Super Mario Odyssey Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/25/2024) 

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Mario Odyssey

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: Switch

Release Date: October 27, 2017

Ever since the release of Super Mario Galaxy, I had always wondered how all of the successive 3D Mario titles would meet it at eye level. After all, what could possibly match the grandiose scope of freely flying throughout the infinite reaches of the universe? Logically speaking, absolutely nothing expands beyond it. While I tout Super Mario Galaxy as Mario’s finest outing across all of his mainline games, putting the plumber in a setting with an indescribably vast breadth where no one can possibly fathom its parameters peaks the franchise conceptually. My worry was that Nintendo had inadvertently squeezed the potential out of their most valuable asset, splurging all the remaining possibilities of a 3D Mario adventure into one intergalactic romp. I’m not considering the sequel to Super Mario Galaxy as proof that Mario hadn’t stagnated because Yoshi is not substantial enough of an addition. Actually, the fact that the green dinosaur was the only crumb of innovation they could implement to Galaxy’s formula is empirical evidence to my claim that it couldn’t be surpassed. The array of Mario games that followed Galaxy decided not to succeed it, but instead to ape the pre-3D classics with a polygonal coat of paint almost as a creatively bankrupt safety net. Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, on the other hand, is technically not another 2D Mario game rendered with polygons instead of pixels. Still, considering the game features a grid-based world map and narrowly linear levels that all end by climbing a fucking flagpole, it’s a wonder how they could convince anyone that it wasn’t of the same ilk. When Super Mario Odyssey was released as the Mario representative to showcase the new Nintendo Switch console in 2017, I still remained skeptical despite hearing that it reverted back to the collectathon format and that it was receiving the same widespread acclaim not seen since Galaxy 2. It turns out that Super Mario Odyssey still doesn’t attempt to triumph over Galaxy’s magnificence, but that is actually what makes it all the more substantial.

Of course, Odyssey begins with the same general conflict premise as Galaxy. Then again, it just wouldn’t be Mario anymore if Bowser wasn’t swiping up the princess like clockwork, which means my Stockholm syndrome for Mario’s severely overused plot device is finally settling in. The unique context behind Odyssey’s princess-napping is that Bowser realizes like Beyonce that if he likes Peach, he should put a ring on her as a binding, inescapable bond of holy matrimony seen as a steadfast contractual obligation by the law. When Mario confronts Bowser on his decorated ship flying over Peach’s castle in what is the most abrupt introduction to any Mario game thus far, the boomerang swing of Bowser’s white, snappy wedding hat knocks the wind out of Mario and sends him zooming across the skies. He leaves his trusty red cap in the wake of his humbling defeat, which Bowser crushes with the force of his hefty reptilian foot as a finishing blow to Mario’s ego. However, losing one of Mario’s most personal items is more fortuitous than one would think. Mario manages to crashland on “Bonnetown” in the Cap Kingdom, a peculiar place so expressionistic with a whimsically eerie atmosphere that it’s a wonder that Tim Burton’s name didn’t appear in the opening credits. Cap Kingdom is also populated by a society of wispy, ghoulish caps that possibly could serve as substitutes for Mario’s misplaced clothing item. Cappy, the floating pale creature who has somehow retrieved the torn remnants of Mario’s old hat from Bowser’s ship, volunteers to be the new blocker of the sun’s rays to Mario’s dome because his younger sister, Tiara, has also been forcibly taken by Bowser to serve as Peach’s crown during their eventual wedding ceremony. By fusing his ethereal body with Mario’s old cap, Cappy and Mario are now a dynamic duo on a mission to save Peach and his sister from glorified legal enslavement. I suppose the call to adventure is glorious for Cappy but for Mario, it’s just another Tuesday.

While Mario isn’t roaming the cosmos once again, the “odyssey” portion of the title still alludes to a glorious journey nonetheless. Mario is limited to the land this time around and all of its oxygenated, gravitational barriers, but this does not mean that Super Mario Odyssey is a conceptual compromise. The key element from Galaxy retained here is that heightened sense of romanticism that comes with Mario setting off on an adventure. Somehow, for a franchise whose protagonist has soared through the infinite reaches of space twice over, Odyssey’s scale still seems wondrous while sticking to an earthly environment. There is something bourgeois about sailing the skies in a steam-powered vessel in the shape of a red top hat that is granted to you on a convenient whim, a fanciful privilege only rewarded to the king of video games. Mario is a modern-day Philleas Fogg, and the premise of flying around the circumference of the entire world that was once far-fetched when Around the World in Eighty Days was written still retains that sense of spectacle and majesty despite the technological advancements we’ve contributed to air travel. The same could be said for Mario’s personal experiences, finding exhilaration in this venture even after exploring the final frontier. Somehow, for a franchise where one title was vacation-themed, Odyssey exudes a greater atmosphere of laidback breeziness than when he set foot on Isle Delfino. 3D Mario still sustains the elation of traveling abroad, which means Mario is still shirking whatever responsibility he left in the Mushroom Kingdom two decades prior. Is Peach his mistress, or did living with Luigi become intolerable?

The world that Mario is circling via a mechanical, quasi-steampunk piece of formal wear on his quest to rescue Peach is actually the one where the Mushroom Kingdom resides. Unless someone has mapped out the location of Sarasaland or Isle Delfino and determined their geographical placements in relation to the Mushroom Kingdom, Odyssey marks the first time where the player can discern the distance between Peach’s fungal domain and the areas outside of its jurisdiction. Instead of shelling out gobs of money for their wedding like your average poor sap, Bowser uses his kingly persuasion and or strongarm tactics to steal the precious artifacts from the various kingdoms to use as trinkets during the ceremony (wedding cake, soiree bouquet, etc). In the interest of sticking it to Bowser and restoring balance to the upset kingdoms he’s impolitely pillaging, Mario acts as the NATO-esque ambassador from the Mushroom Kingdom and retrieves all of the stolen items rightfully belonging to their defenseless neighbors.

Since Odyssey’s progression involves skimming across the longitudinal plane of an entire planet, one can assume that the seventeen different areas of the game showcase an eclectic range of level themes and topographies. Before you also assume that this premise allows the developers to delve back into the typical fire, ice, desert, etc. world roulette that the Super Mario series created and every conceivable platformer followed, Odyssey seems slightly more clever than to pass by with the bare minimum. Sure, the kingdoms arguably resemble the base elemental motifs that ran the genre into the ground with exhausting overuse. However, a pinch of personality will perk up any and all overused tropes. For instance, the explorable district of the Sand Kingdom, “Tostarena,” borrows inspiration from Latin American culture instead of the ancient Egyptian standstill. A plaza of vibrant, colorful buildings resembling modern Mexican architecture is contrasted with an array of mythically ancient Aztec pyramids and pillars in a dry wasteland of baked red sand. “Shiveria” in the Snow Kingdom looks like a hostile bank of frigid tundra on the surface, but underneath the raging frost is a civilization of rotund, white furballs whose habitable society exudes warmth and comfort. I suppose the closest Odyssey comes to rendering a fire-themed level is the Luncheon Kingdom, with its boiling lake of Pepto Bismol serving as the scorching hazard that surrounds the area. Anyone who would find this gaudy, splotchy kingdom appetizing is either a cartoon alien or they're on some seriously potent dope. I don’t trust that this kingdom has a pleasant aroma of food from Cappy because he doesn’t even have a fucking nose! The highlight kingdom in my personal opinion is the swinging urban “New Donk City,” meant to resemble America’s city that never sleeps. Among the goofy and brainless Sims refugees that populate this city, its less disturbingly realistic mayor should tickle anyone who is knowledgeable about Mario’s history. Mario’s old squeeze Pauline all the way back from when he was coined as Jumpman has moved on from being snatched up by Donkey Kong to a position of prestigious political power. Seeing her after a quarter of a century is like bumping into an old girlfriend from high school, and whether or not her success is life-affirming or a source of envy is a matter of individual perspective, I guess. Overall, Odyssey’s crop of kingdoms is beaming with life and energy, but there are a few duds in the mix. Some are relegated to bounded boss arenas, and the aquatic theming of both the Lake Kingdom and the Seaside Kingdom is redundant. They could’ve been integrated with the elegant mermaid society of Lake Lamode hidden underneath the surface of the carbonated beachfront of Bubblaine like how the “Steam Gardens” of the forested Wooden Kingdom juxtaposed the shadowed core below the mechanized hiking trails above.

Mario’s recurring objective, whenever he docks his aircraft on the ground of any of these levels, is to gather an increasing abundance of fuel to further power his ship. Fuel for the aircraft is harnessed via obtaining power moons that are in the shape of multicolored crescents, a Mario celestial collectible that has also been split in half. A certain milestone of power moons collected also forms another fold of the sail that hoists the ton of top hat machinery up in the sky, suggesting that it can travel to greater lengths with every new addition. That quantity of power moons needed to expand Mario’s trajectory is the primary goal of each level, as the player will be locked onto the current level until the quotient is met. Another collectible also found scattered around the field beside the standard coins is a subsidiary purple currency that tends to be aligned in packs of three and is specifically shaped for each kingdom. Mario cannot convert the darkened currency into gasoline to feed his ship’s engine; rather, they are exchanged to purchase items at a gift shop featured in every kingdom. Mario can change his attire with a hat and torso clothing combo, plant a sticker with an artistic postcard design to decorate the exterior of his aircraft like the back of a laptop screen and spruce up the interior of it with assorted knickknacks. Filling the space of the inner chamber with each level’s memorabilia is a neat way of signaling progress in the game, and mixing and matching Mario’s outfits is just darling. For those few who campaigned against Mario’s sombrero and poncho combo calling it “cultural appropriation,” get a life.

