NO WORRIES, I'LL MAKE IT RAIN
Also for: GameCube
What a rotten start I've gotten with the 3D Super Mario games. Every time I pick up and play them they ruin my good mood. It feels awful, because they have such an air of playfulness, humor and creativity about them, but I always come out
in a much worse state than I started. Super Mario Sunshine does an even worse job than its predecessor, Super Mario 64. Even though Mario 64 had the disadvantage of being a blueprint - it was Nintendo's first genre-defining outing in the 3D-platforming space - Mario Sunhine is a step down. It completely sucks the life and joy out of the concept of sunshine and instead makes me associate it with anger.
Sunshine's gleeful tropical setting only makes the crash landing harder.
Nintendo have seemingly learned nothing from their previous attempt. Most of
us can get behind its merry presentation of sunny skies, golden beaches,
crystal-clear water, hula-hula dancing Delfinians and calypso music -
maybe with a cool drink in one hand. I'm no different. But my smiles feel strained.
On Isle Delfino, where this game takes place, even the enemies look cute.
The island's outlined in the shape of a dolphin, and its levels constitute a series
of playgrounds, beaches, piers, coral reefs, villages and white cliffs. The
hub area, from where all other levels are accessed, is a small section called
Plaza Delfino, with plenty of hidden gameplay activities.
Your task can be described as identical to the one in Mario 64: Find a set
number of "shines" (instead of "stars" because of theme), but the difference this time is
that just any shine won't do to make progress. Sunhine is more story-driven than that. Every world has eight levels, and for each world you need to clear the first seven levels. Not until you've accomplished that can you enter the final boss area. All the secret shines,
that are not specifically related to the story, do not matter - unless you're
aiming for a 100% run.
And the story, is it good? It's absolute hogwash. Princess Peach, and her entourage of Mario and Toads, land on Isle Delfino for a vacation. As soon as they get out of the plane, they bear witness to a tropical paradise polluted by sticky goo everywhere. The culprit is a secretive crook, identical
to Mario himself, except he is completely black. Consequently he's called
Shadow Mario. He squirts goo everywhere he runs, polluting the entire island and its inhabitants. Given Mario's likeness to the culprit, the Delfinians capture him and sentence him to death.
No, that was a joke. They sentence him to clean up the mess.
The blueprint for a good game is here. It's full of creative flair and
inventive game mechanics. One central feature involves spraying water through
the F.L.U.D.D., a talking hose protruding from a small tank on your back, to
clean your polluted surroundings or attack enemies. Another one involves utilizing F.L.U.D.D. as
a jetpack to briefly glide through the air. Both of them happen through the
magic of impeccable water physics. All the components for a good time are in place.
The problems start as soon as Mario starts to move. By then nothing but the
finicky controls matter, and they're even worse than in the
predecessor. Mario races full speed
across the screen as if he was a blue hedgehog, and when he stops running he slides for a bit, like a cartoon character. This is not inheritently bad, but if it collides with the level design it can ruin the game. So how does Nintendo design the levels? Do they
accomodate for Mario's speed and make the surroundings into racing gauntlets? Do they
strive to test your reflexes?
Oh no, they don't, save for a few rare
exceptions. Instead they design long, tedious, towering platforming stages, involving careful
balancing and precise jumping onto narrow walkways, beams and tightropes. Add
to that enemies that spawn out of thin air and blow you down to the ground,
eliminating all your progress.
When that happens, all the joy flies out the window. Nintendo makes it so easy to blame the
player, but it seems like they intentionally set you up to fail. Funny fact:
During this playthrough, I once booted up the game and dropped a "Fuck!"-bomb
within three seconds. That's gotta be a record. My brother was there to
witness it, and hearing him laugh about it was the most fun I got out of Super
Mario Sunshine. I've always had problems with 3D platformers, their false
sense of depth perception, and the constantly moving camera that messes with
the directional controls. Mario Sunshine is one of the worst transgressors of the genre - it does very little to try and help you with
your spatial awareness.
But the problems do not stop there. Outside of the bountiful platforming stages,
many other kinds of levels drove me insane as well. They all come in a
variance of gameplay mechanics. Boss fights, puzzles, rail-shooters, racing
levels and wild goose chases all shake up the weak platforming formula. They
vary in difficulty from brutally hard to astonishingly simple, with no sense
of a difficulty curve. It's as scattershot as they come - no victory feels
earned, and no death feels justified. A couple of the hardest ones appear as
soon as world two, and one of the latter worlds contained a level I finished
in a matter of seconds.
The whole chain of hotel mystery/casino-levels and bossfights are atrocious in
their 8-bit era puzzle design philosophy with vague hints. The world that follows is even worse; a
village beset by Chain Chomps and lava with an almost complete lack of direction.
Every world has at least one difficult, hard-to-reach platforming section with
rotating cubes, moving platforms and vanishing floors. Falling means death,
and to add insult to injury they rob you of your F.L.U.D.D., forcing you to
manage without your safety net of core gameplay mechanics.
That could've been perfectly fine, had the controls been spotless. But with
too little space, too high a pace and a camera not suited for 3D environments (too often the viewpoint gets obstructed by walls), Mario sways back
and forth like a drunkard. Also the lack of proper tutorials makes some levels become harder than they should. To be fair, the Delfino Plaza hub world gives you the opportunity to practice the controls in a harmless environment. Some jumps, like
the backwards somersault, are probably required to beat the game. But when push comes to shove, the stick-and-button combinations - all related to the camera and Mario's currently facing direction - are very unreliable.
And I hate the way you get thrown out of a stage upon losing a life. Back
to Delfino Plaza you go, sometimes having to find your way back to the world portal.
Should you lose your last life in one of those F.L.U.D.D.-less stages, you
have to enter the world anew and find your way to that stage once more. This can be
especially aggravating when the game becomes unstable. I lost a couple of
lives to the final boss alone, just by glitching through the floor and falling
to my death.
But not all is doom and gloom. Overall, I like the bossfights. They utilize
the F.L.U.D.D. in a good way, and finally makes proper use of Mario's
extensive movement. They also encourage some creativity, provide good hints
and prepare you well with related tasks leading up to the fight itself. A few
characters are quite funny, like the arrogant Il Piantissimo, who beat me in a
race and insulted me by calling me a "flab-biscuit". The levels where you chase
down Shadow Mario are fun and harmless, but - and I know this must sound
like a paradox - also too easy.
Super Mario Sunshine just never finds a
proper balance between hard and easy, nor between fair and unfair. It's aggravating as hell, and the merry atmosphere seems
forced down my throat to make me swallow the bitter pill of playing it. It almost seems rushed to the shelves before being properly playtested. I disliked most
of my time with it, and the few highlights only stopped me from throwing the game card down the garbage chute.
But there is a silver lining in the shape of the third and final game of my Super Mario 3D Allstars Collection card;
Super Mario Galaxy. I have already started playing, and so far I find
it an amazing game. Mario controls like a dream, the creativity is through the
roof, and the levels are well-suited to his control scheme. Isn't it ironic that he had to go to the vast darkness and zero-gravity of space to find sparkling joy and straightforward movement?
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