When all goes wrong, just squirt your way through goombas... yes, it's as bad as it sounds.
The Bad: Distinct Lack Of Variety; Voice Work And Music Are Sub-Par...
"It's a sunny day, so let's go on a vacation!" To anyone but Mario, these words mean paradise.
But what does it mean for our italian plumber? Grafiti, Lock-Up, and a talking squirt gun. Yes, I'm not joking. A talking squirt gun. Fludd is the main gameplay component of Mario Sunshine, and this is a blessing and a curse.
The story is lame, so I'm going to skip over all the "Mama Peach" jokes. Instead, let's focus on flood, and how he influences the gameplay through seven way too alike levels. Basically, Mario's melee moves from the 64 title are gone. Fludd takes the place of his punches, and while it's a creative idea, it's also frustrating and corny.
For example, let's say a bunch of enemies are on a fence and you need to knock em down. You can't just punch em off anymore. No, you have to take your 2002 brand supersoaker and spray them down like a 5 year old caught in wrongdoing. Do you want to beat the crap out of Bowser at the end of the game? Well, you can't. Instead you're forced to rocketboost into the air, and slam the ground - knocking him out of his giant bathtub in the sky. Has there ever been an easier boss? Good god, I think Mario Is Missing made Bowser a tougher foe.
It's gets worse, the gameplay relies on squirt and camera, and when they're combined it makes for a lot of controller throwing, and pre-Wii broken windows. The game tries to make up for shoddy camera by sticking in Mario's silhouette when he gets trapped behind a wall, but this function doesn't work for crap. You'll win an arm wrestle against your 30 year old army seargent cousin before you successfully harness this camera.
And then there's the sound. Ugh. Most of the music is a badly done vacation theme, and the voice acting sounds like it was done by my grandmother. Peach and Toadsworth are particularly notorious for grating on my ears.
The visuals fair better. This is true eye candy, especially the water effects. In fact, some aspects of the visuals were done better than Mario Galaxy. And that's saying a lot. The misty beach look, and the incredible draw distance are breathtaking.
When it comes to the gameplay, I think the game shines when Mario has already had his jetpack stolen, and he's running through nifty maze levels. This is easy my favorite part of the game, along with the cooler half of the missions, and the slide levels. The game can be very unforgiving, which gives me the opportunity to get the good challenge that 64 and Galaxy lacked.
Overall, I'd say Gerstmann's review nailed it. This is an AMAZING game by itself, but when you compare it to other Mario games, it can get pretty sad. Rent it first.
- Josh Sumara