Super Mario Odyssey cuts the approximate number of total levels featured in either of the two Super Mario Galaxy games in half. Despite how this seems on the surface, Odyssey is not a skeletal 3D Mario game compared to its predecessors because of its direction. The growing linearity that both Galaxy titles sought to pursue for 3D Mario’s evolution has been scrapped entirely for Odyssey. Instead, Odyssey adopts a free-flowing open design across all seventeen levels. It’s a fortunate circumstance for Mario that his eccentric vehicle’s fuel source is plentiful and commonplace across all of the kingdoms, so the lengths he must undergo to sustain geographical movability are not arduous in the slightest. In fact, Mario can simply walk a few meters from where he parks his aircraft and find at least a couple of power moons. Odyssey provides a myriad of assorted ways to obtain its main collectible, so many that I have to limit the examples for the sake of brevity. Red doors marked with a dapper, golden top hat symbol are entrances to enclosed, traditional platforming sections where a power moon will be rewarded to Mario at the end, with another often obscured to the side rewarded for diligent searching. Some of these doors are locked behind bouncers who won’t let Mario in until he’s wearing the appropriate outfit, so the clothes are also functional as well as fashionable. Sending Mario down the iconic green pipes will transport him to a section that restricts him to the 2D axis, resembling his spritely self during his early pixelated days. I particularly enjoy these brief swathes of 2D platforming as the pixel art rendered here is so crisp and clean. Mario ascends up the New Donk City equivalent to the Empire State Building entirely in his 8-bit form in a sparkling, 25-year tribute to the classic Donkey Kong game, and the game arguably peaks in quality with this section alone. Minigames, or at least sections that I would consider to be minigames, involve matching the paces of a circle and placing the correct pieces of anatomy on a drawing of an enemy or ally. While these feel like glorified sobriety tests, the fact that they are featured shows the extent of how the game diversifies the objective of finding the power moons, ensuring that it never risks getting stale. Do you want to know what the best part of the collection process is? The pesky boot-out system that plagued the non-linear playgrounds of Super Mario 64 has been omitted entirely, so Mario can collect past the required amount of power moons to his heart’s content. The main quest that each level presents involving the retrieval of stolen goods is merely a suggestion that can be glossed over in favor of other objectives. Finally, Odyssey realizes the potential of 64’s level design after all of its immediate successors practically abandoned it.

Odyssey’s main gimmick is also greatly utilized while Mario explores each level for power moons. Cappy isn’t merely a talking hat to help Mario navigate through uncharted territory with the occasional factoid and quip: he’s as integral to Odyssey’s gameplay as F.L.U.D.D. was in Sunshine. If there is one extraordinary aspect that the already splendorous Galaxy was lacking, it’s giving Mario the ability to possess all sentient beings that surround him. Odyssey gives credence to all the conspiratorial whack jobs wearing tinfoil hats because, without their odd, makeshift headwear, their autonomy is fully squelched by Mario after he flings his hat off of his head onto theirs, with an additional mustache to signify Mario’s presence in their minds. This marvelous addition to Mario’s gameplay isn’t only used a handful of times for a small selection of NPCs: it's necessary to gather the majority of power moons per level. Ever wondered what it would be like to control a number of Bowser’s henchmen? Well, Odyssey unveils that hypothetical possibility, by letting Mario fling frying pans furiously as a hammer bro, break open cages with the charged force of a Bullet Bill, and stack Goombas to attract a female one situated on a perch. Friendlier NPCs can also be controlled, such as a clueless dad in New Donk City who can’t drive an RC car to save his life and a winged lizard who can glide to the ledges of pillars in Tostarena and the isolated islands of the remote Lost Kingdom. Mario can man mobile weaponry such as tanks and slingshots, and force inanimate objects that are obscuring power moons out of his way. For a brief period, Mario can even take control of the enormous T. Rex sleeping in Cascade Kingdom and rampage through its prehistoric waterfalls destroying all of the rock formations that surround it. Must I list more examples after this one? The ability to do so was practically a selling point for the entire game, and I was completely sold on this unique piece of gameplay innovation.

While the massive range of individual objectives per level preserves the player’s intrigue in Odyssey’s gameplay, it ultimately trivializes the game’s difficulty. Thinking of ways to scatter the power moons and implement quirky methods of earning them was probably too ambitious for the developers, so their creative juices evidently ran dry as they started to half-ass the process. Mario can earn a power moon by sitting on a bench with some lonely SOB in New Donk City, twirling his hat on several glowing spikes, and one power moon is purchasable in the section of each kingdom’s gift shop that accepts regular coins. When earning the main collectible boils down to simply purchasing it for a paltry 100 coins, does it really feel like an achievement? Is this the best the developers could come up with to meet some kind of power moon quota? Only a handful of power moons are legitimate challenges that require a reasonable level of platforming skill to obtain. To compound on Odyssey’s ease, all Mario loses when he dies is a measly ten coins. I understand that perhaps a numbered life system wouldn’t work in this open environment, for there isn’t even a hub to eject Mario to upon exhausting all of them. Still, maybe I’d be more incentivized to act cautiously if the penalty of death was a bit steeper. The areas of each kingdom tend to be fairly spacious, so perhaps Mario should be teleported back to the ship as a reasonable punishment and wipe away the whole checkpoint system. I understand that Odyssey places a heavy emphasis on liberal exploration rather than narrow platforming tasks, but lifting the weight of challenges across the board to foster this direction made me disillusioned with the gameplay at times.

I can’t say the game’s various bosses provide too much of a challenge either, but at least they share the admirable levels of diversity and creativity that the high points of Odyssey bestow. Initiating a boss encounter is usually not done by stumbling upon them like a regular power moon. They tend to be integrated with the primary objective looming overhead, and the incentive for defeating is earning a three-piece power moon pack instead of a single one. A recurring encounter found floating menacingly over many kingdoms with their miniature, flying boat are the Broodals: a quartet of anthropomorphic rabbits hired by Bowser to coordinate a slew of things for his wedding. While all the thuggish bunnies exude a rough and tough, low-brow urbanity like they’re an unused gang from The Warriors, each individual Broodal fight couldn’t be any more different from the next. Mario even fights their equally trashy mother a couple of times, who walks around carrying a chain chomp on a leash as the Mario universe equivalent of a middle-aged housewife pampering a pit bull terrier. Other bosses are endemic to the particular world they reside in, such as the stone face of Knucklotec in the catacombs of Tostarena, Mechawiggler scaling the sides of the tall buildings of New Donk City, and Cookatiel flapping its wings over the Luncheon Kingdom’s Mount Volbono volcano. The Ruined Dragon of the forsaken Ruined Kingdom is so photorealistic and darkly intimidating that it’s as if Mario crossed the metaphysical video game boundaries into Dark Souls. While none of the bosses were perilous duels that tested Mario’s might, integrating the possession mechanic into most of these boss battles is an appreciated factor of their high engagement. I especially enjoy using Knucklotec’s own fists to sucker punch him, and shooting the balls off of Mechawiggler’s body with tank shells.

Lest we forget Bowser’s role as the primary Mario antagonist among the crowd of secondary bosses in Odyssey. Similarly to the Galaxy games, Bowser is fought a handful of times before the climactic moment that results in returning Peach to safety. Also like Galaxy, Bowser’s fights are basically the same as the first with additional variations to his attacks to throw Mario off the sense of familiarity. The first fight that Bowser engages with Mario is a detour into the small, secluded Cloud Kingdom, and we’re meant to believe that his final fight will take place at his feudal Japan-themed castle, which is the most inspired depiction of Bowser’s fiery fortress we’ve seen in ages. The true climax where Mario finally conquers Bowser is set in a cathedral erected on the edge of the moon. Talk about a destination wedding! After barging through the towering ivory doors to yell “I object!” like any maverick wedding crasher would, Mario kicks Bowser’s white tuxedo-wearing, neatly combed hair ass so hard for his latest attempt to secure Peach as his property that the cathedral starts to crumble around them. In order to survive the wreckage, Mario does the unthinkable and passes his cap onto Bowser. Yes, for the last segment of Odyssey’s story, the player controls King Koopa himself as the only reliable physical force available to break through the falling debris, and he’s as fun to play as one would expect. Odyssey’s ending may not form an emotional lump in my throat as Galaxy’s did, but the epic closure of racing to the other side as Bowser is satisfyingly epic. Plus, the “bro moment” between Mario and Bowser when Peach rejects both of them as potential lovers at the end is hilariously tender and unexpected.

Flying to the moon to halt Peach’s horrible fate as Bowser’s lawfully wedded wife wrapped up the story of Odyssey nicely, but the game itself is far from over. The first step of Mario’s epilogue is finally returning home to the Mushroom Kingdom after an extensive period away. However, Mario will be working overtime here as the modern rendering of Peach’s castle and the yard surrounding it serve as an entirely new area with power moons aplenty. In addition to the power moons earned through exploration, portals strewn throughout the castle grounds transport Mario to fight the game’s bosses again with a dash of extra challenge seasoned in. Green series staples such as Yoshi and Luigi can also be found roaming the area, and their brief inclusions are enough of a presence so Nintendo doesn’t think to legitimize Odyssey with a whole new sequel where they hog more of the spotlight. What really extends the length of Odyssey to overflowing proportions are the space cubes littered across every single kingdom in the game. Now, when Mario bats these mysterious multidimensional shapes with Cappy, they ignite into the sky and create new power moons that are integrated with those left over from the base game. Engaging with the cubes doubles the amount of power moons per level, meaning that Odyssey’s epilogue is extended to the length of the entire game that the player just finished. One may dismiss Odyssey’s post-game as a case of ludicrous padding. Yet, I genuinely still yearned to collect more power moons after I defeated Bowser, and the flood of supplementary power moons quenched my thirst for more content. Besides, I can choose to collect as many additional power moons as I please at my own pace, and I’m not a strict completionist. For those who are, Odyssey certainly has their work cut out for them.

After a lengthy period of lackluster releases unfitting for Mario’s golden reputation, the Italian pride of Nintendo finally fired on all cylinders with Super Mario Odyssey. By returning to form via the 3D platformer format that used to mark a gigantic release for the plumber, Mario reworks what was perceived as insurmountable by Galaxy’s high standard by tweaking the knobs of collectathon gameplay to something completely untested in the franchise. I’m almost ashamed to admit my short-sightedness in assessing how doomed the attempt of any subsequent 3D Mario game matching Galaxy would be, for basing the core design in a strictly non-linear playground where the player has the freedom to explore without any constraints seems like such an obvious solution. “The possession mechanic” that drives Odyssey’s appeal is so unconventional that no one could’ve anticipated its incorporation into the gameplay, but we’re all delighted by its inclusion. Odyssey is a tad too facile for my liking, even for a series as accessible as Mario. Because of this, I can clearly state that I prefer the format of the previous 3D Mario platformers where earning a main collectible felt more gratifying. Still, Odyssey is more than worthy enough of being uttered in the same respects as its predecessors, something that couldn’t be said about the immediate Mario titles before it.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/15/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: Wii

Release Date: May 23, 2010

The seventh generation of gaming, up until the succeeding era, ascended over every previous period by surpassing the average console lifespan with eight or so years instead of the typical five. This generation was long enough to encompass both my pre-teen years as well as every year I was in high school, ending around my first semester of college in 2014. Because the seventh generation coincidentally overlapped with basically the entirety of my adolescence, I sometimes wonder if this factors into why I became so disenfranchised with gaming during this period. Perhaps it wasn’t that gaming had reached a point of widespread saturation thanks to the colossal boom in mainstream popularity the medium had experienced in 2007. Maybe video games took far less precedence in my life at the time because they didn’t pronounce any of the angsty or horny proclivities stirring around in my hormone-addled brain. The cause of my disillusionment probably stems from components in both column A and B, but let’s focus on how the state of gaming was at the time for now. I’ve mostly attributed my relative distaste for this generation of gaming to the influx of photo-realistic cinematic games and murky, carbon-copy first-person shooters that incentivized online multiplayer capabilities over all else. However, even my dear Nintendo wasn’t safe from my teenage cynicism. When Super Mario Galaxy 2 was announced, my initial reaction was an aggrieved facepalm. This was the first instance of a mainline 3D Mario game receiving a direct sequel on the same system, and I couldn’t help but think that its existence was a cheap, pandering cash grab to piggyback off of the first Super Mario Galaxy’s success. It made me realize how much I had changed since the first Galaxy was released, with a new outlook on assessing industry practices. After playing it, Galaxy 2 did very little to ease my preconceived pessimistic notions, and I always felt annoyed when I saw that a sizable handful of people were championing it over the first game. Even now as an adult in my 20’s over a decade later, my thoughts on Super Mario Galaxy 2 haven’t really changed.


