Why is Mario Sunshine bad?

yoshibro75

yoshibro75

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Yoshibro75
I've heard many people say that Mario Sunshine is a terrible game, but I've never played it myself, could anyone tell me why it's so hated?
 
The Toxic Lilypad level. Oh the Toxic Lilypad level.

 
It's amazing! Atmospheric, great graphics for the time (especially the water), full of charm and fun dialogue, all the worlds are connected, I love it. But it's true that compared to 64, it doesn't ever create that feeling of real connection or depth. Obviously going deep underwater is one thing, but I mean the calm tranquility of Jolly Roger Bay, the only time it does something like that is the Deep Sea of Mare. Also, it's a lot slower than 64. Having to collect 100 coins to get the 100 Coin Shine, leave the world and come back, so you can't get two at once anymore, isn't good. Oh and the blue coins are pretty bad in parts. Fun to scour the landscapes and find them, kind of Zelda-y, but when you're missing two in Noki Bay, and they could be only available in certain episodes, somewhere high up on a cliff, it's a nightmare.

But a loveable nightmare!
 
Honestly the best way I can describe it is, the physics engine isn't all that more advanced than SM64, but the levels are designed as if it was. I think that's why there are so many weird, clearly unintended interactions that often result in the player's death. For all the shortcomings of 64's engine, it understood its limits and didn't design levels that would be overwhelming. But with Sunshine's level design, you'd need the physics engine to be on the level of Galaxy (not the moveset or speed, just the polish) for it to be fun and not frustrating imo. The setting and characters are the best thing about it (after all it introduced the goat Toadsworth)
 
Imo:
- Boring levels (Noki Bay especially). A lot of them feel the same.
- Boring objectives (brushing teeth, cleaning graffiti, chasing Shadow Mario, leaf/canoe physics, blue coins). Literally the plot is that you're falsely convicted and they force you to become a narc.
- Boring main mechanic (FLUDD)
- Boring bosses (Petey Piranha, final boss)
- Every level is a beach whereas other Mario games you'd get different themes
- With very few exceptions, having to collect the shines in order in a level, instead of getting to explore and stumble across them. This excludes the sequence breaking that speedrunners do because 99% of players aren't going to do that
- No way to tell if you've collected all the blue coins in an area, or what mission they're in
- I don't even think the water looked *that* nice given Star Fox Adventures released around the same time and has it beat. Like it's fine for beach water but gets a bit old after the 6th world with it.
- Jak and Daxter did the, 'one island collectathon where you can see the levels in the distance and travel to them' a year earlier. It does it better because it literally is *one world* without loading zones and you just walk to the place. It also has different level themes.
 
I watched a full longplay of Super Mario Sunshine in the "Super Mario 3D All Stars" longplay on YouTube. With several things I like I can enjoy everything with them, even the bad stuff, but I found myself very disappointed by the time I finished watching the complete playthrough of Mario Sunshine. It got really boring and repetitive really quick, and, like, the ending-most disappointing ever. No big celebratory party with cake and confetti and a parade or anything, which would have made all the boredom I felt watching the playthrough feel somewhat tolerable, just a boring screen that said "Enjoy your vacation!". I never thought I would ever come across a Mario game I didn't like, but this one was just boring to me. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact you clean stuff up. If the cleaning mechanic had not been in there, probably might have been half as less boring. The one perk however to this game is that it's the first time we see Bowser Jr. However, Super Mario 3D All-Stars wasn't all bad-I'm really enjoying the longplay of Super Mario Galaxy in the same playthrough, and Super Mario 64 is fun to watch playthroughs of too and it's the first game featured in this longplay, but I'm not going to watch it because I already watched a longplay of it somewhere else.
 
Weegie Baby said:
I think what you described is Super Mario 3D Land…
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LOL speaking of which, I remember that one frustrated me as a teenager playing it on the 3DS. It seemed-unnecessarily hard compared to other Mario games. Or maybe I just had skill issues at the time. Or maybe both.
 
