Super Mario Sunshine

Super Mario Sunshine was released on the GameCube in 2002. It's the sequel to Super Mario 64 and the second 3D Mario game to be released. It's probably the most disputed 3D Mario game. I’ve heard people say it is the worst and I’ve heard people say it's the best. Now, I played Super Mario Sunshine as a kid but admittedly never finished it. There’s not much I remember of the iconic GameCube game and I never felt the urge to replay it like I do with Galaxy or 64. Nevertheless, when Nintendo announced that Mario Sunshine would be included in the 3D All-Stars bundle on the Switch, and in 1080p no less, I decided to sit down and play through it. After getting through it, I have some thoughts on it.

Super Mario Sunshine starts with Mario, Peach, and Toadsworth going on a vacation to the tropical Isle Delfino. Once they arrive, their plane makes an emergency landing due to goo left by the water effect filled Shadow Mario. Mario then gets arrested for vandalizing the island and is tasked with using a super soaker to clean up the island. That super soaker is the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device (F.L.U.D.D.) and is the game’s main gimmick. You spray water with the trigger, it can be used to hover in the air and can be equipped with different nozzles to achieve other effects. F.L.U.D.D. is probably where people get the most of their gripes with Mario Sunshine as it is a convention breaker and can be used in clever ways to make platforming easier. I quite like F.L.U.D.D. If F.L.U.D.D. and the fact that Peach just hangs around for a bit worries you as being too outside the Mario comfort zone, don’t fret. Nintendo made sure Peach gets kidnapped after ten minutes and for a quarter of the main missions F.L.U.D.D. gets taken away from you. 

The main gameplay has Mario enter seven levels and complete eight missions each for shines/stars. Each level also comes with a 100 coin shine and two secret shines, totaling each level’s shines to 11. This is very similar to Mario 64, but the main difference is how these levels are laid out. You are unable to complete the missions in any order you want, and to beat the game you have to complete the seventh shine mission in each level. So the game has a lot less freedom in that regard, and I frankly found it limited any desire to explore.

 The levels are less in number than Mario 64 but half the missions seem to be doing heavier leg work with interesting scenarios for the game. The other half is extremely repetitive missions. In fact, one of my biggest problems with Super Mario Sunshine is how repetitive it is. One out of the eight missions in each level has you chase Shadow Mario and spray him with water for a bit before he gives you a shine. Most missions have bosses that you’ll likely fight more than once, and the secret missions do a bit to annoy me as well. Every stage has one or two missions where F.L.U.D.D. gets taken away and you do some classic Mario platforming in a blank void that frankly looks like it was used for beta testing. Which brings me to my biggest problem with Mario Sunshine; the game is pumped full of filler. So many of the missions repeat, the secret levels all feel like they are stock levels with their basic backgrounds and simple floating blocks, and then there are the blue coins. The game has 240 blue coins spread throughout it. Ten blue coins can be exchanged at a shop for a shine. The thing is, the blue coins are in asinine and arbitrary places and are infuriating to collect. The two secret shines too are infuriating to collect because of how odd their placement is. Super Mario Sunshine, in that regard, feels unfinished and rushed just so Nintendo could make sure Sunshine had as many shines as Mario 64. 

There is a lot about Mario Sunshine I like. The levels all feel connected and I love how from high vantage points you can see other levels. The enemy design and level design in general rules. Delfino Plaza is a great hub world and feels alive. Super Mario 64’s Peach’s Castle is iconic but feels kind of abandoned. A lack of furniture and random Toads makes the whole place feel empty. Delfino Plaza, on the other hand, is vibrant and filled with life.  Most of the unique missions are interesting and varied enough, if not a bit difficult. The music is also a great strength for the game. I also kind of love the graphics. Seeing the water physics and the quality models on the GameCube does impress me. 

Mario is great to control in Sunshine. There are a lot of moves at his disposal that make traversing the levels fun and easy. The upward spin allows you to go so high and so far, it kicks ass. Mario’s movement works in no small part to F.L.U.D.D. The super soaker helps make platforming easier. The hovering option also allows you to cheat some parts of the platforming, which is always nice. F.L.U.D.D's expansion of Mario’s mobility is probably why the levels where it's taken away can get annoying. Straight platforming without it is not part of the skills I’ve been taught for Sunshine. I actually wouldn’t really mind as much if getting a game over due to some wonkier physics didn’t mean having to go back to the title screen. I played Mario Odyssey recently and the removal of a lives system really did that game wonders. 

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Final Thoughts: There’s a lot to love about Mario Sunshine. The music is good, the graphics are great, and Mario controls effortlessly. But, there are a lot of things I dislike about it too. I’ve heard reports that the game was rushed a bit to help save the underperforming GameCube and it shows. So much of the game feels like filler due to the sheer amount of repetition of the levels, the arbitrariness of the blue coins, or the difficulty of some of the levels that go viral on social media. It’s not a bad game by any means, and compared to most games it's pretty good, but compare that to Mario Galaxy or 64 and you get the worst in the 3D Mario collection. 