Truthfully, even though I played through the entirety of Super Mario Galaxy 2 soon after playing through the first, I could only remember a few minute details before playing it again for this review. I don’t think my hazy recollections are due to the long span of time since playing the game. I remembered the first title fondly despite having not played it for the same well-worn swathe, or at least before I played it again to review it. The reason why my memories of Super Mario Galaxy 2 are but a vague slurry of more Mario moments in space is because the game does little to nothing to discern itself from its predecessor. Every rich source of inspiration that made the first Super Mario Galaxy a wondrous spectacle showcasing the enchanting romanticism of space travel is diluted by familiarity here in the sequel. This lack of inspirational integrity is evident right from the game’s beginning, as Mario is called to action by an age-old standby plot stimulant. Instead of a special event like the Star Festival that hadn’t been established until the first Super Mario Galaxy game, Mario gets an invitation from Princess Peach to have cake with her at the castle. Mario still scurries on over there with enthusiasm that indicates that he still doesn’t understand that cake is not a euphemism for sex. The Star Festival season is still a presence in the introduction, and the “shooting stars” overhead serve as the occasion for cake at Peach’s. Still, toads walking through the grassy plains of the Mushroom Kingdom catching star bits on their tongues like snowflakes exude far less festive delight that sets a joyous precedent for the rest of the game like before. Anyways, everyone and their grandmother know what impedes Mario from that cake date with Peach. Bowser makes his due appearance to kidnap Peach, and he uses his new enlarged kaiju proportions to make him intimidating enough in preventing Mario from stopping his evil schemes on sight. After the princess is abducted right on schedule, the game immediately warps Mario to the first galaxy. Everything about this introduction seems heavily contrived. The grand allure of the annual event that catapulted Mario into the action in the first Galaxy title mesmerized us because the game conveyed its spectacle effectively. When Mario was blasted into the vast, indifferent arms of outer space by a Kamek soldier, the uncertainty of the situation caught our attention. Here, the situation seems so nonchalantly rushed, almost as if the sensation of deja vu is expediting Mario’s approach to the situation. The Luma that granted Mario his spin ability to survive the wild reaches of the cosmos simply interrupts Mario by chance along the way to the castle. In their minuscule diversion attempts, the developers set up a watered-down depiction of the exact same event that started the first game by negating all of its effective pacing.

Immediately after finding the first star in the tutorial mission, Mario will be transported to this game’s hub to organize the remainder of his quest. Rosalina’s majestic space observatory is no longer the peaceful stomping grounds situated in a placid stasis over the cosmos, for that, would be far too familiar for comfort. Instead, Mario’s neutral zone is a soaring, planetoid vehicle manned by a small Luma contingent. The captain of this vessel is a large, purple Luma named Lubba, whose portly size, dopey demeanor, and sense of style make him like an intergalactic Patrick Star. Actually, Lubba temporarily grants his esteemed position as captain to Mario since he has far more experience in missions involving saving damsels in distress. This change of rank results in the vessel reshaping itself into the visage of Mario’s bulbous head complete with his trademark cap with the capital “M” insignia. As much as I’m amused by the design of the SS Mario (the acronym being spaceship in this context), the new hub also feels like a sufficient demotion from what was offered in the previous game. The player is no longer enraptured by a sense of ethereal sentimentalism that exuded from the observatory. I’m not even certain what effect the SS Mario is trying to convey other than the novelty shape of the spacecraft. Also, it’s quite ironic how much more difficult it is to navigate through this comparatively smaller hub thanks to the ship’s gravitational mechanics like it's a dwarf galaxy.

If the pacing and the hub sounded underwhelming, neither compare to the extent of halved-assery in how Super Mario Galaxy 2 constructs its levels. An accelerator button on the deck of the ship expands the screen to a grid that dots the levels, traveling level by level to the finale of that world’s Bowser/Bowser Jr. boss on the far right as the player progresses. When Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced the gaming world to its mapped menu grid, the unparalleled organization of the game’s levels was revolutionary. However, implementing this design several generations later in the third 3D era is appallingly lazy. A less involved level selection like this in a 3D game is inherently so compared to the depth of seeking out their location in 64 and Sunshine, and the inspired choice of placing them all in the same orbital space in the first Galaxy game. Empty space on the grid in Super Mario Bros. 3 not dedicated to the next level at least had enemy encounters and mini-games in the Toad houses to give the environment more character. Super Mario Galaxy 2’s rendition of this fills nothing in its empty spaces between levels, which makes you wonder why the developers didn’t just present the levels in a straight line and cut out the filler spaces. Somehow, an advanced game in 3D fails to make its level map on par with the pixelated template that predates it by two whole decades.

Every aspect of Super Mario Galaxy 2 mentioned so far seems like the primary goal of the developers was to streamline the foundation of the first game. One facet of this that the developers didn’t screw up was the overall level design. The first Super Mario Galaxy was the most linear of the plumber’s 3D titles regarding level progression, with the developers finally gaining the confidence to render levels akin to the classic 2D format after bashfully avoiding them for two generations. Super Mario Galaxy 2 naturally doubles down on the first game’s more straightforward approach to 3D Mario, and the levels here exude a sense that the developers became more comfortable with a linear level design after crafting the first game. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is slightly more difficult than its predecessor, a game in which I stated perfected Mario’s accessible approach to the challenge. However, I think the spicier tinge to the sequel’s difficulty curve might be its greatest contribution to the Galaxy brand. The developers were no longer afraid of making calamitous platform sections more commonplace, such as the disintegrating green ones or those that alternate with Mario’s spin ability. A stand-out section that tests the player’s reaction times is the slide down the trunk of a gargantuan tree in “Tall Trunk Galaxy”, dodging thorny bramble patches and looping around its wide interior to circumnavigate the empty pits in its structure. The winding platform that takes Mario over the thick sea of ectoplasm in “Boo Moon Galaxy” is unpredictable, and reeling Mario over the globs of lava in “Melty Monster Galaxy” is super tense. Did I mention that The Hammer Bros, the original juggernaut enemies of Super Mario, make their 3D debut here and are usually situated on steep, narrow platforms to fling a storm of projectiles at Mario? If the developers insisted on banking on familiarity, at least they decided to add a pinch of challenge to the mix, especially since the developers have reused tons of level motifs from the first game.

Another commendable aspect of Super Mario Galaxy 2 is how the game utilizes the comets. In the first Galaxy game, comets would periodically visit a galaxy after the standard star missions had been completed. The comet’s presence triggered a more challenging version of one of the regular star missions, and the specific aura of the comet would signify the brand of challenge that would occur. While these shooting stars provided a much-needed spark of challenge in Super Mario Galaxy’s gameplay, the most challenging aspect of them is their inconvenient natures. The observatory needed some kind of meteorologist Luma on board to issue a forecast for when these comets arrive, for which galaxy they’d dock themselves over was as unpredictable as a game of chicken. The comets would also impatiently leave orbit if Mario didn’t attend to them immediately, which is arguably indicative of the fleeting nature of this astral phenomenon. Still, having to halt my progression to catch these comets on time tended to get on my nerves. Galaxy 2 reconsiders how the comets are triggered by introducing “comet tokens,” collectibles that will eventually signal a comet over that level when obtained. These coins are conspicuous, so the player will most likely see them in their peripheral vision during the course of a mission. However, they are intentionally situated in hairy platforming sections and hidden between obscured crevices, forcing Mario to take a risk and or make an extra effort to swipe them up. The additional lengths needed to collect the tokens make for a fun incentive. When a comet makes its appearance, it will also thankfully sit and wait patiently for Mario to accept it. I greatly appreciate it. Galaxy 2’s comets also filter through some of the less acclaimed types of challenges while accentuating the ones with more potential. Comets that involve collecting 100 purple coins are dispersed more evenly, and the army of pygmy shadow Marios that copy his every move and make every mistake when moving have more severe consequences.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 also adds a couple of new attributes to the gameplay despite how much its direction copies the first game. The return of Mario’s power-ups after he forgot to pack them for his vacation in Super Mario Sunshine was a delightful return to form, and the power-ups featured in the first Super Mario Galaxy were perfect in providing gameplay variety in tandem with the platforming. The few new power-ups here at Mario’s disposal have a weighty presence over the course of the game’s levels, and both of them are fortunately fun and functional. The simplest new power-up is a drill that Mario holds above his head to burrow between the layers of earth on opposite sides of a planet. Cloud Mario grants Mario a string of clouds that materialize as makeshift platforms, with maximum usage of three before the power simply becomes an aesthetic change turning Mario’s clothes white and his hat fluffy. Rock Mario allows Mario to encase himself inside a rolling boulder that careens into enemies with ramming speed, sort of similar to Goron Link’s ability in Majora’s Mask. Every single old ability from the first Galaxy game such as Bee Mario and Ghost Mario make a singular appearance across a select few levels, giving the new power-ups more precedence and allowing the player to become more accustomed to using them by proxy. This decision was wise on the part of the developers because in a game that already stubbornly refuses to change any of its noticeable clothes from yesterday, at least brandishing a brand-new pair of socks will retain a slight bit of freshness. Hence, it staves off becoming totally rotten.