Weegie Baby said:
I just talked about 3D land cuz everyone hates it.
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Are you sure about that? From Wikipedia:

Super Mario 3D Land received critical acclaim. It received an aggregated score of 90.09% on GameRankings[30] and 90/100 on Metacritic.[31] The game sold over 343,000 copies in its first week in Japan, helping to move over 145,000 Nintendo 3DS units.[42] Famitsu awarded Super Mario 3D Land a score of 38/40, praising level design, accessibility for beginners and the use of 3D.[33] IGN gave the game a score of 9.5 and an Editor's Choice award, calling it "brilliant and addictive" and stating that "3D gaming has never been fully realized before this".[38] GamesRadar gave the game a score of 9/10, praising its wealth of content, although criticising the inclusion of a run button and some easy difficulty.[36] Game Informer gave 3D Land a 9.5/10, saying "it lives up to the level of quality set by previous entries and is easily the best reason to own a 3DS". They also complimented the use of both a run button and the 3D effects while criticising the "lack of variety in boss battles".[7]

Super Mario 3D Land sold 3.09 million units in the U.S. as of August 2014.[46] In Japan, the game has sold over 1.66 million units as of August 1, 2012.[47] It was the first 3DS game to sell over five million copies.[48] Overall, the game has sold 12.88 million copies worldwide as of March 31, 2024, making it the seventh best-selling game for the 3DS.[49]

Unless you're of course talking about how players felt about it. I mean, stuff has sold out before, but people were disappointed with what they got after it sold out sometimes. Like, sometimes people like something and word gets around and that's how it sells out or it sells out to begin with and the word spreading about how good it is even more helps it to sell out, but I'm sure there have been some things that a lot of people bought and nobody had reviewed yet, and were disappointed with what they got and so there weren't any more sales beyond that point because word got out it was bad. Like, I don't know. I assume despite it selling well and how critics praised it that maybe players were dissatisfied with it for some reason. Was that it?
 
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Super Mario Sunshine isn't bad, per se. However, it is flawed. Very flawed. The physics are jank, the controls and how Mario feels are drastically different from 64 (even with FLUDD), and Mario jiggles too much.
 
Coming from someone who considers Super Mario Sunshine to be their favorite 3D Mario game, even I won't deny that the game is very flawed. Compared to a lot of other 3D Mario games, it seems that with Sunshine, the difficulty doesn't stem from the game itself, but from handicapping the player with the janky physics and busted controls that MightyMario above me mentioned.
 
Back again to post here. Two of my worst (and one embarassing) memories of Sunshine in its 3D All Stars emulation (the only variant I've played) is playing Noki Bay's Secret (the first one I believe, or the one right before Shadow Mario) when it was first released and breaking down into near tears trying to beat it, to the point my mom wanted to know if I was OK, and Corona Mountain. All I have to say about it is Corona Mountain, and all know why.
To quote Mario, "The horror." And then there's this.
i'm-a-chuckster-chuckster.gif
 
Ludwig Kooky Von Koopa said:
Are you sure about that? From Wikipedia:

Super Mario 3D Land received critical acclaim. It received an aggregated score of 90.09% on GameRankings[30] and 90/100 on Metacritic.[31] The game sold over 343,000 copies in its first week in Japan, helping to move over 145,000 Nintendo 3DS units.[42] Famitsu awarded Super Mario 3D Land a score of 38/40, praising level design, accessibility for beginners and the use of 3D.[33] IGN gave the game a score of 9.5 and an Editor's Choice award, calling it "brilliant and addictive" and stating that "3D gaming has never been fully realized before this".[38] GamesRadar gave the game a score of 9/10, praising its wealth of content, although criticising the inclusion of a run button and some easy difficulty.[36] Game Informer gave 3D Land a 9.5/10, saying "it lives up to the level of quality set by previous entries and is easily the best reason to own a 3DS". They also complimented the use of both a run button and the 3D effects while criticising the "lack of variety in boss battles".[7]

Super Mario 3D Land sold 3.09 million units in the U.S. as of August 2014.[46] In Japan, the game has sold over 1.66 million units as of August 1, 2012.[47] It was the first 3DS game to sell over five million copies.[48] Overall, the game has sold 12.88 million copies worldwide as of March 31, 2024, making it the seventh best-selling game for the 3DS.[49]

Unless you're of course talking about how players felt about it. I mean, stuff has sold out before, but people were disappointed with what they got after it sold out sometimes. Like, sometimes people like something and word gets around and that's how it sells out or it sells out to begin with and the word spreading about how good it is even more helps it to sell out, but I'm sure there have been some things that a lot of people bought and nobody had reviewed yet, and were disappointed with what they got and so there weren't any more sales beyond that point because word got out it was bad. Like, I don't know. I assume despite it selling well and how critics praised it that maybe players were dissatisfied with it for some reason. Was that it?
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I thought you were cool :(
 
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