When you think about the games that cast a long shadow across 2024’s biggest releases,Super Mario Sunshineprobably isn’t at the top of mind.Pokemon’s influence is visible inPalworld,Metroid’s ethos animatesAnimal WellandPrince of Persia: The Lost Crown. And many of the year’s biggest games are sequels drawing on their own series' history —Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth,Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth,Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Then there are the flops, likeConcordandSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, that followed massively successful live-service games likeOverwatchandDestinyto their deaths.
Super Mario Sunshine Is The Year’s Surprise Influence
But when I look at the year in its entirety, all I see is Mario. More specifically, I see Mario on a tropical island, anthropomorphic water jetpack strapped to his back, ready to take on the world between pina coladas.
Super Mario Sunshine has never been considered the greatest 3D Mario game. It was the long-awaited successor toSuper Mario 64, an epochal masterpiece that brought gaming’s most beloved series into the third-dimension and single-handedly defined the genre going forward. It was followed bySuper Mario Galaxy, which many fans view as the epitome of 3D Mario design. With those two heavy-hitters on either side, Super Mario Sunshine is easy to overlook. Unless you were there, that is. As a kid, Super Mario Sunshine was the game I wanted to live in. It had perfect vacation vibes, and its varied levels made you feel like you were taking a wide-ranging tour of a beautiful tropical oasis.
Super Mario Sunshine’s design is often overlooked, despite introducing some incredible ideas to the series — some of which have never been revisited. F.L.U.D.D., Mario’s talking backpack sprayer, was a genius idea, changing up Mario platforming in a way you might expect from the fifth sequel to 64, not the first. It’s easy to imagine an incremental sequel, a game that played just like Super Mario 64, but with new worlds and levels. That alternate path is easy to imagine precisely because it’s the approach that Nintendo took with the 2D Mario games from 2006 through 2019, as it released several sequels toNew Super Mario Bros.that added very little to the original formula beyond new courses. Sunshine plotted a braver course, and set the template for future 3D Mario games.
Astro Bot And Celeste 64 Understand The Power Of Sunshine
Once you unlocked all the attachments, F.L.U.D.D. let you hover, spray enemies, burst forward, or rocket up into the air. Most of those abilities are inAstro Bot, and largely unchanged. Astro’s boots fire two lasers that hold him aloft in a way that’s reminiscent of F.L.U.D.D.’s dual sprayers, astro’s chicken power-up propels him into the air like F.L.U.D.D.’s Rocket attachment, and Astro’s dog power-up shoots him forward like F.L.U.D.D.’s Turbo Nozzle. Astro’s abilities play like an homage to Nintendo’s most underrated platformer.
Super Mario Sunshine also had challenge levels, set in voids, that stripped F.L.U.D.D. away and forced Mario to complete the game’s most difficult challenges without help. These were my favorite and least favorite parts of the game, especially because Sunshine was still using the old-school life system and kicked you out after a few deaths (though you could usually find 1-Up Mushrooms somewhere in the level). But eventually nailing the platforming was exhilarating. Astro Bot also brings this feature back, in the secret levels you can find by running into asteroids with your ship. They don’t strip Astro’s powers away, but they do up the challenge significantly, and have me frequently swearing at the screen and scaring my dog.Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountainincorporated the same kinds of levels, as a way to translate the original game’s B-Side Cassette tape collectables to 3D.
As a big Super Mario Sunshine fan, I’m eating good right now. It just serves to highlight the ways that players only benefit when a greater variety of games are being made.