3/5

eh

Earthbound

Earthbound, was the first game in Shigesato Itoi’s Mother series to be released in the United States, but the second installment overall. It was released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo and sold poorly. It reviewed well enough but Earthbound’s marketing campaign was intensely bad. For starters, the game cost more than other SNES games because each copy came bundled with a strategy guide. Each copy also came with a scratch and sniff page that smelled like vomit. There were also advertisements in gaming magazines with the same schtick The tagline on those scratch and sniff pages were “This Game Stinks!” which is admittedly not the best campaign for when you’re trying to sell a product. There’s also some talk that JRPGs just weren’t that popular in America and the ones that were popular were more mature like Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger. That said, being expensive and smelling up the GameStop is reason enough the game flopped. However, Earthbound has become a cult classic, especially with the series’ being represented in Smash Bros. Is the game deserving of the cult classic status? Or does it stink like the advertisements said? Well, I have some thoughts on that.

You play as Ness, a stock American boy, who wakes up one night to find a meteor has crashed in his town. After investigating, he meets a warrior from the future in the shape of a bee. The future bee warrior, Buzz Buzz, tells the protagonist about Giygas, the game's antagonist. Giygas is an evil entity who has made adults, animals, and stop signs, behave in malicious ways and must be stopped at all costs. Thus begins your adventure to find the other 3 party members and collect the eight macguffins needed to kill Giygas. The game’s plot is a bit silly, but that’s what it's going for. The whole game has a silly tone about it that makes it feel like it was made by a child, whimsical imagination intact. The game’s plot isn’t going to win any awards, but it's the charm and funny dialogue that makes Earthbound special. Earthbound is a JRPG where talking to a bunch of different NPCs doesn’t feel like a waste of time as all their dialogue has some of that juvenile humor I enjoy. You’ll notice that besides naming the playable characters, you can also name your favorite food when the game starts up. It gets said a bunch in dialogue so you can call it something like ‘crack’ and giggle to nobody in particular when the mom character tells Ness that she made a fresh batch of crack for him. 

All that said, the game has a fair amount of dark and surreal moments. The final boss’ first form is famously an intestinal tract, there is a cult of people trying to paint the world a single color and dresses like the Klu Klux Klan, and there are one or two scenes with intense body horror going on. Moments like those give the game an edge, especially in the theming of the life of a child. Yeah, a child sees the world in a silly and juvenile way, whose imagination can take him on wondrous adventures, but there is still that kind of fucked up trauma that comes with it. 

The game’s presentation also adds to the childlike whimsicality theme. All the graphics are extremely simple, and the enemy design is goofy as hell. Even the user interface is quite simple. The music, however, is one of the game’s largest strengths. The music makes Earthbound that fun childhood adventure, or conversely that fucked up body horror, stick. Summers is one of my favorite areas because of the music and design that make that area feel like a warm beach town. One of the more famous aspects of the soundtrack is that many tracks use samples from popular music. The sampling is kind of a double-edged sword. The final area uses the horns from The Beatles “All You Need is Love,” which works really well for the area, but makes the game so difficult to localize. The sampling is part of the reason Earthbound took so long to come to the virtual console. 

On the gameplay side of things, Earthbound does some things to differentiate itself from other JRPGs. All enemies are on-screen and what angle you bump into them determines whether or not you or the enemy get an extra turn in battle. Running into an enemy from behind gets you an extra turn at the start of the battle and vice versa. If you’re at the point that you can kill an enemy in one turn then the game will just give you the XP without needing to enter the battle. Both things alleviate some of the problems that most JRPGs have. Grinding, for example, becomes much easier because of those mechanics. The major innovation to the formula is the damage slider. Once hit your HP rolls down one point at a time. This means that if you take mortal damage and can end the fight before the slider hits zero you can leave the fight with whatever health the slider was on when you won. The gameplay has a more tactical and hectic edge than many JRPGs at the time. 

Despite the quality of life improvements from most JRPGs, the game is quite difficult. Sometimes the game will spawn enough enemies that will both completely wipe the floor with you and drop the frame rate. You’re going to have to master the technique of walking off-screen and walking back to see if the random set of enemies spawned this time are doable. There are a number of status effects that can seem like cheating if they’re used on you. Not to mention there are moments of the game where the party loses a member or two for plot reasons, meaning that the enemies you’ve been used to fighting with four characters has to be done with 3 or less. Nor does it help how little there are save points compared to dungeons and areas. In fact, the amount of enemies, dungeons, and bosses make the game drag on for a bit. So the game is difficult, but not impossible.