As neat as the new powers are, let’s not kid ourselves here. We all know that the most essential addition to Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the inclusion of everyone’s darling little dinosaur Yoshi. The general rule of thumb regarding a Mario game seems to be that adding Yoshi to a game is like supplying a dash of garlic onto your food: any dish will automatically become more delectable just with its inclusion. Nintendo wanted to drill into the player’s heads how noteworthy Yoshi’s appearance is in Galaxy 2, putting him on the game’s front cover as prominently as Mario like in his glorious debut in Super Mario World. We can almost infer that Nintendo figured Yoshi’s presence here is the main component that legitimizes the game’s reason for existing, amending their mistake of the first game’s glaring omission by developing a sequel with an overload of Mario’s pet. To their credit, at least the developers supported the selling point of Yoshi by greatly utilizing his unique attributes in the gameplay. The askew weight of space gravity has not altered Yoshi’s enormous, idiosyncratic appetite in the slightest, as Yoshi will devour multiple victims using a targeting system and gulp them down in one bite. If an enemy’s exterior is too rugged to be palatable, Yoshi can spit them back out at another enemy or breakable wall/surface. Yoshi’s flutter kick is always useful in aiding with corrective platforming, and Yoshi swings with ease on the series of flower knobs to cross gaps. Yoshi somehow ascends past even Mario’s significance in his own game considering even he has more new power-ups than the eponymous plumber. Yoshi’s special abilities come from eating a certain type of fruit, and their effects are brief. Eating the blue fruit will bloat Yoshi like Violet Beauregarde, and he’ll soar upward using the extra exhalation. Chili peppers will literally light a fire under Yoshi’s ass as he turbo boosts in a red-hot frenzy, and the golden fruit that resembles a lightbulb will illuminate hidden platforms. Nintendo not only made Yoshi the biggest discernable aspect of Galaxy 2 but made him the real breadwinner of the entire game. It certainly shows a significant improvement from the awkwardly-implemented, water-soluble Yoshi from Sunshine.

…Oh, and the player can swap out Mario for Luigi whenever he presents the opportunity at the beginning of a random level. As much as I support vindicating Luigi, he’s simply just “green Mario” here as he usually is. Sorry, buddy. You just can’t compete with Yoshi’s utility here or his cuteness.

The range of boss battles in the first Super Mario Galaxy finally offered a smattering of exciting foes that were missing in the previous 3D titles. They efficiently used a mix of Mario’s innate platforming acrobatics, spin move, and specific power-ups to offer up some truly engaging climatic bouts. This aspect has not been sullied in Super Mario Galaxy 2, as the developers have taken the time to produce a new entourage of seismic baddies. The standout bosses seem to integrate Mario’s new moves into the fabric of the fight, with Digga-Leg standing tall on a circular dirt mound built for the drill, and the spiky Rollodillo rivaling Mario’s rock formations in size and speed. Yoshi hoicks the Spinys of the Lakitu King back at him until he falls off his regal cloud. “Throwback Galaxy,” a refurbished remake of Whomp’s Fortress from Super Mario 64, reinvigorates the Whomp King fight from that level with richer mechanical layers and a heightened cinematic scope. It’s a proud sign of how far we’ve come in such a short time. I adore all of the new bosses the same way I did for the ones from the first Galaxy. Yet, Galaxy 2 still does that annoying thing here where it insists on taking traits from the first game. Peewee Piranha is just the first boss from the first game again with severe diaper rash, and did we really need to experience what fighting Bugaboom would be like with the cloud form instead of the bee? They’re simply unnecessary filler.

Being that Super Mario Galaxy 2 strives to emulate the first game in all its glory, does this extend to showcasing the bittersweetness of the space’s immensity found in the first Galaxy game? Of course, it doesn’t! This statement shouldn’t be too surprising considering the game is paced like Mario is running a marathon, which I already divulged when discussing the game’s introduction. As expected, the whirlwind pacing seen in the introduction is just as applicable to the end. Bowser’s final fortress is once again the climactic final level after seeing subsidiary versions of it as the previous world’s climaxes with battling Bowser Jr’s titanic tin cans as (more interesting) breaks in between. Fighting Bowser’s final form is exactly how the first game composed the Bowser encounters: a slightly longer bout with a few steps sprinkled in to maybe throw the player off guard. The marginal difference is that at the end, the player finishes the fight in a sequence of butt-slamming meteors back at Bowser in a celestial vortex. After Bowser shrinks down for the final time after suffering from too much blowback, Peach escapes his captivity and gives Mario the final Grand Star. Lubba takes the two on a grand tour of the cosmos on the SS Mario to celebrate, and Mario finally gets to take a succulent bite of Peach’s cake. I wish I was hinting at something sexual here. The impact of finishing Galaxy 2 compared to the tender gut punch I received upon the finale of the first game couldn’t be any more different. All that Galaxy 2’s ending left me with a feeling of emptiness, and not in a profoundly existential way. I had accomplished the task at hand, and that was it. Yahoo!

I hate being right all the time. My preconceived notions regarding Super Mario Galaxy as Nintendo’s first 3D Mario to be a shallow cash grab shamelessly banking off of the previous game was right on the money. Upon playing the game, my experience amounted to gathering first-hand research on the extent of Super Mario Galaxy 2’s devotion to being derivative. Nintendo must think we’re all idiots that wouldn’t notice that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is practically a glorified copy-and-paste job of the first game. To be frank, I’m quite offended at their gall. I’d be hard-pressed to call Galaxy 2 a sequel: it’s a goddamn tribute. Even in its painstaking efforts to plagiarize the first Galaxy game with the nerve to submit the replica and call it a new work, Galaxy 2 still doesn’t capture the resonating elements of the first game like the warm atmosphere and the themes surrounding its setting, and the new power-ups and the return of Yoshi only do so much to elevate the experience. For some people, these marginal differences are enough to sway them in Galaxy 2’s favor over the first game. However, I have a feeling that the same kind of people think that a taller building is a better building, or that a bigger sandwich is the more delectable one, and so forth. They are impressionable and easier to please than a ten-dollar hooker. Despite all of the flack I’ve given Galaxy 2, my rating for it is still substantially high only because the first Galaxy game was so exemplary in perfecting 3D Mario’s foundation, thus giving it an inherent, yet unfairly imposed advantage as a result. Oh, lucky you, Super Mario Galaxy 2!

Super Mario Galaxy Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/20/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Mario Galaxy

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: Wii

Release Date: November 1, 2007

The mark of 3D Mario’s evolution seems to be distancing him from the setting of the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s not as if Princess Peach’s magical monarchy is restricted to the 2D X-axis, nor does it have to be endemic to the warped, bulbous aesthetic that represented the antediluvian era of 3D gaming seen in Super Mario 64. Still, Super Mario Sunshine didn’t simply render Mario’s visuals more efficiently on the Gamecube’s hardware just to make the Mushroom Kingdom look clearer like the player received a pair of prescription contact lenses. Mario’s stark evolution between his N64 and Gamecube outings was so monumental that the developers felt the need to celebrate, making Super Mario Sunshine a holiday in every context of the word. When Mario’s next adventure on Nintendo’s subsequent console, the Wii, debuted early in the system’s lifespan like the previous 3D Marios, Mario did not return to his homeland like any responsible adult eventually does after their vacation. The plump plumber now fancies himself as somewhat of a globetrotter now, expanding the vast parameters beyond the familiar backdrop of the fungal domain that served as the traditional environment for so many Mario titles. The Wii was Nintendo’s first case of a radically implemented peripheral paying off in spades, and their flagship franchises needed to reflect the glory of their success after the Gamecube somehow failed to meet the same sales numbers of the N64. Mario’s next adventure after Sunshine did not repeat the premise of a vacation gone awry in another typical frivolous locale like a ski resort or a city in Europe. As Nintendo would most likely attest to, the guy who originally coined the adage “the sky’s the limit” obviously existed far before space travel was feasible. Super Mario Galaxy is the peak of Nintendo’s ambition for a Mario setting, as they put the plumber in the boundless reaches of the cosmos.

While Super Mario Galaxy is Mario’s first foray into the final frontier (in the mainline Super Mario series), Nintendo is no stranger to crafting an IP around science fiction’s quintessential setting. Just use the event match “Space Travelers” from Super Smash Bros. Melee as a reference for how many franchises Nintendo has already oriented around space and its infinite possibilities. However, the overall consensus Nintendo seems to convey with their bevy of intergalactic IPS is that flirting with the unexplored vastness of space is a harrowing prospect. Visiting an alien world leaves someone in a constant state of peril in Metroid, while the inverse of aliens landing on Earth’s soil in Earthbound spells a disorienting, reality-bending destruction for the third planet from the sun. The asteroid belts are the center of galactic warfare in Star Fox, and the futuristic racing in F-Zero surpasses the recommended speed capabilities for the general welfare of a human being. Kirby’s depiction of outer space is more pleasant, but the twee, Candyland aesthetic of Dreamland is perhaps too removed from reality to maintain a tangible boundary in the realm of science fiction. Overall, Nintendo’s sentiment regarding humanity’s hypothetical peak of colonialism is that attempting to tame the spectacle of space should be approached with extreme caution. Nintendo shares the same contemptuous attitude for outer space that Werner Herzog had for the humid wilderness of the jungles in the Amazon, but this negativity could not be conveyed in a Mario title. Making the young, general audience of Mario feel pangs of existential dread while looking up at the night sky is counterintuitive to the lighthearted appeal of Mario that makes him Nintendo’s golden boy. In order to maintain Mario’s image, Nintendo had to reassess its outlook on setting its characters around where the stars call home. From a more positive perspective, nothing is more strikingly magnificent than outer space. The immeasurable parameters of the cosmos are alluring to anyone who thirsts for adventure. Realistically, any mortal man would naturally perish in the untamed, empty void of space without a painstaking amount of preparation, and there’s only so much area we can cover. Still, the thought of gallivanting around the cosmos jubilantly tickles a primal center in man and makes him feel like a futuristic conquistador. This elated sense of romanticism for space travel that we are still striving for can be achieved vicariously through Mario, and the spectacle of it all is what Super Mario Galaxy revels in.

