mario sunshine ended up being one of my least favorite types of games - one that has a ton of stuff i really enjoyed, yet bogs itself down with so much dumb shit that i end up hating it. i don't mean that in the sense of "oh there's one level that made me so pissed that it poisoned my experience" i mean that it's genuinely frustrating how this game takes such an incredible concept and just drowns it in shit.
first off, i fucking love fludd. it adds so much to the way mario controls that i barely realize he's missing shit like long jumping. hovering, squirting water on the ground and sliding on it, tap spraying the shit out of shadow mario... it's so damn cool, dude. mario sunshine is at its best when you're actually able to do some sick ass platforming and use fludd to its fullest potential.
so why the fuck does the game insist on limiting your use of fludd as much as it possibly can? whether it be through fluddless platforming levels or other stupid ass gimmick shines where you're playing slots instead of actually bing bing wahooing around, sunshine fucking neuters their gimmick by making sure you're hardly ever using it. this is where sunshine just falls flat on its ass - without fludd, you realize that mario controls like utter dogshit. the left stick is so sensitive that barely tapping it will make him sprint right off the edge of a level, sometimes he'll just clip through shit or become way more slippery than he usually is, and with no way to correct your jumps it really brings to light how much the game relies on fludd.
what's worse is that this game gets fucking demolished by the way it's structured - instead of having free reign over which shines you can get to complete the game, it makes you play through every single level up to shadow mario. this means that you're required to hit at least like, 70% of the game's horrible levels. sand bird, goopy inferno, the chuckster level, bum-ass ricco harbor red coins, all of these are required to beat the fucking game. it's not like mario 64 where you have relative free reign over the order in which you do shit. over and over this game just shoots itself in the foot by making you go through some of its worst section and not letting you just fucking. play the levels you want to play.
there are a few other gripes i have too. blue coins are fucking stupid and there's not really any way to easily track which ones you have, so im never gonna feel incentivized to go for 100%. also, since so many levels have multiple stupid gimmick/fluddless shines, a lot of them don't really live up to their potential as Platforming Levels. like, most stages will usually have one section where You Gotta Platform, and the rest is just filler space to find red/blue coins.
and this is all a god damn shame, because there's parts of sunshine that i really like! even though there's not as much platforming as i would have liked, i think every stage still hits it out of the park (except maybe pianta village). they all manage to be fun and unique despite their similar island theming. the soundtrack is top notch, the aesthetic is great, i love all the wacky-ass enemy designs and it makes me sad that we'll probably never see them again. i 100% understand why people love this game, and it makes me sad that i find it so frustrating that i can't love it the same way. i promise i'm not trying to be a contrarian hater in this review, it genuinely pains me that there was so much dumbo shit that held me back from loving this game.
first off, i fucking love fludd. it adds so much to the way mario controls that i barely realize he's missing shit like long jumping. hovering, squirting water on the ground and sliding on it, tap spraying the shit out of shadow mario... it's so damn cool, dude. mario sunshine is at its best when you're actually able to do some sick ass platforming and use fludd to its fullest potential.
so why the fuck does the game insist on limiting your use of fludd as much as it possibly can? whether it be through fluddless platforming levels or other stupid ass gimmick shines where you're playing slots instead of actually bing bing wahooing around, sunshine fucking neuters their gimmick by making sure you're hardly ever using it. this is where sunshine just falls flat on its ass - without fludd, you realize that mario controls like utter dogshit. the left stick is so sensitive that barely tapping it will make him sprint right off the edge of a level, sometimes he'll just clip through shit or become way more slippery than he usually is, and with no way to correct your jumps it really brings to light how much the game relies on fludd.
what's worse is that this game gets fucking demolished by the way it's structured - instead of having free reign over which shines you can get to complete the game, it makes you play through every single level up to shadow mario. this means that you're required to hit at least like, 70% of the game's horrible levels. sand bird, goopy inferno, the chuckster level, bum-ass ricco harbor red coins, all of these are required to beat the fucking game. it's not like mario 64 where you have relative free reign over the order in which you do shit. over and over this game just shoots itself in the foot by making you go through some of its worst section and not letting you just fucking. play the levels you want to play.
there are a few other gripes i have too. blue coins are fucking stupid and there's not really any way to easily track which ones you have, so im never gonna feel incentivized to go for 100%. also, since so many levels have multiple stupid gimmick/fluddless shines, a lot of them don't really live up to their potential as Platforming Levels. like, most stages will usually have one section where You Gotta Platform, and the rest is just filler space to find red/blue coins.
and this is all a god damn shame, because there's parts of sunshine that i really like! even though there's not as much platforming as i would have liked, i think every stage still hits it out of the park (except maybe pianta village). they all manage to be fun and unique despite their similar island theming. the soundtrack is top notch, the aesthetic is great, i love all the wacky-ass enemy designs and it makes me sad that we'll probably never see them again. i 100% understand why people love this game, and it makes me sad that i find it so frustrating that i can't love it the same way. i promise i'm not trying to be a contrarian hater in this review, it genuinely pains me that there was so much dumbo shit that held me back from loving this game.