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Review:

28th October 2002:
Super Mario Sunshine
The moustachioed plumber returns in 128-bit form, but is it good enough to surpass his previous games?
Posted by Marc Hull - GameCube - UK and Europe

When Super Mario 64 burst onto the scene at the N64's launch, it instantly became one of the best videogames ever made. Not only did it offer incredible graphics (for the time), great playability and loads of levels to work through, but it was also highly original too. It really was one of the first 3D platform games to appear on the market, and introduced the much-cloned task system, where you had to do something different to collect each star, giving the title a huge amount of variety that would keep people enthralled to the end. However, while the formula may have been copied many times since, no game has ever succeeded in bettering the Italian plumber's 64-bit outing, and with the 'sequel' now on shop shelves, we get to see whether Nintendo themselves can beat their six-year-old masterpiece.

Mario's latest game takes place on a holiday island known as Isle Delfino, where he is intending to have a rest from fighting Bowser and saving Peach. However, as the plane land, all is not as it seems; the island has been covered in graffiti, and the inhabitants are blaming it on Mario! Even worse, the island's 'shines', which provide its good weather, have all disappeared, and parts of the island are now in semi-darkness. To clear his name, Mario must first clean up the island, recover the shines and then unmask his impersonator.

While Mario 64 was like nothing ever seen before, Nintendo's big problem is recreating that same level of originality with Mario Sunshine. To do this, while the game retains a lot of its predecessor's gameplay, they've also introduced the FLUDD water pack - a contraption that is strapped to Mario's back for the majority of the game, and which allows you to spray water by holding down the right shoulder button. Not surprisingly, this plays a massive part in the mechanics of the game, not only allowing you to clear up the graffiti on Isle Delfino, but also allowing you to attack enemies and solve certain puzzles. As you play through the game you'll also come across new nozzles for your water pack which give you access to new moves, such as allowing you to spray water downwards to hover, build up water and let it out in a burst to propel yourself high into the air, or spray water backwards to run or swim more quickly.

Although the setting is different, anyone who's played Mario 64 will feel instantly at home with the structure of Mario Sunshine. The castle from the 64-bit game has been replaced by a town called Delfino Plaza, from which you can access the game's levels by jumping through special blobs of graffiti. Each level contains eight different challenges that need to be completed, and each grants you a single 'shine' which brightens up Isle Delfino. The tasks you have to complete in Sunshine seem a lot more varied than those in Mario 64, but unfortunately the game seems to restrict you to completing them in a set order, whereas before you could get most of the stars in each level in whatever order you wanted to. Also, unlike before where you opened up new levels by unlocking doors, having reached a certain star target, in Sunshine there's no indicator of when the next level will open up.

While the challenges in Mario 64 were impressive for their time, since then games like Banjo Kazooie have been even more inventive, so Mario Sunshine needed to go one better. Fortunately, it does, not only offering much longer and more difficult challenges right from the start, but also by having loads of mini-levels that are purely platform based, where Mario doesn't even have his water pack to help him. These sections play like the levels leading up to the Bowser fights in Mario 64, but there are much, much more of them in Sunshine, and they contain loads of spinning platforms that will prove difficult to negotiate for even the most accomplished Mario fans. These areas take place away from Isle Delfino, in large open-air spaces with changing backgrounds depicting things from Mario's past, and have a remixed version of a traditional Mario theme playing in the background.

Graphically, though obviously not the leap that Mario 64 was, Sunshine has enough nice effects to put it at the upper end of the GameCube spectrum. All the levels are vast and colourful, with no pop-up what-so-ever so you can see the entire world trailing off into the distance. The best bit, however, is the game's use of ray-casting effects such as refraction and reflection to make the water and sludge look as nice as possible. Every droplet of water distorts the background image, and every puddle reflects the surrounding environment, with the reflection undulating as ripples move across the water's surface. Rivers and seas are also very impressive, with smooth waves and light beads that are incredibly well animated. The only slight disappointment is the texturing and polygon count in some areas, which makes parts of the environment look relatively bland at times, but overall Nintendo has recreated the traditional Mario style yet again, and it won't disappoint.

For sound, for the most part the game has laid-back or tropical music, which blends into more fast-paced stuff during action sequences or when chasing the watery Mario. Sound effects are pretty much spot-on, with loads of spot effects dotted around the levels to add to the atmosphere. The only real area of concern is in the voice acting, which is only used in story-advancing FMV sequences and is sometimes suspect, but this is not a major problem.

As you'd expect from a Mario title, the gameplay is pretty much spot-on. Using the water pack is a bit strange at first, especially since aiming while squirting water is a bit awkward, but after collecting a few shines you'll feel at one with the machine. The game is hardly ever repetitive either, since you are constantly faced with new and varied challenges, and as you progress you'll pick up new 'nozzles' for your water pack that allow you to pull off new moves and access new parts in each of the levels. The platforming levels, which are new to Sunshine, will satisfy Mario purists who think that the hovering ability of the water pack makes the jumping too forgiving, but those who hate pixel-perfect jumping may get annoyed at some of the later ones. However, there can be few complaints about the length of the game, since with 120 shines to collect and a lot of them being more challenging than those in Mario 64, this will keep you occupied for absolutely ages. There are tonnes of secrets to discover, hidden areas to be explored, mini-games to be played and puzzles to be solved, and with such varied gameplay you'll actually want to play right to the end.

Overall, Super Mario Sunshine is an incredible game, full of nice touches that make Nintendo games so good. However, if you're expecting this to be as big a leap as Mario 64 was then you're expecting the impossible - this game isn't revolutionary, but it brings Mario up-to-date and offers an incredible adventure at the same time, which should suit most fans just fine.

Marc Hull

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Review Summary:

Super Mario Sunshine may not be the leap that Mario 64 was, but anyone who loved the N64 game can't afford to miss out on it. With tougher challenges, new gameplay mechanics, loads of great graphical effects and 120 shines to be collected, this is an incredible game.

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