I think this is the most double-edged bastard sword of a video game to exist.

The movement of 64 has been improved, made more responsive and precise, with new moves added like the 360 spin jump but at the cost of the removal of some others, like the long jump. FLUDD, as wretched of an excuse of a companion it is, makes for a great excuse to add fluid and natural maneuvering options to Mario's moveset. Using FLUDD to float or rocket into the air or even spray water at stuff plays so naturally into Mario's movements and it makes this game a joy to control.

The problem lies with the level design. Since FLUDD raises the skill ceiling for maneuvering, there's been compromises made to account for failure. Gone are the bottomless pits you'd frequent in 64 for every miffed jump and in their place usually lies a large plot of water or land for you to slowly swim or walk back up to shore to try again.

If you don't find that as frustrating as losing a life, then worry not; Sunshine comes topped with special platforming segments atop daunting bottomless pits, where you are stripped of FLUDD and the abilities it comes with, where every mistake is fatal and at the cost of a life. But these challenges are more than simple platforming segments - these stages are crafted in a way that genuinely clashes with the game's physics and your movement. Will your next death be because you simply missed a jump fair and square, or did a moving/rotating platform glitch you out of position and into the abyss below? The odds here are greater than anyone would expect from a Mario game of all things.

There are too often situations where the game simply refuses to play fair and these are just one of them. Think about how much of Sunshine's discussion is centered around stages like the Sand Bird, the Pachinko machine, the Blooper races, the Waterfall, I could go on. Stages like these are built for longevitizing the gameplay and are designed to be daunting challenges that take repeated tries to complete, where you the player are locked in a heated battle against the game's physics, where they all seemingly fall apart and turn against you. Too many are these moments.

It all disappoints me so because the movement itself is responsive, precise and genuinely fun to tinker with. When I walljumped up to the roof of a building, backflipped and used FLUDD to reach the inside of a building and grab a hidden Shine in Delfino Isle, I felt like the game gave me little resistance in performing such a precise maneuver. When I effortlessly climbed Ricco Harbor by backflipping, spinjumping, walljumping, and using FLUDD to hover and land across incredible narrow steel beams to reach the skies and grab the caged Shine, I was elated. The stage's intro made the climb seem daunting and impossible and I had done it with almost no difficulty nor hesitation, it felt as though I was waltzing to the top. Those are the only Shines I had fun collecting.

Super Mario Sunshine had the controls and makings to be just as good as the rest of the Mario 3D games, but in its rushed development to meet the holiday deadline its creative team had to patch holes with ridiculous difficulty spikes. The end result is a game that feels disingenuine and at war with itself; a game that is FUN to play but also terribly not so, and now rests awkwardly as a weird limped limb in the beautiful polished body of Mario games. I only grabbed about 17 Shines before I came to terms with the lack of fun I was having, and all I can really feel is a sense of overwhelming disappointment over what this game could have been had it not been rushed.