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Yesterday, I got this game as a Birthday present, since it was my Birthday. Yipee! Sadly, it is not my Birthday anymore. *sniff* I was pleasently surprised.

We all know the plot allready, Mario goes on vacation, Mario gets framed, Mario is arrested. Luigi is completely out of the story. Yada yada, blah. Mario has to clean up the whole island with E. Gadd's latest invention, the FLUDD. I think we can expect more of Prof. E. Gadd in the future, which is good. Anyway, off Mario goes, in the greatest 3-D platformer I've ever played (and the weird thing is, it has the worst camera I've ever seen).

In my opinion, SMS is far superior to SM64. The power-ups are better, the moves are more varied, and it's slightly more Marioistic gameplaywise. See, SM64 allowed you to get all the Stars in any order you wanted. SMS, has you getting them in a specific order (except in the main world, where it doesn't really matter much). It feels more like the old Mario games, but in 3-D.

Mario has tons of new moves, and most were carried in from SM64. The backflip now has a slightly different control mechanism, as Mario can no longer duck (and doesn't need to). Mario can now do a wall jump, which is easy and fun to do. But it's FLUDD that steals the show (game?). FLUDD's main function is to spray water at goop and enemies that produce goop. FLUDD also has 3 extra nozzles that can be used. The hover nozzle lets Mario hover and makes platforming easier. The rocket nozzle launches Mario high into the air to reach high-up platforms. And the turbo nozzle makes Mario run around extremely fast.

The turbo nozzle is fun enough to make the whole game fun, but then there's Yoshi. Yoshi's tongue is now super long and homes in on enemies. No enemies? It homes in on fruit or birds (eating a bird or an enemy gives you coins.) as well. You need fruit to keep Yoshi alive though, if he goes to long without fruit, he dies. He also dies if he goes into a large body of water. This makes it challenging, but it's still fun. Yoshi can also pull off a hover jump, and throw up juice, which has and acid that destroys more powerful versions of goop. Yoshi is extremely. fun.

To tell you the truth, progressing in this game is hard, but for me, that's probably because I take my entire time running around with Yoshi or the Turbo nozzle. I never make any progress, and I have fun even so. That's the kind of quality that makes games instant classics in my mind. Brilliant.

As I said before, SMS has the worst camera system 've ever seen in a 3-D game. It randomly changes direction, often positions you behind large objects, and is just generally annoying. But for me, since I was almost always playing with Yoshi or the tubo nozzle, I didn't come up with a problem too often.

Overall, this game is good, and while the canera could have been MUCH better, the game is still vey fun. And not many games can say that. Then again, not many games can talk.

Super Mario Sunshine: 9.6/10
EDIT: Beat the game. I was so dissapointed in the easiness of the last stage and boss that I'm going to lower it's score.
8.9

[ January 07, 2003, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: A Genius is stupid ]

Great game, but it strayed quite far from the Mario series.

Yeah, the punch/kick actions are gone, unfortunately, but I didn't think it strayed too far from the Mario series, it actually stays surprisingly close. Anyway, I thought of some more things to add to the review.

The graphics in this game surprised me. There aren't many games that have graphics I acn really admire, and I din't think SMS would be one of them. But believe it, SMS has astounding graphics. The characters and architecture are easy to see (although they just BARELY fall under Gamecube standards), but the water is the most realistic looking water I've seen in ANY game, it looks like the Sonic Adventure water that you see in cutscenes and sometimes represents bottomless pits, but it's even better, and you can swim in it. The FLUDD has equally impressive water effects, such as water that quickly turns into steam with the rocket nozzle. Very well done.

The sound and music is a little more iffy. The music is good, sometimes bordering on great, and the sounds are at the very least appropriate, but the voice acting is just plain weird. Peach's voice sounds a bit like Toad's old voice, only higher, and Toad's voice is just plain stupid. Toadsworth and Bowser Jr. have okay voices, and while I haven't reached him yet, I hear that Bowser sounds like Scooby Doo. Oh well.

Also, there are occasionally these "special" stages that pit you against a long platforming course without FLUDD and his hover nozzle. These are insanely hard, but quite fun, a nice dose of nostalagia for you.

-A Genius (And... that's all.)

[ December 08, 2002, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: A Genius ]

Luigi is completely out of the story

Anybody notice that hint towards Luigi's Mansion in one of the levels? "Why can't somebody just come here with a giant vacuum and suck in all the ghosts?"

This game is so polished that I have to say it's better than Mario 64. In Mario 64 I felt rather...alone in a huge world. In Sunshine you're actually on a populated island and get the opportunity to talk to people.

I like the platforming courses, I thought aside from FLUDD they were the most ingenious aspect of the game. Only problem is I pretty much blazed right through them with no problem.

I had no trouble with the camera.