Super Mario Sunshine

aka: SMS
Moby ID: 7178
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/27 12:38 PM )
Conversion (official)

Description official descriptions

Mario, Princess Peach, Toadsworth, and Toad have come to Isle Delfino for some relaxation. Upon arrival, however, they discover the island has been polluted causing its energy source, the Shine Sprites, to disappear. The culprit is similar in appearance to Mario, who is blamed for the mess, so the portly plumber is forced to clean up the island. Mario is given an invention called FLUDD (a backpack with several water nozzles) to help him clean up graffiti and mud and capture the real villain. Gameplay features a combination of action and puzzle solving, with numerous stages and multiple episodes to each stage, and plenty of hidden secrets and surprises.

Spellings

  • スーパーマリオサンシャイン - Japanese spelling
  • 슈퍼 마리오 썬샤인 - Korean spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (GameCube version)

100 People (76 developers, 24 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 68 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 133 ratings with 7 reviews)

Best Mario Game.

The Good
Where to start...It's got great colors and details,and the graffiti around the island has great coloring. I absolutely adore FLUDD, as a tool and a character. Also the enemies in this game are creative and I like how there are many that seem to only be native to Island Delfino. Lastly I feel like I can just explore if I want to and play around, go spray people, climb things, and overall have fun exploring.

The Bad
Some of the shines seem rather tedious and hard to get. I have mixed feelings about having to fight one boss three times, and another boss about four or five times.

The Bottom Line
Super Mario Sunshine is a great,creative, and overall fun game. Mario faces things he's never faced before, and even gets a great new friend\tool named F.L.U.D.D. I think it's the best Mario game and you should play it.

GameCube · by Kiara Cunningham (13) · 2015

SMS: Good. Nothing more.

The Good
Presentation is fantastic, as per usual in a Nintendo game. Everything is bright, cheery, and well-designed. Sonics are fine. Gameplay is... erm... Mario 64-esque...

The Bad
... but not as good.

It's all in the balance of the goals you must achieve to progress, or the lack of. Some are very, very easy, while others just rip open your face and spit. Then laugh. There's also the blue coin goals, which are just... wrong. They feel out of place, and are frustrating to complete.

It simply lacks the addictiveness of its predecessor, and isn't as much fun.

The Bottom Line
A good, solid platform game, that won't surprise you in any single way.

GameCube · by laemus (11) · 2003

A vacation from the Mushroom Kingdom - lighten up and enjoy it.

The Good
1) Above all, the music is the best thing in the game. Koji Kondo has decades of experience doing his thing, and despite the continued use of MIDI sounds, SMS is some of the tightest platform music ever. It manages to convey a "feel" for the spirit of the game, reflect the tropical surroundings, and move the action/mood of the game forward all at the same time. It's really amazing what the music does for the game, and it should serve as an example for other platformers as to how easily a game is enhanced with quality stage ditties.

2) Nintendo manages to convincingly incorporate the new scenery and characters into the Mario world. I'm typically pretty picky about arbitrary additions to Mario/DK (Rare's Kongs, I'm looking at ALL of you), but I think the Piantas, Petey Piranha, etc are okay additions. Like I said, I'm not crazy about them, but I think they're not as offensive as other attempts to expand the Empire.

3) For all the grief it takes, the water pack is still a fun little gadget for platform gaming. C'mon, you know you enjoy blasting bee hives and anthropomorphic venus fly traps. It's fun!

4) Good level design in that the same level is used repeatedly for different objectives but fails to become stale thanks to the water pack tricks "opening" new areas of each level to explore.

5) Though not as impressive as the music, which I feel is up there with the best of any platformer I've played, the visuals are lush and stunning. The coronas produced by aiming your camera into the sun are a nice touch. Good looking game in many respects.

6) Play control is fairly tight. I would say "absolutely tight" if it weren't for the blasted camera in a few choice areas, which I'll mention in the "Bad."

The Bad
1) Though I love the Mario world, STOP MAKING MARIO GAMES INTO COLLECT-FESTS!!! I can't say that emphatically enough. I loved the use of coins, flowers, and stars to give Yoshi's Island some extra replay, but the "Shine Get!" collect-fest is too much, Nintendo. I'm praying it's not a sign of things to come in the Mario Universe (though I know better).

2) The camera, while good in many places, is so bad in a few places as to negate all the good. I'm sure that a lot of work goes into making things work in this game, and I've given Nintendo more than enough credit in the "Good" section for some of those things. But to have bad camera control after the design experience of Mario 64 (which had a better camera, IMHO) is inexcusable.

3) Not really many fun "secrets" in this place, like SMB's so-called negative world, SMB3's warp whistles, or SMW's Star Road. Would have been a nice touch.

4A) I found most of the boss fights boring. I'm being picky on this one, but I thought I'd throw it out there. They just didn't excite me, maybe because the non-conventional structure of the game didn't make things feel to me like things were "building-up" to a boss fight.