The Star Festival is not a Mushroom Kingdom tradition any of the Mario lore from previous titles has elucidated on, yet it is the momentous event that sets the scene in Super Mario Galaxy’s introduction sequence. Mario is invited to the ceremony taking place in the castle’s plaza by Peach, who also wants Mario to check out a peculiar creature not seen around the Mushroom Kingdom. This event is of course interrupted by Bowser and his Koopa army, as par for the course in establishing a Mario game’s narrative conflict. Take a wild fucking guess what Bowser and his air fleet are here to do. If your answer was anything else but to kidnap Peach, you are beyond saving. Not only does Bowser fail to deviate from his usual evil schemes, but he dips back into the idea pool from previous executions of kidnapping Peach. Bowser extracts the entirety of Peach’s Castle out from the earth with the tractor beam of a giant UFO, which should ring familiar to Paper Mario if that series is canon. Instead of only keeping Peach’s royal estate suspended above the clouds, Bowser penetrates the planet’s stratosphere to keep Peach at eye level with the stars. One would think Mario already being on the scene would nip Bowser’s newest attempt in the bud, but a particularly skilled Kamek blindsides Mario and sends him rocketing off into the night sky. When Mario awakes from his defeated stupor, he finds himself beside the creature that Peach wanted him to see: an incandescent star-shaped blob known as a Luma. To Mario’s surprise, the floating pillow is more articulate than one would expect, as it brings Mario to a blonde woman wearing a silky nightgown named Rosalina. Rosalina is the leader and matriarchal figure of the Lumas, and their space-traveling capabilities have been deterred by Bowser snatching up the power source that Mario must retrieve. At this point, I can confidently state that the general plot of a mainline Mario game is superfluous to the game’s overall appeal. As long as the premise behind Bowser’s annual princess snatching is fresh, Nintendo can get away with setting the same ol’ point of conflict they’ve stuck to for every iteration of Mario.

Before I discuss Super Mario Galaxy’s strengths in exuding the majestic aura of outer space, I feel as if there is a planet-sized elephant in the room that might bother some of the more obsessive-compulsive crowd. While he’s obviously a fictional character, Mario is still a human being with the same anatomy as a real person (albeit rendered cartoonishly), so how can he gracefully fly through endless anti-gravity like he’s Peter Pan? Shouldn’t his eyeballs be overflowing with blood while his head inflates like a balloon until it pops from the physical pressure? I’ve never personally witnessed the effects of space exposure on someone, but I’d be willing to bet that this is the most likely scenario. The answer to this question is that Nintendo figured no one would notice or care about the semantics. Mario has been swimming underwater without needing to ascend over the surface for a breath of air since the first Super Mario Bros., and we’ve never questioned whether or not Mario houses a pair of gills under his hat. While Mario resembles a human, Nintendo’s intention for the grand champion of video game characters is to act as a mustachioed vehicle for fantasy wonderment that forsakes all realism. That druggy joke everyone makes about Mario’s universe is simply Nintendo attempting to present an elated sense of splendor appropriate for all ages. Super Mario Galaxy arguably sets up the pinnacle of Mario’s ecstasy initiative given the overwhelming scope of traveling throughout the universe with nothing but the clothes on his back. The game’s presentation needed to be especially accommodating to the player to fit this grand spectacle. Super Mario Galaxy’s presentation doesn’t make biblical, sprinting leaps in improvement over Sunshine, but the level of refinement it does add is still readily apparent.

Then there’s the case of the other elephant in the room that might make people skeptical of Super Mario Galaxy’s technical prowess. As one could assume with a Wii title, motion controls are incorporated into Mario’s control scheme here. Before this revelation causes enough revulsion to deter them from playing the game, I can assure you that the system’s idiosyncratic gimmick does not compromise on 3D Mario’s significant evolution that was much needed since Super Mario 64. Naturally, Nintendo seemed to have the greatest understanding of how to practically implement motion controls for the games on the Wii as opposed to the countless amounts of shovelware that polluted the system. Surprisingly, the trick to unlocking the functionality of this fanciful piece of hardware is to keep things simple, as seen in the control scheme of Twilight Princess at the console’s launch. The analog stick on the nunchuck works as well as any other controller despite its intermittent relationship with the Wiimote, and every bit of movement with Mario is slick and responsive. Mario can still execute the same level of acrobatic agility that made him a joy to control in Sunshine, even with the unorthodox Wii controller. The diminished gravitational pull of outer space does not affect the grace of Mario’s triple jump or leaping backflip, nor does it change the crushing impact of his signature ass stomp. The slide maneuver that Mario performed in Sunshine is no longer available, most likely because constantly using it has caused a serious case of crotch burn. Instead, Mario reverts back to both the leap and the crouched super jump seen in Super Mario 64, with the considerable advantage of the Wii’s presentational prowess to make the execution incredibly fluid. The point of uncomplicated innovation with motion controls is a new attack. By swiping the Wiimote like a baton, Mario elegantly makes a 360-degree spin that knocks out any enemies in his vicinity, with a brief cooldown represented by the small Luma icon that gave Mario this ability. With a new frame rate standard that is as smooth as the wax from a Koopa’s shell, the already sprightly Mario has never felt so adept in his physical capabilities, even with the additional aspect of a gravity-challenged environment. The only awkward thing the player still has to contend with is the camera, as the player is relegated to the nunchuck’s Z button that only centers the camera to Mario’s front instead of offering the fully analog control featured on the Gamecube.

The introduction sequence where Mario makes sense of his surroundings sees him sets a misleading precedent. A wide shot juxtaposes the grassy sphere that cushioned Mario’s fall with the immense void of space, leaving the player with the impression that Mario is hopelessly lost. While this existential scene may suggest that Nintendo has reverted back to their prejudices, the tone quickly changes for the duration of the game when Mario reaches the game’s hub. As I’ve always expressed, an effective video game hub should serve as a placid nucleus at the center of the more chaotic areas that surround it. Galaxy’s predecessor on the N64 was the architect that established the design and atmosphere appropriate for a hub, and Galaxy’s delivers on the same standard. When Mario arrives at Rosalina’s Comet Observatory perched high across the starry, astral stratum, it’s but a dim, hollow shell thanks to Bowser seizing its power source. Though the faded stillness might evoke a sense of eerie tranquility, it’s not indicative of the observatory’s peak effectiveness as a hub. As Mario collects the Grand Star power sources, the individual sections of the observatory regain their luminescence. Once every area is restored, the player can fully see the magnificence of the observatory. Essentially, it’s Peach’s Castle from Super Mario 64 in space. The grounds of the observatory may exist around the exterior coldness of outer space, but it still manages to exude the same aura of coziness. Rosalina and the Lumas have built the living essentials around this traveling space palace that one would find in Peach’s castle, such as a kitchen, library, bedroom, garden, etc. If Mario accidentally missteps into the ether of space here, an undisclosed safety net will encapsulate him in a bubble and bring him back on solid ground. That level of security and base hominess, especially considering the hostile environment it lies in, gives the observatory the status of a space sanctuary. On top of that, how can a place surrounded by the Squishmallow-esque Lumas be anything but comforting?

The observatory also streamlines the level placements compared to the ones in the previous 3D Mario games. In both 64 and Sunshine, the player oftentimes had to be exceptionally observant in spotting where some levels were, such as the insides of Boos and indiscernible walls in 64 and the tops of shine towers in Sunshine. Here, Rosalina charts the amount of Power Stars Mario has collected at the center of the observatory and how they coincide with progress. Around three to four different levels are found in the igloo-shaped rooms that serve as the observatory’s homey places of relevance. Guiding Mario up to the blue star on the ceiling shows the handful of levels in relatively close orbit to one another. Restoring power to the next room of the observatory is a matter of collecting enough stars to unlock the boss galaxy and grabbing its Grand Star. Unlike Sunshine which forced the player to earn most of the stars from each level to progress, Galaxy allows the player to collect any of the Stars from any arbitrary source. Thank God, because this was the largest detriment that Sunshine implemented that deviated from the sound method of progress in 64 that didn’t need to be changed. Reverting back to each main collectible sharing equal value shows that Nintendo learned its mistake, and Galaxy is more approachable as a result.

I claimed that outer space was a perfect setting for a 3D platformer game while discussing the strengths of the Ratchet & Clank franchise. The immeasurable breadth of what exists outside Earth is too incomprehensible for our feeble human existences, so ruminating on the possibilities verges into fantasy territory. Ratchet & Clank took full advantage of this in providing the 3D platformer archetype of a wide variety of level themes that took place on the game’s myriad of different planets. As clever as working around this tired trope was, Insomniac’s PS2-era IP was still technically copying the template that Super Mario 64 pioneered. Super Mario Galaxy naturally uses the realm of outer space to channel its birthright as a Mario game and provide a diverse range of space levels just as Ratchet & Clank did. Super Mario Galaxy’s various levels run the wide gamut of classic 3D platformer levels such as the obligatory fire and ice themes, and the “Freezeflame Galaxy” combines both as a self-aware nod to how commonplace the contrasting elements are featured in these kinds of games. “Dusty Dune Galaxy” carries on the Mario tradition of a desert level, with Dry Bones and the cacti' enemy Pokies as the appropriate sand dwellers. The sunny “Beach Bowl Galaxy'' might be the sole continuation of Sunshine’s tropical vacation theme. Still, Mario couldn’t potentially fall off the resort if he swam too deeply in the ocean waters, unlike this celestial beach. “Ghostly Galaxy” manages to emulate that haunted mansion level seen in previous Mario titles, and “Space Junk Galaxy” touches on the subject of space pollution. “Toy Time Galaxy” is one of my personal favorites because the childish, Lego-like aesthetic is just darling. While each of these levels is obviously unique to one another, one consistent trait between them all is the prominent backdrop of the cosmos. The broad reaches of outer space never leave the player’s peripheral vision. Whether the background color is light or dark, the infinite scope of space makes the foreground seem like an insignificant rock in a universe with billions of others. The space setting compliments the empty graphical space that made so many levels in Super Mario 64 look surreal without that context.

Super Mario Galaxy also whittles down the areas of a 3D Mario game with linearity. The galaxies of the game boil down to two different points of design. Most of the platforming involves hopping across a series of airborne planetoids placed with the same verticality. Once Mario reaches a more distant section of a level, a Launch Star will blast Mario further with one shake of the Wiimote, guiding his flight with the same level of accuracy and elegance as his initial arrival. The final objective at the end of the path will be obvious to most, so referring to the title of the objective is unnecessary, unlike the previous two games. Across the three or so star missions, the level will slightly change its layout to lead Mario to a different objective. This change-up means that while the level always offers more to discover, the linear trajectory to each Power Star feels more contrived. Even areas with a more freeform plateaued design like “Honeyhive” and “Golden Leaf Galaxy” still provide formulated clues to lead the player in the right direction. The indirect collectathon format that Super Mario 64 implemented was what defined 3D Mario, but it seems like Nintendo deviates further from this design philosophy with every subsequent entry. The linear design of Galaxy reminds me more of the classic levels from the 2D Mario games, something that Nintendo could now achieve in their third 3D generation that the primitiveness of the N64 would’ve fumbled on. Also, clearing one narrow objective is still more appropriate for the boot-out system that Galaxy still carries over.

