5/5 ★ – Aidan_'s review of Super Mario Sunshine.

This game has all of the most classic segments: poison river, watermelon festival, pachinko machine, chucksters. All of these moments kind of suck ass, but Mario Sunshine is still a good game. I feel like these shitty parts of Super Mario Sunshine are as engrained in and important to its identity as the good ones. It wouldn’t be Mario Sunshine if I wasn’t getting chucked into hell because I was one centimeter off with my chuckster alignment or if I don’t spend thirty minutes scouring a level for the last blue coin I’m missing only to finally give in to the IGN guide and discover that you actually had to spray a hidden bird in episode five. It sucks in the moment but it makes the game one of the most memorable entries in the series, even if that’s a really awful excuse for shit game design. The game is memorable for more than just the shitty stuff though. I want to live in Isle Delfino, it’s such a cool central location and it’s still so magical being able to stare off in the distance in one level and see three or four other locations on the horizon. Because Nintendo limited themselves to a tropical theme for all of the stages, they pushed themselves to make all of the major courses as diverse and creative as possible. No other Mario games has the hotel level or the harbor level or even the sand bird level. The soundtrack accompanying all the locations perfectly matches the relaxing, lowkey exploration that makes up such a large percentage of the game. Said exploration wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling if it weren’t for Mario’s movement, which is easily the highlight of the game. Nintendo simultaneously lowered the skill floor by making Mario easier to maneuver than in 64 while also raising the skill ceiling by introducing even crazier movement opportunities through F.L.U.D.D. Real gamers all know that F.L.U.D.D. is awesome. There was this dumbfuck internet opinion going around in like 2012 that the best parts of the game were the bonus levels where it was taken away from you and I couldn’t disagree more. Water sliding around, hovering just far enough to make a ludicrous jump, and using the spray backflip to dodge enemies is endlessly fun. This is the only game where I think about half of the content comprising it is kind of garbage but it’s still a ten out of ten. And Sonic Adventure. That one too.