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Final Thoughts: Earthbound is probably my favorite Super Nintendo game. It’s charming, funny, and is filled with childhood wonder. The music is good and the design all around is fantastic. The game deserves all the praise it gets and is most certainly deserving of a spot in Smash Bros. The Mother series as a whole holds a special place in my heart. It's Nintendo’s short but complete franchise that feels like it was made with an artist’s intent rather than a series that has to have an installment on every console. I do think that the game is a bit too difficult, however. The amount of content makes the game a bit long and slow to get going, not uncommon for JRPGs but nonetheless. The game’s difficulty and save points that could be more frequent makes me recommend Earthbound, but with the caveat that you should probably play the Virtual Console version on the WiiU or 3DS. Trust me, you will abuse the save state function.  

4/5

I enjoyed it

Mother 3

Mother 3 is the third installment in the Mother franchise by Shigesato Itoi, following Earthbound on the Super Nintendo. Mother 3 was released for the Gameboy Advance in 2006 in Japan. It was never localized in America, because of controversial content, troubled development, and the poor sales of the series’ previous entry. Also worth noting the DS was close to releasing at that time. Nevertheless, a fan translation was put online in 2008. It is a favorite of many Nintendo fans, and you have likely seen trending hashtags begging for the game’s localization. Especially considering Mother 3’s influence in Smash Bros. is quite prevalent. After playing through the game I do have some thoughts about it. 

The game is broken up into chapters, with most of them having you play as characters that are not its protagonist, Lucas. It is admittedly hard to talk about the plot without discussing spoilers, as major character deaths happen often, so perhaps it is more important to discuss the themes. One clear one is the discussion of loss as characters throughout the game lose loved ones, homes, etc. and struggle to cope with that reality. Critiques of capitalism are also very apparent. The game’s villain, Porky Minch, brings a currency system and televised media into the hometown of Lucas, Tazmilly Village. The village was without a currency system, any use for a jail, and a kind community. Once a ruling group has been established, with a city to flock to, factory jobs, and entertainment, then the town begins to change negatively. For example, previously friendly NPCs will become increasingly annoyed that you took the time to talk to them. One of the few non-white members of the town gets his home destroyed by the armed police presence, and many of the old folks of the town get put into a falling-apart retirement home. These are a few of many examples of capitalism destroying the town. The themes are played out brilliantly and are subtle in all the right ways. The characters are great too. All the party members serve a role that helps with the main character's arc along with having their own satisfying arc. Even some of the comic reliefs get mini-arcs that are funny, but more importantly, endearing.

The problem with the plot is that capitalism critiques might have been considered to be ill-received in the west. This is a big obstacle in localization, but most certainly not as much as the Magypsies. The Magypsies are non-binary characters who wear a lot of pink and feminine dresses but still maintain masculine features like five o’clock shadows. There have been debates on whether or not they are offensive representations of transgender people or non-binary people. On the one hand, they are powerful and confident characters that are heroes, with very peaceful views on death. On the other hand, a few characters have lines emphasizing the weirdness and seclusion of those characters. It can be argued either way, but the argument itself probably makes it problematic. Couple that with the low sales of Mother 2, or Earthbound, in America and it's clear why they haven’t and likely won’t release Mother 3 in America. Additionally, the Mother 3 fan translation has been up for years. Nintendo is a company famous for striking down fan games and projects, so them ignoring the fan translation for Mother 3 seems to be a bit of a sign of approval. Mother 3's translation is extremely popular and it seems that by allowing it to be up, Nintendo acknowledges it may never come to the U.S. This may be the only place to play it.

On the gameplay side of things, Mother 3 does a lot of things right to alleviate some of the things that exhaust other JRPGs. There are no random encounters for one thing, and if you enter a battle you are going to win in one turn, the game will just give you the xp immediately. There are saves and shops very frequently. And the save points are cute frogs that end every interaction with you with “give my regards to the next frog you meet.” I wish I had plushies of them. The main innovation with combat is that you can press the A button after attacking in tune with the beat of the battle music to chain a combo together. This will oftentimes double the damage done to a single enemy. You don't need to pull off the combos to win, you can get by without doing them, but it is a fun challenge to try and learn the beat. There is also the damage slider. Instead of a normal RPG where there is a meter or flat number, if you take damage the slider will tick down. If you take mortal damage and you can end the fight before the slider reaches zero you can win with however much HP is left. The gameplay mechanics are so good and makes Mother 3 one of the few JRPGs where the gameplay is as good as the story. 

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Final Thoughts: Mother 3 is a great game. The game has interesting and well-developed themes that are brought depth by well-written characters and heartfelt writing. The game is quite funny too. Many characters are cute and charming. The music and style are also really good, primarily because they serve the game’s themes quite well. The gameplay is also some of the best a turn-based JRPG can get. Mother 3 above all else made me feel something. It made me laugh, cry, feel that classic righteousness at a boss fight, it’s incredible. I’m not exaggerating when I say it is Nintendo’s masterpiece. I highly recommend downloading the emulator, rom, and patch, and play it. 

5/5

Oh this shit rules