The boot-out system now will only eject Mario from a level once he’s completed his mission and collected the star. For the first time in a 3D Mario title, checkpoints have been applied to each level, probably on account of how linear each of them is. The checkpoints are not defined clearly by a symbol or icon, but Mario will still be resurrected in a wanton section in the level upon dying. On top of this, Mario most likely won’t die too often because he either invested in adherent footwear, or the gravity in space is ironically more gripping than it is in either the Mushroom Kingdom or Isle Delfino. All Mario has to worry about here is sometimes misjudging a jump from one piece of space rock to the next and facing the vacuuming wrath of the black hole situated somewhere in each level, the great and physically questionable mediator of the cosmos. Mario’s health bar has been lowered to fractions of three, but coins that regenerate Mario’s health will consistently spill from enemies. In addition to Galaxy lowering the stakes of danger, the game will also grant the player an abundance of extra lives. Star Bits, Galaxy’s celestial currency that looks like space Dippin Dots, will add an extra life after collecting only fifty of the dinky, colorful space flakes, which Mario can scrounge up simply by waving around the Wiimote’s cursor. Peach even sends Mario a care package of five 1-Up shrooms whenever the player starts playing the game again. Peach is so prepared for being kidnapped at the point that she is sharing her hostage rations with Mario. It goes without saying, but Super Mario Galaxy is far easier than the previous two 3D Mario games. Considering Mario’s titles are intended to be relatively stress-free experiences, Galaxy’s diminished difficulty feels more suitable.

But what about the thrill of a challenge that every video game should provide regardless of their high accessibility? Astonishingly, Super Mario Galaxy still offers this in a bevy of opportunities, but not along the normal route of star collecting. Off the beaten path of the main planets are those with only one objective that can supplement the star total if the player finds it necessary. Plenty of these come with feeding the jovial “hungry Lumas” enough Star Bits to make their own “big bang” and become a new level. Feeding these gluttonous pink globs comes recommended because it’s the only way to expunge the overflowing amount of Star Bits in Mario’s wallet. A common source of extra challenge is the periodic occurrence of the various comets. The additional layer of challenge coincides with the type of comet in orbit, which ranges from racing Shadow Mario, completing an old task with a time constraint, beating a boss in one life, etc. Those few who felt bereft of Luigi will be excited to know that gaming’s most famous second fiddle at least has a supporting NPC role of seeking out Power Stars in inconspicuous corners. Looking around outside the intended avenue in some levels will net Mario a “secret star,” and the total three will create a green Launch Star to propel Mario to the three most challenging stars in the game. Whether it be balancing Mario on a ball, a manta ray, or keeping his bubble from popping, each of these unyielding endurance tests will require extreme proficiency with the game’s motion controls.

While Galaxy approaches 3D Mario’s level design with a radical divergence, it reinstalls plenty of attributes from 64 that Sunshine had omitted. Sunshine’s intention was to literally and figuratively take a vacation from the Mushroom Kingdom and along the way, the fresh environment felt perhaps too alien from Mario’s core hallmarks. One aspect removed from Sunshine was the various power-ups like the invincibility star and the fire flower, for the latter would contradict the utility of the water nozzle fuzed to Mario’s back. I am happy to report that both of Mario’s signature temporary boosts are back for both plow through groups of enemies and to light torches respectively. The developers even added an ice flower to complement the fire flower where Mario can skate on water like a snowman Jesus. Besides the power-ups with fleeting periods of use that were standard in 64, Galaxy recalls a time before the 3D era when Mario could wear a power-up like a costume for as long as possible before it dissipated upon taking damage. A mushroom with black and yellow stripes will transform Mario into Bee Mario, who can stick to honeycomb walls and fly for a short period depending on a stamina gauge. A translucently white mushroom will test Mario’s mortal coil as a Boo with Mario’s mustachioed visage instead of the wide, gnarly smile of the deceased Mario enemies. Boo Mario can endlessly float and make his form immaterial to pass through solid bars. Mario must avoid light as a Boo, and be careful not to touch any water as Bee Mario unless they want the power to be prematurely stripped from them. Spring Mario is the last one to round out the trio of new forms, and the rigid mechanics make it feel more gimmicky than the other two. Whether or not you find these suits adorable or they’re phobia triggers (relating to ghosts and bees, but I’m sure there’s some weirdo out there who runs away screaming when they see a Slinky), one can’t deny they provide another layer of variety to a game that already revels in diverse gameplay.

Sunshine also seemed to jumble Mario’s combat to a confusing degree. Sure, spraying down enemies with F.L.U.D.D. like rioters in the streets was effective enough, but the high-octane hydro pump was mostly intended for cleaning and uncovering secrets under the sticky mess. Truthfully, there weren’t too many enemies situated around Isle Delfino to really highlight the fighting potential of F.L.U.D.D. For some reason, the infinite reaches of space feel more like Mario than the vacation resort. Either Bowser invited his entire fleet to join him on his mission of galactic conquest, or Goombas and Koopas are part of every Mario ecosystem except on Isle Delfino. Bullet Bills will furiously tailgate Mario, and the stone behemoth Thwomps will still pulverize Mario if they catch him under their infuriated gaze. I’ve just now realized that I’ve already mentioned a smattering of staple Mario enemies absent in Sunshine beforehand, which shows the extent that the developers took to remedy the lack of familiar Mario foes featured in the previous game. Hell, the Cataquacks make their return to again hastily catapult Mario, solidifying them into the Mario enemy canon.

Because F.L.U.D.D.’s primary function wasn’t combat, Sunshine’s bosses were always a tad disorienting as a result. They always required unorthodox means of disposal that tended to verge into unnecessary circuity. Bosses in Galaxy are obstacles at the pinnacle of a few Power Stars routes. Like every other aspect of the game, they are all an assorted bunch, and all it takes to defeat them is a variation of Mario’s own innate abilities. The evil Beyblade Topmaniac only needs to be jumped on and batted into the circulating electric currents surrounding the arena. The mean, mighty Monty Mole, Major Burrows, needs a little earthquake caused by Mario’s posterior to unearth him and stop him from chasing the poor bunnies from beneath the ground. The swinging of the black Bomb Boos to erode the rocky exterior of the phantom Bouldergeist reminds me of flinging Bowser by his tail in 64. Bosses like Bugaboom and Baron Brrr require the use of the new power-ups to defeat, but only in conjunction with Mario’s natural talents. Each boss also takes a measly three hits with slight increases in difficulty between them, signaled by a fuming rage that signifies an increased level of aggression. They’re all quick bouts as well as opposed to the many instances of waiting we all had to endure with Sunshine’s bosses. Bowser Jr. and his father trade-off as the apex of each room’s solar system. Bowser Jr. will present a new machine or other foe and taunt Mario from the sidelines, the standout being a towering mech in which climbing up its skyscraper legs channels Shadow of the Colossus. Bowser’s three duels are practically the same with Bowser adding another move with each following fight to prolong it marginally. The paths up to Bowser harken back to those from Super Mario 64, which include the most engaging platforming sections involving the manipulation of gravity. Big or small in significance, the big baddies across the universe finally provide substantial boss fights in a mainline Mario game.

Underneath the action of jumping from planet to planet is a layer of emotional depth seldom explored in the mainline Mario games. As exhilarating as it is to easily soar through the cosmos as Mario is, there is a sense of sentimentality to man’s relation to the grand scope of the universe. Once Mario unlocks the library, Rosalina is seen reading an illustrated children’s book detailing her backstory of how she came to the position of the Luma’s leader as a little girl. Chapter by chapter, a younger Rosalina becomes more comfortable with the alien atmosphere of space thanks to the company of the Lumas, but her homesickness makes her yearn for her old concrete life on Earth. She finally becomes content when she comes to terms with her old life perishing to no return and finds new happiness in her new status. It’s optional to read along with Rosalina, but it comes recommended because it aids the impact of the ending. Once Mario stops Bowser at his final fight and thwarts his plans to craft a galaxy in his image, catastrophic damage is done to the universe. A black hole of an impeccable scale swallows the remains of Bowser’s newest failure, and the entirety of all that exists seems doomed. However, a Luma sacrifices itself to create a fission of new life in the old one’s place, a rebirth of life. I’m not sure if it’s the image of Mario floating in the light ether of new existence, but the whole scene caused a lump to warble around in my throat. Returning back to the Mushroom Kingdom as pristine as it was before the beginning events may be a cop-out of sorts, but I still felt as if Mario went through the same rebirth arc as Rosalina did in the process. Only the first Paper Mario made me feel stirred up to this point, and I expect Mario spin-offs to be the only games to resonate emotionally.

Super Mario Galaxy’s ethos isn’t really to quell any anxieties relating to space travel. Mario’s breeziness through the final frontier is not indicative of Nintendo's attempt to condition future space imperialists to show that conquering the cosmos is an easy task. Rather, Mario’s ease in every aspect of the game is Nintendo perfecting all of 3D Mario’s attributes. Ironically, the mainline Mario title that implements motion controls is the smoothest and most agreeable he’s ever been in a 3D outing. Mario had finally come full circle in the third dimension to deliver on the same presentational and mechanical expertise he did when he was rendered with pixels, and here I thought there wasn’t much to improve on after Sunshine. Mario’s mark of accessibility is directly intertwined with Galaxy’s flawless performance. Many may argue that linear levels and a constant bounty of extra lives aren’t an improvement, but I believe it shows a more direct focus on what 64 and Sunshine established. The extensive amount of variety in the game from the areas, power-ups, enemies, and bosses will always keep the player intrigued. All the while, the gorgeous, cinematic depiction of the cosmos and the bittersweetness of existence beneath it all made my jaded, cynical heart melt like chocolate. If something as wholesome as Mario doesn’t cause that sensation, then what is he really good for? If space travel is the peak of human accomplishment, then the same can be said for the Mario series.

Super Mario Sunshine Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 8/26/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Super Mario Sunshine

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: GCN

Release Date: July 19, 2002

If the premise of a summer vacation-themed mainline Mario game sounds bizarre to you, you’re not alone. For some reason, the launch of the Gamecube marked a slight experimental age for Nintendo as they catapulted their mascots in unorthodox directions after keeping things relatively straightforward on the N64. Their bold decisions drew a sizable bit of ire from fans still enraptured after the significant splash Nintendo made in the first 3D era. They wanted more of what was offered on the N64 but with better graphics, and they threw up in their mouths when Nintendo refused to accede to their expectations. Nintendo’s flagship series usually only represent a console generation with one title. The company delivered its uncompromising creations to its fanbase with the same blunt directness of a disgruntled cafeteria worker serving food. The disappointed reactions to The Wind Waker are the more notable example, but fans weren’t pleased with Super Mario Sunshine. If Nintendo were willing to piss off Zelda fans with the warmer cel-shaded aesthetic of the Wind Waker, then their Italian gold-winning stallion was not immune from being put through the test chamber either. Fans eventually came to adore The Wind Waker after the initial upset dissipated in time, but Super Mario Sunshine has always been somewhat of an acquired taste. Besides being bewildered by its odd premise, most people see Super Mario Sunshine as a sophomore slump, a rough spot between Super Mario 64 and every subsequent 3D Mario game released afterward. I might be blinded by nostalgia, but I’m of the opinion that Super Mario Sunshine is not an awkward road bump in 3D Mario’s evolution but an integral game in improving the 3D Mario formula.

