levels are usually inventive and fun. The pure platforming levels, (The ones in which FLUDD is stolen from you) are also very inventive and challenging.

FLUDD.

   The So-So: Some of the later levels became predictable, and repetitive. Also, there is voice acting in 2 or 3 scenes and is quite bad. A certain aspect of the ending is unexplained, and somewhat random.

   The Bad: The main problem with this game is the camera. It's acts strange when you don't operate it manually, and is hard to operate when in a tight spot. With this being a platforming game, sometimes you will be in tight spots, and you will not be able to get the camera where you want it, causing you to jump in the wrong direction, and die. The camera caused me many unnecessary deaths, as I was not able to get it where I wanted it to go on a consistent basis.

  Overall: I enjoyed playing this game. Quite a bit actually. Granted, once you beat it, there isn't much replay value. (At least from my viewpoint.) Like I said above, my only MAJOR complaint is with the camera, but I did have several other, smaller complaints, SO I will give this game a...

8.5/10

Review written by Caljoones.