4B) This ties in with 4A: I felt the incorporation of the "bad guys" and boss fights wasn't well considered. The jump to the fight with Bowser Sr. seemed sudden to me--I understand the big "build-up" to the final fight is easier when the worlds and levels/stages are numbered, and you know how far you've got until the big battle, but Nintendo should have thought of a non-traditional way to incorporate the final fight to match the non-traditional themes (for a Mario game/platformer, at least) in the remainder of the game.

5) Finally, I'm about the only person I know who thinks that the "old school" SMB-in-3D bonus stages were entirely unnecessary. I think they're a concession to Mario fans thrown in by the game's designers because they were worried this vacation would be too "different" for Mario fans. I dislike those bonus stages because they deviate from the theme of the game. Instead of bonus stages, I would've appreciated it if the designers put more thought into how to fit the bosses and boss fights into the game more cleverly.

The Bottom Line
The title of this review says it all. This game is clearly a "vacation" from the Mario series--everything in the design is screaming it: for example, the mushrooms, fire flowers, and goombas take a backseat to palm trees, evil goop, and durian kicking.

People who expected this game to be the fabled "Mario 128" or a true successor to Mario 64 aren't being fair to the game or the game's creators. Again, it's pretty clear from everything in the game (from the opening FMV of Mario's flight to the use of tricks and devices unfamiliar to the rest of the Mario world) that this game was designed to be not just a vacation for Mario but for his fans as well.

As a goofy aside (but one I'll try to relate to the overall message), I have a condition in which I often experience music as flavors, and whenever I play SMS or even just hear its music, I have the sensation of tasting fresh, slightly unripe mangoes on the roof of my mouth. And to me, that image is the intent with this game: it's not meant to be a heavy flavor, like ice cream or a thick sauce, but instead light, bright, and flavorful, like a sweet, slightly tart young mango or a citrusy sorbet.

If you dislike SMS, you should dislike it for being "light, bright, and flavorful." But don't dislike it for reasons its creators can't control. I like the game because I take it for what it is: a fun game that's very easy to pick up and play for a half of an hour or so. In the space of time you play it, you'll typically find yourself humming along to music and enjoying the sun-drenched visuals and relaxed characters and surroundings. A great addition to any GC library.

GameCube · by MagFram (33) · 2005

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Super Mario Sunshine appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Bugs

There is a major glitch in the game that allows you to access a sub world, sometimes called the "Blue Hell". The game physics are dropped down (meaning, for example, you can move around normally underwater, but if you jump it will revert to normal) and you can access many areas with little or no effort, particularly the Yoshi fruit boats.

Japanese version

In the Japanese version of Super Mario Sunshine, "Isle Delfino" is known as "Dolphic Island". When a player retrieves a Shine Sprite, the "message" says "Shine Get!" instead of the English "Shine!" Also, despite being developed in Japan, the Japanese version is all in English with Japanese subtitles.

References

  • This game is set on a tropical island named Isle Delfino. "Delfino" is Italian for "Dolphin", which was Gamecube's prototype's name. Also, there are some words written in Italian around the game, like "Benvenuto" ("welcome"), etc.
  • There's a reference to the Beatles in this game. There is a yellow submarine on the Ricco Harbor stage.
  • In the attic of the Hotel Delfino, the janitor complains about the ghosts, wishing someone would come and "suck them up in a vacuum cleaner". This is a reference to another Gamecube title, Luigi's Mansion, where Luigi did indeed suck up ghosts in a vacuum cleaner.
  • When you first find FLUDD, look in the lower left corner to view scenes from previous Mario games, including Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, and Super Mario 64.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2002 – Best GameCube Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2002– Best GameCube Dexterity Game of the Year
    • 2002 – Best GameCube Dexterity Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by Ben Miller, gamewarrior, MegaMegaMan, and Tiago Jacques

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Super Mario Kart
Released 1992 on SNES, 2009 on Wii, 2013 on Wii U...
Super Paper Mario
Released 2007 on Wii, 2016 on Wii U
Super Mario World
Released 1990 on SNES, 2006 on Wii, 2013 on Wii U...
Super Mario Galaxy
Released 2007 on Wii, 2015 on Wii U, 2018 on Android
Super Mario Party
Released 2018 on Nintendo Switch
Super Mario Odyssey
Released 2017 on Nintendo Switch
Super Mario 64 DS
Released 2004 on Nintendo DS, 2015 on Wii U
Super Mario 3D World
Released 2013 on Wii U
Super Mario Bros. 35
Released 2020 on Nintendo Switch

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 7178
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Servo.

Additional contributors: JPaterson, okJigu, Guy Chapman, Alaka, gamewarrior, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, FatherJack.

Game added August 28, 2002. Last modified February 17, 2024.