It's possible that what initially upset people most about Super Mario Sunshine is setting the game away from Mario’s regular stomping grounds. Super Mario is a franchise marked by familiarity, and deviating so far from the Mushroom Kingdom will naturally make some fans weary. Nintendo created a new tropical playground for Mario to galavant about in Super Mario World but then backpedaled by claiming that Yoshi’s Island was an island territory owned by the Mushroom Kingdom set off the mainland shore. Mario’s fans eagerly look forward to seeing how gaming’s legendary crown land improves with the graphical progress of every subsequent entry, especially since it looked so coarse and lumpy in Super Mario 64. Nintendo, however, felt it better to give Mario’s vast, hilly homeland a well-deserved break to explore new territory. Sunny Isle Delfino is not only a vacation destination for Mario and company but a vacation for the player after exhausting the typical Mushroom Kingdom setting. While this island is not the same Koopa-infested, quasi-psychedelic commonwealth with a plethora of geographical terrains, the vacation resort theme still captures the light-hearted vibrancy that makes Mario so alluring. People often venture out to these places on their vacations because the sun-drenched shores exude a sense of breezy frivolity, something just as applicable to the accessible Super Mario franchise. Super Mario has always felt like a ray of sunshine, and now the franchise offers a setting that overtly revels in nothing but jaunty warmth.

Of course, the game wouldn’t be enticing if it merely simulated Mario on his vacation. This isn’t Nintendo’s take on the abysmal, mind-numbing Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure with Mario at the helm. As carefree as Mario’s venture to Isle Delfino was intended, he is swiftly reminded that rest and relaxation are never on his itinerary. Mario is swiftly accosted by the Isle Delfino police force as soon as he sets foot on the island. Mario has been falsely accused of vandalizing the island by littering it with a sticky, iridescent goop that may or not be noxious to the island’s denizens or have a detrimental influence on the environment. Nevertheless, Mario wrongfully gets the book thrown at him and is sentenced to clean up his supposed mess with a high-powered AI water pack called F.L.U.D.D. Until Mario meets his community service quota, he will not be able to leave the island. The real perpetrator of the crime is “Shadow Mario”, an uncanny doppelganger colored in a translucent deep blue. Mario attempts to track him down to prove his innocence, but the phantom clone decides to pull an obligatory power Mario series power move and kidnap Princess Peach. As silly and forced as the initial source of conflict is, anything is preferable to the most tired of Mario plots that Super Mario Sunshine quickly devolves into. Not even the sheer will to modify Mario’s typical attributes in this entry could keep Nintendo from burrowing back into their coziest of comfort zones.


The opening cutscene also could argue that too much ambition might be Super Mario Sunshine’s downfall. Hearing every character's speaking dialogue in the opening cutscene is sure to grab everyone’s attention and raise some eyebrows. Voice acting is not new to the Super Mario series. Princess Peach had a few spoken lines of dialogue in Super Mario 64, and who could forget Charles Martinet’s expressive grunts, hoots, and slightly racist warbles as Mario? In Super Mario Sunshine, the extent of voice work is amplified to the point where every character in the opening cutscene utters a competent line of dialogue in a cinematic fashion. The level of voice work is probably more shocking in retrospect. More voice work was a logical step to 3D Mario’s evolution because Super Mario Sunshine presents a clear reason why it never progressed past this point. Text dialogue in mainline Mario games is simple to a fault. In a series that insists on exhausting the same plot in each entry, a few lines of straightforward text is all the game needs to at least set the scene. Super Mario Sunshine’s problem is that delivering this curt dialogue vocally sounds hilariously amateurish, as if the script was written by a fourth grader and delivered by a voice cast that sounds like children doing impressions of adults. The voice work is exclusive to cutscenes and would often be criticized for inconsistency, but I’m thankful that the rest of the game regresses back to text accompanied by some vocal sounds for the characters. The voice acting here is a testament to the fact that some video game series shouldn’t have spoken dialogue for the sake of progress for the medium.

Super Mario Sunshine also doesn’t seem very stimulating considering its premise. What was Nintendo smoking when they thought their next mainline Mario title should involve him doing high-stakes janitorial work? If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably be revulsed at first glance, but do not be misled by starting impressions. Super Mario Sunshine is cut from the same cloth of the 3D collectathon platformer ilk that Super Mario 64 established. Isle Delfino is separated into seven unique levels, with the hub of Delfino Plaza serving as a reposeful middle ground between them. Each level has eight objectives that will reward the player with the core collectible that must be heavily accumulated to progress through the game. To fit the tropical theme, the series star icon has been shifted into a sun-shaped “shine sprite,” which carries the same value. 3D platformer fans can rejoice that Super Mario Sunshine is another branch in the line of Super Mario 64’s offspring and that the sludge Mario must wash away only serves as an inconvenient obstacle to Mario completing his objectives. While Super Mario Sunshine might sound exactly like Super Mario 64 on a mechanical basis despite its quirks, the game deviates slightly in its direction. Instead of stumbling upon the main collectibles by exploring the stages, the titled shine sprites in Super Mario Sunshine are acquired in numerical order. Shine Sprite #1 of the level acts as the first “episode,” and every subsequent episode continues a loose narrative of how the area becomes cleaner due to Mario’s influence. Opening the level even gives the player a vague overview of what their objective is and where it is located. Bianco Hills is being terrorized by a giant, flamboyant, untethered, speedo-wearing Piranha Plant named Petey Piranha, who Mario fights twice to expunge him from the quaint village. The haunted hotel that overlooks Sirena Beach is open to Mario indefinitely after erecting it in the level’s first episode, and cleansing Noki Bay’s toxic waters is an ongoing arc in its respective level. One might argue that this linear approach to the levels is restrictive and streamlined, but the progression works with the game’s narrative. Each area gradually worsens as the player collects the shine sprites, meaning Mario has completed his sentence-driven service. Completing a more proportioned task also better compliments the boot-out system, something jarring from Super Mario 64 that Super Mario Sunshine continues to employ.

I always marvel in disbelief that the Gamecube was only one console generation after the N64. 3D graphics evolved past the growing pains of endearing amateurishness to a standard of believability in a measly five years. The transition between the fifth and sixth console generations is the largest leap of graphical progress that gaming has and will ever see. Many fifth-generation franchises that continued into the sixth generation were noticeably more refined in their sequels, but none of them highlighted a contrast so starkly as Super Mario 64 and Sunshine. Super Mario 64 was primitive even compared to all of its 64-bit contemporaries, the oldest and ugliest out of the rest of the ugly ducklings. The revelatory transformation of this foul-looking fowl wasn’t a surprise, but how radically it happened and in the short amount of time it did. Rudimentary edges that made the foundational polygons visible in Super Mario 64 have been sanded off to silky, buttery smoothness. Everything in the background, from the tall bell towers in Delfino Plaza, the countryside homes of Bianco Hills, to the scalable palm trees of Pianta Village, is discernible even from the furthest points away. Objects in the foreground like various fruits or those manholes with shine sprites painted on them no longer require squinting and or the use of one’s imagination to effectively determine what they could be either. Crashing water from the beaches flows and ripples to simulate its movement in real life, and enemies seem more vigorous and imposing. Mario and his friends went from looking like a child who drew and modeled them to resembling a professional artist's rendition. Super Mario Sunshine is the first Mario game that resembles a fully realized rendition of what fans visualized Mario and his world for several years. It only took the second 3D generation to make it a reality. Isle Delfino is a gorgeous resort that uses the higher graphical fidelity to effectively convey not only that colorful, light-hearted atmosphere of being on vacation but what the Mario series exudes in general. The series has been this effervescent since Super Mario World 2 on the SNES.

It’s no secret that I was unsatisfied with how rigid and unresponsive Mario’s controls were in Super Mario 64. The game could look like a microwaved claymation Christmas special all it wants, but I draw the line at Mario controlling like a paralyzed 1960s android. Mario’s acrobatics in Super Mario 64 was ambitiously varied but using felt far too stilted with the primeval 3D controls. Only one generation later, Mario executes the same moveset with the grace of a ballerina. Mario can still soar to extraordinary heights upon three consecutively timed jumps, but with a better sense of trajectory to avoid missteps with overwhelming velocity. His super backflip can no longer be done by crouching, but leaping backward after building momentum feels second nature now. With an additional spin move in mid-air, the player can do by playing with the control stick. Wall jumping no longer requires pinpoint precision, and the game is more lenient with penalizing the player by bumping Mario’s dome on platforms. Punching and kicking are no longer a part of Mario’s offensive means, but the more natural jumping controls diminish the necessity to use them. Mario’s ground-pounding move makes its gilded return as Mario’s ass makes more violent shockwaves on the shores of Isle Delfino than it ever did in his homeland. A new trick Mario learned for his vacation was the slide move, something used similarly to the roll move in 3D Zelda games that the player will most likely use constantly to increase their momentum. Mario looks like a mental patient constantly leaping on his crotch, but doing so feels liberating. The shackles that Super Mario 64 put on Mario’s standard mobility were a shame considering Mario was the one who revolutionized video game controls. Super Mario Sunshine evolves the chubby plumber’s moveset established by Super Mario 64 so drastically that he’s never felt more comfortable and capable, not even in any of his 2D outings. The player will feel inclined to bounce around with Mario and feel as gleeful as he does.

