Yes Mario is back!!! Is he as good as he was on the N64?
The Plot:
Well, If you haven't already figured out Princess Peach gets kidnapped and it is up to Mario to rescue her, but this time the villain isn't the one that Mario expected. Being accused for polluting Isle Delfino and with some help of a new water shooting device called (FLUDD) he sets off to clean up the mess that a blue image of Mario have done with some kind of paint brush causing all the "Shines who brings light and joy to Isle Delfino to abandon their place in the beloved town.
Sound:
Mix Hawaii with Mario and you have something that sounds like the soundtrack in SMS. Still the happy sounding catchy tunes that you had in Super Mario 64 and in other Mario games.
The sound in Super Mario sunshine is just fine. No complains there.
Graphics:
The Graphics in SMS is absolutely gorgeous in its own category. Isle Delfino sets out to capture the bright, tropical look and it manages to do that really really good. The water looks great and the character animations are very well made. Absolutely no complains here either.
Controlls:
Same as in Super Mario 64 except for a couple of new moves including sliding and shooting and hoovering with FLUDD.
Gameplay:
Based on the same concept as Super Mario 64 was. Your mission is to collect as many shines as possible and eventually beat the crap out of the final boss. There isn't many enemies in this game by the way SMS is much more of a Puzzle game than Super Mario 64 so you can expect a lot more "jumpin" around.
Value:
This is overall a solid platformer by any means though it seems that it follows the path of Super Mario 64 too much. Trough out the adventure you will encounter several parts where your mission is to find a shine inside a "bonus" area. Inside these areas you will be without your FLUDD and will have to rely on pure jumpin skills. This parts are most of the times nothing but really really really annoying. Especially when you get to the really hard ones. They can be very long and difficult and since there are no checkpoints in these parts you will sometimes feel like to throw your controller into the wall or out the window.
SMS does just what you expect from a Mario platformer and it does that well though the lack of new things makes it more or less average great Mario game who will most surely bring you great enjoyment for some time, but it just doesn't have that much of a replay value.