Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube) review "Hecka janky."

Let's be clear: Super Mario Sunshine is hecka janky. Nintendo, for the first time in its history, had a console that could do everything they wanted it to. However, they weren't prepared for the raw amount of time that high resolution graphics demanded. Super Mario Sunshine is, on the whole, both a miracle and an unmitigated disaster. It is, at least, a memorable one, but maybe not for the reasons that nostaliga promises to us.

Welcome to the fourth generation of gaming, where GameCube can handle seemingly endless amounts of polygons, sprite instances, complex interactions and large worlds. While the NES could only display a few dozen colours and a couple hundred on the SNES, the GameCube had no effective limit. Audio quality was also no longer a question thanks to a CPU integrated DSP with 64 channel support.

6-12 million polygons in a fully textured, effect laden scene. More with fewer options applied. Seriously, the GC took the lessons learned from the N64 and aced the test. The final nail in the obsolescence coffin was storage: Optical media allowed for DVD-like capacities (1.5GB, all told) at a respectable transfer rate. Yessir, if there was going to be a time for Nintendo’s ideas to shine, this was it.

Oh stop that. I love my puns.

The flex of Sunshine was the implementation of fluid physics, which all centered around the idea that Mario was messier than we imagined he could be. All this time and Nintendo hasn’t seen fit to examine the collateral damage of his kingdom saving exploits. Well isn’t it about time?

Sort of? After working our way through the brightly coloured opening menu and choosing a new—or used—save file, you’ll either be treated to the opening cutscene or dropped onto the Isle of Delfino whereever you happened to save. Let’s assume for a moment you’re new to all of this, and so is your file.

Thus we're presented with a cutscene! By now these aren’t so strange thanks to titles like Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, among others. Aboard a private airplane, Mario, Peach and her steward, Toadsworth, are en route to their well deserved break. Getting kidnapped is traumatizing hard work, and rescuing is totally thankless exhausting. Naturally, the only suitable destination is tropical Isle Delfino.

Just as you’re about to land, you’re informed that a mess of mucky goo is in the way. After a—maybe risky—landing, a means of cleaning up the mess is provided to our default hero, Mario. Meet FLUDD, created by Professor E. Gadd, for just such an occasion. Naturally. Well, strap in because the fun’s just around the corner.

This not-a-tutorial section lets you play with FLUDD’s most basic functionality: Spraying water at anything you target. Well, not target, exactly, but aim at, since there is no lock on functionality found, or necessary in this game. From a reservoir at your back, FLUDD’s attached spout sprays over your head while Mario aims with handles at either side of his waist. It’s actually quite fun and easy to use.

You clean up the airstrip and are promptly accused of vandalizing the island and thrown into jail. This was pretty dramatic at the time, though Mario’s sentencing is plot driven, less than dire emotional content. The Shine Sprite at the top of the centermost of the island has been dirtied and its power is lost, shrouding in shadow and robbing it of light and power. You’re sentenced to recovering shine sprites throughout the island to restore Delfino to its original beauty.

The light excuses to exercise the GameCube’s new technical abilities are welcome, and it’s admittedly clever for Nintendo to implement them in a story driven fashion. The more shine sprites you recover, the more bright and warm the island becomes as the shadows are pushed back. In order to do this, you’ve got a lot of exploring to do.

Some things have changed since Mario’s last foray in the Mushroom Kingdom. For starters, his life bar is represented by a stylized sun symbol with eight points around it. You’ll take damage from the usual culprits, like enemies and falling, but there’s a new quirk: The gooey substance you discover is more than colourful, it’s toxic and will rob you of two points per touch. Mario regains health by collecting coins or shine sprites, a new take on health restoration, as well.

One of Sunshine’s strong points is its variety of environments. Either by a portal, cannon, warp pipe or other means, you'll travel to and quest on beaches, Ricco Harbour and its cage-like structures that Mario can easily climb. Pinna Park provides a plethora of pleasant and perturbing peccadillos for your predilection of shine sprite procurement. We’ll get into the physics conundrums with faithful ol’ short stuff in just a moment.

No matter how you look at it, with 120 shine sprites, three varieties of coins, yellow, blue and red in differing amounts, you’ve got plenty to keep you busy. 100 yellow coins will grant you an extra life, while blue coins are worth double and red being the most limited and challenging to find.mThere are eight of these in each level. It's essential to find them all if you intend to collect all of the shiine sprites.

FLUDD has more tricks than just the ability to spray water, as well. With the default mode, FLUDD can enable Mario to hover by spraying downward jets of water for as long as your supply lasts. You’ll obtain other mode as well, but you’ll only be able to keep one extra mode at a time. You switch between spray and hover, and then pick up the extra movement option from an item box, which will remain available for the rest of your playthrough.

It all sounds like a clean win for Mario and our heroes, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, a whole host of bugs stowed away on the flight to spoil your enjoyment of the game. Well, and some unexpected and unwelcome difficulty curves, as well. It's the sort of tething pains that all fixed media consoles were saddled with until expandable storage enabled downloadable patches.

Meanwhile, water races in Sunshine are notoriously next-to-impossible; that giant sand bird is a bother; temporarily losing FLUDD (why doesn’t the thief keep it?) for challenge rooms is at first interesting, but soon becomes tedious and frustratingly difficult platforming that could have you stepping away from the game entirely.

Then there’s the jankiness I mentioned. The camera will get stuck when you’re in close quarters with platforms and other objects. The camera tries to zoom in to give you a good view so you can extract yourself from the predicament, but isn't always useful. Manually changing angles might not help either, especially while trying to operate the FLUDD consecutively.

Then there’s Yoshi. Why, O why is Yoshi in this game? It’s not that Yoshi doesn’t deserve to be here. It’s that he deserved better treatment. Now with the inexplicable ability to dissolve when dunked in water, what was the point? The likely explanation is that the developers were trying to prevent players from finding the end-of-world in any of their environments, but it was the first in a string of disappointing cameos for our beloved green dinosaur.

What's more is the whole experience is presented in the cartoon shaded style. This is fine, but also a clear indication of Nintendo's run-in with expected asset development time. It was a needless shortcut that we didn't notice at the time and doesn't hurt the presentation, but it sure does date it. Bundled with all of the flaws, it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Unfortunately, the net result of all the rushed development, frustrating difficulty curve and buggy structure navigation renders Sunshine into a responsive, pretty game that you’re not likely to finish. That said, the ending isn’t big on rewards, either. They get to continue their vacation. Isn’t that splendid?

Sorry Mario, your adventure is on another console.

Before I bow out on that dour reflection, do yourself a flavour and don't overlook Sunshine's energetic soundtrack by the masterful Koji Kondo. There's not a moment that it fails to punch up the fun and encourage you to give this mess another shot. If you don't play the game, give the soundtrack a listen. You won't regret that and it's doubtful there will be a mess to clean up, either.

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Community review by hastypixels (October 15, 2025) Retro, and moreso all the time.