Not only is F.L.U.D.D. Mario’s tool for power washing, the jet-powered backpack also complements Mario’s improved portability. The standard nozzle on the pack will shoot water upward with the player able to change its direction and trajectory to aim, but not its angle. When Mario needs to squirt something quickly with a little less accuracy, the player can lightly tap the button to eject water in lighter spurts, which is what the player will be doing to deal with most enemies and goop directly in front of them on the ground. The base nozzle is mainly used for cleaning and offensive purposes even though it can turn the field into a slip and slide, but F.L.U.D.D. is equipped with three other alternate nozzles to further highlight the capabilities of the device. The hover nozzle is available once Mario receives the water pack and is, in my opinion, the most useful of the secondary nozzles. Once Mario is airborne, the nozzle will propel Mario over in the air for a brief period by shooting two spouts of water at the ground, either to maintain height or cross over a gap. Not only does this nozzle grant Mario greater traversal distance, but it will also aid in course correcting the player if they make a mistake with platforming. The other two alternate nozzles eventually unlock by finding their respective boxes in the field. The rocket nozzle will build up water and shoot Mario upward to staggering heights upon climax. The turbo nozzle acts as a speed booster whose wicked propulsion will accelerate Mario across the water like a makeshift jetski or create a powerful enough force to break through blocked-off doorways. Unlike the hover nozzle, I only find the other two nozzles useful occasionally. After using the other two nozzles for the one situation, it would’ve been nice to have every nozzle ready in Mario’s arsenal after using them for the first time. Some may argue that juggling through four different nozzles via the X button would be a pain, but the inconvenience of finding a crate with the hover nozzle after using the others proves to be far more vexing. Besides that one grievance, F.L.U.D.D. and his wide utility are a welcome addition to the Mario franchise, for it greatly expands on the fun factor of Mario’s already aerodynamic range of movement. Plus, he limits his vocal input on the field to a minimum, unlike some of Link’s partners.

Super Mario Sunshine also gets a familiar visitor to the island that I think most fans will appreciate. Yoshi’s minimal presence in Super Mario 64 as a completionist easter egg is one of the most vocal complaints that even diehard fans of the game share, so Super Mario Sunshine rectified this by giving everyone’s favorite green sidekick in Mario (fuck Luigi, I guess) more screentime. After catching Shadow Mario with a Yoshi egg in the hub, the egg will hatch the spry, puffy-cheeked dinosaur. As per usual, Yoshi’s stomach is rumbling, and he must devour everything in sight like a hungry black hole. Besides grappling with enemies with his whip-like tongue, the Yoshi’s found in Super Mario Sunshine must subsist off of an appetite for fruits found on the island, lest he dies of scurvy or something. Pressing the button usually reserved for F.L.U.D.D. while riding on the Yoshi will make it spit a jetstream of juice as long and violent as blasting water with F.L.U.D.D. Yoshi’s juice comes in three different colors depending on the last fruit he consumed, but it all does the same thing. Like the F.L.U.D.D. nozzles, Yoshi is only useful in certain circumstances. Missions that include the adorable, multicolored beast usually involve vomiting juice on fish to transform them into platforms or dissolving a pulpy growth obscuring a passageway. Yoshi sure isn’t intended to accentuate Mario’s range of movement because his flutter kick feels uncomfortably restrained. It also doesn’t help that in a game surrounded by water, Yoshi will disintegrate when he comes in contact with it like he’s the Wicked Witch of the West. Most fans see the inclusion of Yoshi as a mark of an exceptional Mario title, but his presence in Super Mario Sunshine is more of a hassle than a perk. The sunny, tropical setting of Isle Delfino should fit Yoshi like a glove, but Yoshi’s awkwardness and haphazard utility makes him seem like a fish out of water here.

But what is Super Mario Sunshine if not an instance of a stranger in a strange land? As unfamiliar as Isle Delfino is to Mario and every franchise fan, the island’s more concise and concrete design makes this vacation destination more comfortable. Super Mario 64’s hub was set in the Mushroom Kingdom, but can we say that any of the various paintings acting as the levels were teleporting Mario to locations situated just around the corner? Most of Super Mario 64’s levels were playgrounds that had familiar attributes but were suspended in ethereal oblivion that obscured any surroundings. Isle Delfino, on the other hand, is mapped out accordingly, and I’m not referring to the crudely drawn map in the pause menu. Mario warps to each area via a passageway in the wonderfully detailed Delfino Plaza hub, but the player can at least marginally discern where the level is located about everywhere else on the island. The Ferris wheel in Pinna Park is seen clear as day from Bianco Hills, and the Serena Beach hotel is so close to Pinna Park that it seems feasible to swim over to it. Isle Delfino is much more of a realized world than any iteration of the Mushroom Kingdom. Isle Delfino would make for a fine open world if only it didn’t conflict with the episodic progression of each level. I was always impressed at how the developers constructed a smattering of different levels under a specific theme without making the game boring and formulaic. Repeating a beach level with both Gelato Beach and Serena Beach may point to exhausting the constraints of the theme, but both settings exude a different aura and offer completely different missions (and it helps that the focal point of Serena Beach is the hotel in the center for most of the missions). Missions, where Mario uncovers a secret passageway where he must do some linear platforming to get to a shine sprite at the end, may arguably ruin the consistency. Still, I choose to see them as portals to more surreal, incomprehensible dimensions like Homer in that one Treehouse of Horror episode. Isle Delfino is the first time Mario engrosses the player with the setting, a cohesive world that greatly achieves its intended atmosphere.

Ironically for a game whose setting presents itself as gleefully tranquil, Super Mario Sunshine is the most difficult 3D Mario game. Despite all of the refinement the developers made to Mario’s movement with the added crutch of F.L.U.D.D., it does not make for a smoother Mario experience. I commented that the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario 64 felt like it was greased up like a slip-and-slide, causing Mario to trip and tumble to his death numerous times. Now, I’m convinced that Mario needs to invest in more adhesive-friendly shoes. Mario is still clumsy, but it only matters in certain instances, like the secret area challenges or the sparsely-spaced giant mushrooms underneath Pianta Village. Water surrounds the resort and acts as a safety net whenever Mario missteps and careens to the bottom. This is why more platforming-centric levels like Ricco Harbor and Noki Bay involve ascending tall cliffs for a steep penalty. However, starting again from the drink is only a mere inconvenience. Instead of being subject to a constant barrage of slapstick deaths, Super Mario Sunshine is more calculating with its punishments. Some episodes across every level involve some of the hardest tasks Mario has ever had to accomplish. The bloopers Mario surfs on in the red coin mission of Ricco Harbor are perilously fast, and one tiny collision will kill Mario on impact even after he’s collected every red coin. In Gelato Beach, Mario must roll a mammoth-sized watermelon down a hill and across a beach full of ravenous Cataquacks who will pop the overgrown fruit like a balloon and make Mario retrieve the watermelon from its origin point. A secret-themed level in Pianta Village involves navigating the chasms in between the blocks of ground via being chucked by the burly dopey Pianta natives. Unless the player possesses pinpoint accuracy and a Ph.D. in physics, the dopey islanders will heave Mario to oblivion. Hidden shine sprites around Isle Delfino, like the poorly designed Pachinko machine and ruthless lilypad section, will disintegrate players' spirits as quickly as the leaf does in the toxic stream. Super Mario 64 was inherently unfair due to being unrefined, but the more deliberate difficulty seen in these episodes exposes the developers as cruel sadists.

Do you want to know what makes these levels especially sadistic? Most of them are required to finish the game. Super Mario Sunshine forsakes the cumulative total of main collectibles needed for progress. It forces the player to experience every area's episode up until the seventh episode involving chasing down Shadow Mario and spraying him like a shower in the county jail. One of the greatest reliefs of Super Mario 64, or most other 3D platformers, is that the player has a choice of which areas to explore while ignoring the less savory ones as long as their amount of that collectible meets a quota by the end. Super Mario Sunshine’s streamlined methods show conspicuous holes that raise many issues. What incentive do I have to play the secret levels or collect the blue coins if only certain sprites count towards unlocking the game’s final level? Why should I waste my time with the eighth episode of an area when completing the seventh episode was all I needed? Shouldn’t each of the same collectibles be of equal value? Until a certain point in the game, more of the game does unlock after certain milestones. Multiples of five shine sprites will unlock a new level until the player reaches ten sprites when a cannon becomes available to blast Mario to Pinna Park. The first episode reveals that Shadow Mario is Bowser’s son Bowser JR, the obvious favorite of the Koopa King’s children, considering he shares his father’s name, is being manipulated by Bowser to capture Peach under the guise that Peach is his mother. This interaction turns into a heated Jerry Springer moment where Peach merely ponders this revelation instead of denying it, and Mario gets so angry that he power sprays with F.L.U.D.D. her like the whore she is (only kidding about that last part). After this seminal scene, the game’s progression flatlines, and the player must find the remaining areas through curiosity, breaking the game’s overall pacing. Forced progression with this type of game contradicts the initiative of the collectathon platformer and is the main inferior aspect to Super Mario Sunshine compared to Super Mario 64.

It’s difficult to state whether or not Super Mario Sunshine improves on boss battles either. Raising the bar from Super Mario 64’s stale, repetitive bouts is not a hard task. Still, I’m not confident in calling most of Super Mario Sunshine’s duels “boss battles” by traditional definitions. Petey Piranha and King Boo provide the standard 3D platformer fight of waiting for a weak point to exploit three times, but the others are oddly executed. The electrifying Phantamanta that eclipses the hotel in Serena Beach divides into smaller, sprightly versions when sprayed, and the fight ends when every speck of the wispy ray scattered around the beach is hosed down. Gooper Blooper’s tentacles can be brutally severed by Mario, but only pulling on his mouth in the center to the point of snapping will defeat him, which proves to be an easier loophole in fighting him. Bowser’s robotic visage at Pinna Park has to be shot down with rockets while riding a rollercoaster, and the eel that causes Noki Bay to become sickly doesn’t attempt to eat Mario while he cleans his rotten teeth. The final fight against Bowser doesn’t involve physical contact like pulling his tail, but toppling over the giant, suspended bathtub he’s soaking himself in with rocket-boosted ass crashes at the four corners of its foundation. I appreciate the ingenuity of these encounters, but they are so unconventional that they lack the impact that a typical boss battle tends to have.

Summer vacation sucks, or that’s my clever tagline for Super Mario Sunshine. Surprisingly, a game involving Mario cleaning up sticky sullage on an unfamiliar island after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit doesn’t suck. As odd as Super Mario Sunshine appears, it still emanates the pervasive charm of the Super Mario series. Isle Delfino is as lively and captivating as the classic Mario setting we’re all familiar with and is the closest a Mario setting has come to coherent world-building, a vital step in progress for level design in a Mario game. Mario, as a character, literally makes leaps in progress by feeling as fluid as the water that jets out of his mechanical backpack buddy. He finally looks like we’ve all imagined him as a realistic human being. As much as Super Mario Sunshine attempts to separate itself from Super Mario 64, I can’t help but compare the two based on how radically the former builds on the latter’s foundation. 3D Mario’s footing that Super Mario 64 invented is reinvigorated to a point of not only competency but to a degree of excellency. Super Mario Sunshine’s creative ambition may have proved too big for its britches at certain points, but besides a few egregiously broken challenges, Super Mario Sunshine's differences preserve its intrigue. It’s funny to me that the irregular Super Mario Sunshine is a far more exemplary 3D Mario title than the game that translated all of Mario’s familiar hallmarks into 3D, but that’s the beauty of a sequel.