Falling in Love with Super Mario Sunshine Again
When Nintendo announced that they would release HD versions of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy as one definitive package, aptly titled Super Mario 3D All Stars, I was ecstatic. I thought I could do my own personal ranking of all five 3D Mario titles for this newsletter (I don’t count 3D Land or 3D World). But I need to take a brief hiatus from ranking things I enjoy. Just to get it out of the way, here’s how I rank the 3D Mario games:
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Mario 64
This may be the most chaotic 3D Mario ranking out there, but let me admit that I feel like a terrible person for putting 64 at the bottom. I’ve been revisiting it, and as much as I adore that game, Mario feels clunky compared to his handling in subsequent adventures. The camera is notoriously restrictive, and it’s glitchier than Aphex Twin’s music. With that said, however, it’s still a seminal masterpiece that forged a pathway for every future 3D Mario endeavor. I’m still looking forward to playing it some more later today. Also, if you need to reach me in any form:
Given my criticisms of 64, you may be asking, “Grant, if those are your reasons for placing 64 last, then why is Sunshine your favorite?” That’s exactly what this newsletter entry is dedicated to. Super Mario Sunshine is notorious for having as many fervent admirers as it is scathing detractors. The latter group would say that Mario is way too sensitive to the touch, making deaths inevitable and frequent unless you’re a speed-runner. They would say that there’s a host of “cheap” levels, such as the infamous Chuckster, ferris wheel, and Sand Bird levels. They would bring up the godforsaken watermelon mission in Gelato Beach and the pachinko machine. They would critique how the boat in Corona Mountain refuses to obey the laws of physics (as does Mario himself). They would also criticize how it forces you into completing the first seven levels of every world if you want to beat the game. I agree with all of that. A sizable chunk of this game is annoying and unfair, and it’s still my favorite Mario game by a long shot. I’m part of the former group.
I grew up playing Sunshine. I also beat 64 and 100%-ed both Galaxy games and Odyssey, but none of them compares to Sunshine for me. This is also a game that my best friend and I return to every five years or so, sharing the pain of the F.L.U.D.D.-less platforming challenges and our lack of skill in defeating the mecha-Bowser in Pinna Park. I haven’t met very many people aside from a couple of close friends who adore Sunshine to nearly the same degree that I do. It’s very much a nostalgic thing, and playing this game for what feels like the umpteenth time makes me feel like a kid again, before I was weighed down by the stresses of a job hunt during global pandemic and grad school. That’s such a cliché to tie this into a “simpler-times” narrative, but that’s precisely what reconnecting with this game has done for me.
I love how Sunshine situates itself in an interconnected world, and it’s the only 3D Mario game to do so. These aren’t isolated levels, but rather an island that’s part of its own universe. Sunshine looks into the face of Marvel movies and scoffs at its purported “extended universe.” The game reminds you of its interconnected identity when you take in your surroundings and see Ricco Harbor down below when you first enter Bianco Hills. You can see Pinna Park’s landmark ferris wheel from Delfino Plaza. You can even see the haunted, ghost-infested Hotel Delfino from Gelato Beach’s shores. Unlike 64, Galaxy, and Odyssey, you’re not traveling to a random place. You’re going to sites inhabited by the local Piantas that’s littered with native palm trees and sand. You could say that this leads to lack of variety in levels, but Sunshine doesn’t fail in that regard whatsoever. There’s an amusement park, a construction zone, a volcanic mountain, an airport, a beach (of course), and a haunted hotel. There’s variety abound here.
The extent to which Sunshine achieves its world-building has yet to be outdone by another 3D Mario title. Delfino Plaza is still the most intriguing hub world in any 3D platformer, not just a Mario game. It’s flooding (haha) with secrets, and it feels like a real, explorable place that you can lose yourself in for hours at a time. You can’t beat this game’s tropical, sunny atmosphere and its serotonin-inducing environments. It’s impossible to feel dejected in the slightest while playing this game (you may feel angry or frustrated, which is virtually unavoidable given some of its levels), but you can nearly feel the excess of fictitious vitamin D entering your system. Playing this game will simply make you feel happy.
Sunshine, as you could guess, is also the outlier of 3D Mario games. It’s the taciturn indie-emo kid who sits by themselves in the school cafeteria who hates “superficial people.” This is a weird entry; Mario, Princess Peach, and Toadstool (making his debut), decide to vacation on Isle Delfino, only to discover that a doppelgänger has been polluting the island’s scenic vistas using an inky paintbrush. This Shadow Mario is also here to, as usual, kidnap Peach. So, Mario finds a talking, sentient gadget named F.L.U.D.D., an acronym for Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device, and uses his hydraulic abilities to clean up Isle Delfino and rescue Peach from Shadow Mario. Spoiler warning for an 18-year-old game, but Shadow Mario is Bowser Jr., making this the first Mario game to feature the lovable little goblin.
Fun fact: It is heavily implied that Professor E. Gadd from the Luigi’s Mansion games designed both F.L.U.D.D. and Shadow Mario’s paintbrush.
On top of the strange setting, this is also the only Mario game with full-fledged voice acting. Peach, toads, and even Bowser, who sounds like a C-tier Mr. Krabs impression, talk. The red-clad Italian plumber still doesn’t speak, but everyone else does. As terrible as the voice acting is, I love how unintentionally funny it is, and that’s probably why Nintendo hasn’t had voice acting for another Mario game since Sunshine. Oh, and Isle Delfino’s inhabitants think Mario is Shadow Mario, so they throw him in jail after an extraordinarily unfair trial. For recompense, Mario is tasked with cleaning up the island as community service. The pure weirdness of Sunshine, especially following the critical and commercial success of 64, resembles the way Zelda sequels also diverge from the well-trodden path, which I also wrote about for this newsletter. Sunshine is to Majora’s Mask (albeit significantly less creepy) what 64 is to Ocarina of Time.
This game’s authentically bizarre nature is a large reason why I love it so much. 64, Galaxy, and Odyssey all feel like fairly standard Mario outings, but Sunshine was the only one willing to take a massive risk, and you have to appreciate it from that standpoint. This game became an adored cult classic because of it. This isn’t just another Mario game. This is something truly special, a type of Mario game that Nintendo will likely never make again. Reconnecting with Sunshine during a pointedly stressful time of my life is a godsend, and I’m sure it is for others, too.