Super Mario Sunshine Review

FLUDD is the reason it is still argued about. The hover nozzle turns every mistimed jump into a recoverable one, the rocket nozzle launches you vertically, and the turbo nozzle gives ground movement a genuine skill ceiling, so the movement system is arguably deeper than anything before or since. The tropical setting is committed to, with a single connected island, a real sense of place and an unusual amount of ambient character for a Mario game.

Then the design gets in the way. The secret stages strip FLUDD away and demand precision the camera cannot support, the blue coin hunt is a hundred and twenty items scattered with no tracking whatsoever, and several shines are gated behind a pachinko machine and a lily pad ride that a lot of players simply never finished. The voice acted cutscenes and the plot about a trial are odd rather than charming. It is a game with brilliant fundamentals and a genuinely rough middle, and it deserves both its defenders and its critics.