Mario Sunshine
Platform: GameCube
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Author: S.A.
There have been countless Mario games put out into the market, and each person seems to have there own favourite in regards to the immortal game character. That said, Mario Sunshine is hand’s down one of the greatest Mario games I’ve ever played. It had the right combination of child like story and good game dynamics to keep me enthralled in a way that the other Mario games to date have yet to manage.
The game itself takes place on a tropical island within the Mario world called Isle Delfino and features Mario as the villain of the story. This comes about as Mario sets out for the Isle with Princess Peach and her steward Toadsworth. When the trio lands on the island, they find the once beautiful island has been polluted and covered with graffiti. The pollution has caused objects of power called “Shine Sprites”, the islands source of power, to disappear. This has caused a shadow to spread across the land and stay there permanently. Unfortunately for the group, the man seen spreading the graffiti was none other than Mario himself. Though eye witness accounts seem to show a darker version of our beloved hero.
A Wanted Photo For A Hero? Blasphemous.
Due to what the Islanders feel is overwhelming evidence, Mario is taken into custody. He is than tasked by a judge to clean up the island and find the lost Shine Sprites, despite Princess Peach declaring our hero’s innocence. To ensure that Mario can’t leave until the job is done, he has been forbidden from leaving the island. The next day, after spending a night in jail, Mario begins to set right the evil doings of his negative counter part.
The gameplay involved for players is similar in nature to Super Mario 64, though some new elements were added. We are started off in the hub of the world, which is the Isle Delfino itself through which we can access various off shoots of the island via portals that we obtain as we clean up the surrounding area. Just like its predecessor, collecting Shine Sprites is no different than collection Stars. You may only do as such after clearing certain objectives upon entering any given stage. Also other hidden Shine Sprites can be found scattered throughout the world for those of you willing to look.
Players are given a robotic assistant to help out in our journey named FLUDD (Flash Liquidizing Ultra Dousing Device). The harnesses the power of water, using its power to not only clean the pollution in the area but also to help Mario reach new heights. The spray features four different nozzles, all of which serve a different function. The first of which is the Squirt nozzle, which allows Mario to shoot a spray of water to clean away all the gunk he comes across and battle his dirty enemies. Than there is the hover nozzle which allows Mario to hover in the air for a short period of time and reach longer distances. Furthermore there remains the ever fun Turbo nozzle which allows Mario to move at super high speeds, and the Rocket nozzle which blasts our hero into new heights. All of these abilities depend on the water available to you within your tank, and must be carefully monitored. It’s far to easy to find yourself without any water and surrounded by enemies. Luckily easy water source scan usually be found all around. There are even some levels wherein our FLUDD is stolen from us, and we must use Mario’s natural skills to retrieve him and gain the Shine Sprite.
In truth, the game is rather simple but can provide hours worth of fun. It can also prove to be suprisingly difficult from time to time for those of you worried it’s to much of a childs game. That said, it’s an old game and should be considerably cheap to purchase at this point so I advise gamers to go and get it if for no other reason than you are an avid Mario supporter.
I promise you won’t be disappointed.
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