Ah, what's there to say about Super Mario Sunshine? It really seems to be one of the more divisive Mario games, aside from maybe Super Mario 2. I've heard takes like "it's not a real Mario game" or it's too gimmicky. I remember playing it initially and thinking Sunshine plays like a more polished Super Mario 64, but with the F.L.U.D.D. mechanic. And to that, there's the community that defends the game and views it as a pretty creative 3D puzzler. What a strange game to divide a community.

Developed by and released exclusively for the Nintendo GameCube, this would be the only 3D platform Mario title for Big N's little box. This would be Yoshiaki Koizumi's director debut after working as a programmer, writer, and designer since Link to the Past. Sunshine certainly starts out differently than other Mario titles, there's actually a cold opening and a prelude to an elaborate plot. Whatever is considered "elaborate" for the colorful Mario universe. Mario, Princess Peach, her steward Toadsworth, and some other citizens of Mushroom Kingdom land at Isle Delfino for a vacation. However after landing and using F.L.U.D.D.'s assistance to defeat a piranha plant, Mario is arrested after being accused of vandalism by the Delfino locals (the Piantas rank as the most annoying characters I've ever seen in a Mario game, I find them to be abrasive morons). As a means to make right, Mario is assigned community service and must clean up the mess that resides across the island, while also recovering the Shine Sprites. Without them, Isle Delfino becomes covered in shadow. It's up to Mario to find the real culprit.

The first thing I noticed about Super Mario Sunshine, aside from a plot that plays out like more modern games at the time, is this the one Mario game with full-fledged voice acting and an English dub (Mario remains mostly taciturn, aside from his typical "WOOPS" and "WAHOOs". That alone give it a very unique charm to me. Jen Taylor, friggin Cortana, is voicing Princess Peach, how did this get glossed over at the time!? Probably because the voice acting was overall on par with a Joseph Lai production, and it would be the last time Mario characters would be portrayed this way. They've mostly been mute or resort to odd noises as vocals. But that's okay, we'll get Chris Pratt to voice everything.

Gameplay, as I mentioned, it's very similar to Super Mario 64, much of the core design is there, along with most of his abilities, but it's more responsive and fine tuned. The significant change is F.L.U.D.D., a sentient water-powered jetpack, which helps Mario get around to platforms and remove paint from the environment. F.L.U.D.D. as a mechanic isn't quite cumbersome, I think what makes his inclusion so not user friendly is the game is forced to give his presence importance. It's probably not fair, but compared to companions like Yoshi and Cappy in Mario Odyssey, F.L.U.D.D. comes off rather one-note and builds a strained relationship with me and Isle Delfino. Yoshi is versatile and only on occasions to do you truly need him to progress, but there were other Mario powers that accommodated the player. Sure, F.L.U.D.D. can extend jumps and hover, but his necessity turns progression into an absolute chore, as 80% of puzzles is just spraying water everywhere. It takes forever and gets redundant very quick.

There's breaks in the game where Mario has to clear these mini-puzzles THAT DON'T EVEN INVOLVE HIM AT ALL. Nintendo is really proud of F.L.U.D.D., they've gone out of their way to tie him to Mario in Super Smash Bros as one of his attacks. It just turns Mario Sunshine into a tedious venture most of the time, it's like trying to pedal a bike across town, but you have to stop every half mile to double check the wheels and reattach the breaks. Some of the tasks, like cooling off a giant Chain Chomp in order to safely drag it to a location is a clever idea, some of the good ideas are sprinkled throughout.

Graphics, it's one of the prettier GameCube games on the platform. The 'Cube's graphical and processing power was impressive, at a time where franchises were doing away with various color palettes and settling into shades of grey, green and brown, a Super Mario Sunshine easily stands out. As much of a forced task removing the paint is, it is a really cool engine that's used to map textures on the paint splotches that cover locations. The blocky polygons from Super Mario 64 are now rounded off a little more, and if you happen to be one of the few people who owns the GameCube's super expensive and very hard to find component cables, it'll automatically progressive scan and give an HD quality picture to a native 480p.

Sunshine overall is...a mixed bag. There's a whole lot to do in this game if you wanna do a completionist run, and the silly story has an appeal to it that the Mario games haven't really tried since. Its design just really holds it back for me and it remains one of my least replayed Mario titles. The music is pretty decent, and the vast maps leave a lot for a player to explore, but I feel F.L.U.D.D. would've worked best if the blueprint for this Mario game was to make it more action oriented. Super Mario Sunshine feels like a game that's arguing with itself over what it wants to be.