Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

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Super Mario 3D World - Bowser's Fury

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Completion Status: 100%, with 100 cat shines collected, and Fury Bowser defeated in his final form

Bowser's Fury is an oddity in the world of Mario and Nintendo games. While it's tethered to a purchase of the recent Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, it's such a mechanically and structurally unique experience that it works better considered on its own merits than as a part of the larger 3D World package. As such, I'll be treating it as a full game (which it is, even if it's shorter than your average 3D Mario platformer). It's worth mentioning from the start that, while it controls similarly to 3D World, it doesn't seem to have any other connections to that game, and can be played before ever touching the main game.

As usual for most Mario games, the context leading up to Mario exploring the new setting in this game is puddle-deep. Mario happens upon a strange bit of graffiti one day, which opens into a portal that sucks him into another world. After being isekai'd into a strange new world, Mario is thrust into a storm-ravaged, oceanic setting and is immediately confronted by a rather wild sight: a demonic, Godzilla-sized Bowser, who wastes no time in attacking Mario. This opening setpiece, as per usual for a Mario game, wordless teaches the players essential aspects of the gameplay. Fury Bowser summons gigantic spikes that block terrain around Mario, guiding him to a wall adorned with Bowser symbols. When Bowser belches out a stream of fire, the player's natural instinct is to hide behind the wall. We quickly learn that Bowser's breath destroys these bricks, which becomes essential throughout the game, and Mario is able to collect a cat sprite. Doing so activates a nearby lighthouse, the light from which wards off Bowser, who goes back to slumber in the black muck filling the harbor.

After this rather scary series of events, Mario happens upon Bowser Jr. He reveals to Mario that his father is out of control and pleads with his arch-nemesis to help him find a way to return his father to normal (we know from other Mario and Paper Mario games that, for all his evil plotting and kidnapping of princesses, Bowser is, if nothing else, a loving daddy). Mario agrees, of course, because Mario's a hero and would never turn away someone in need of aid. And he also happens to be stuck in this new world with no apparent means of escape himself. In an interesting turn, Bowser Jr. actually accompanies Mario on his adventure.

The most immediately distinguishing feature of Bowser's Fury is the way it's structured. This is the first Mario game to take place entirely across one giant map, which appears to be loaded into memory all at once, leading to no load times across the game. Islands dot the map, separated by large expanses of water. Thankfully, the friendly aquatic dinosaur Plessie from Super Mario 3D World returns to help Mario navigate the world of Bowser's Fury. He'll pop out of the water nearby anytime Mario nears the edge of an island, and a significant chunk of time is spent using him to ride between islands, engage in racing challenges for cat shines, and even take on the final boss.

Bowser Jr.'s role in the game is interesting. The player can change his AI, directing him to help attack enemies and collect items or to stand back and only intervene when the player needs him to reveal hidden pipes/items/etc. For my purposes, I set the AI to only activate when I tell it to, since it felt like his interventions took some of the challenge out of the experience. Bowser Jr. can also be controlled by a second player in local co-op, but I tried this out, and it's genuinely not recommended, given how often Mario leaves him behind. For a serviceable comparison, play as Tails in a 2D Sonic game, and you'll quickly get an idea of how frustrating and limiting it is to play as Bowser Jr. here. Co-op just doesn't work well for this particular Mario game.

Fury Bowser awakens after a set period of time throughout the game, and, as you're adventuring, you'll be able to look into the distance and watch as his enormous spiked shell slowly surfaces out of the water and begins spinning, eventually spinning fast enough that he flies into the sky and awakens. It's a very cool real-time element that helps to maintain a sense of tension throughout, as Fury Bowser will wake up regardless of what Mario is doing at a given time. While this isn't particularly troublesome when Mario is out in the water, it can be incredibly troublesome when Mario is in the middle of a difficult platforming challenge, and is forced to avoid Bowser's projectiles and fire breath on top of the obstacles he's already dealing with. The presentation for these attacks by Fury Bowser is phenomenal and ominous, as the skies blacken, rain begins pouring down, and honest-to-goodness metal plays as an enormous, demonic Bowser lumbers around the stage, dwarfing the islands you're traversing.

As the old cliché goes, though, familiarity breeds contempt, and while I never really grew to dislike these segments, you quickly learn that, for all the sound and fury, to quote the bard, they signify nothing. Or, if not nothing, at least very little. Fury Bowser's attacks are pretty easy to dodge, and it's so easy to regain health in Bowser's Fury that he's never more than an annoyance. As with the blood moon cutscenes in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, these segments quickly stop being scary or thrilling after the second or so time they happen. In fact, so many cat shines are tied to blocks that Fury Bowser needs to destroy with his breath that you'll oftentimes be waiting impatiently for the big lug to do his thing.

When the game begins, only a small section of the full map is accessible. Black goo coats most of the ocean and damages the player if they dare to venture into it. Mario is tasked with collecting a certain number of cat shines by completing various goals, and, once he hits that number, an enormous cat bell will activate alongside the next Fury Bowser attack. Touching this cat bell transforms Mario into a kaiju-sized version of himself in the cat suit, and he'll do battle with Fury Bowser. It's quite wild the first time this happens, because suddenly you're twice the size of the level you were just navigating a few moments before, and you're throwing Bowser's mountain-sized projectiles back at him.

Anyhow, defeating Fury Bowser will open up more of the map, and the player will be tasked with collecting more cat shines before they can engage in this process again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. 50 cat shines are needed over the course of the game before the player can face Fury Bowser in his final form. This only really comprises half of the game, though, because, upon beating Bowser's Fury, the player is able to jump back in and collect 50 more cat shines in the post-game. Although it should probably be said that the game doesn't really reward the player for fully completing it, aside from a very slightly more difficult final boss fight the second time around. No extra cutscenes or story or anything. You're doing it because it's fun, which, honestly, should be reason enough for anyone.

The map, taken as a whole, isn't particularly large compared to something like Skyrim or Breath of the Wild, but the sense of scope is pretty wild compared to even a Mario game known for its large landscapes like Super Mario Odyssey. With that said, it's worth pointing out that, level design-wise, for all its openness and non-linearity, the actual islands housing most of the cat shine challenges are almost exactly like levels you'd encounter in the main 3D World game: linear obstacle courses. It's just that, instead of separating the levels, they're all connected via one overworld. Thankfully, after beating the game initially and going back in to find the rest of the cat shines, the game adds a warp feature that allows you to instantly fast travel to any of the islands you previously visited (and I mean INSTANTLY, which is what leads me to believe the entire world is loaded into memory at once).

Control-wise, it's almost identical to 3D World as well, and this is arguably 3D Mario at his least spry, with only a few basic moves in his repertoire. Also like 3D World, and unlike other 3D Marios, there's a run button. With that said, Mario gets around fine without most of his fancy platforming moves, and, like in the main 3D World game, he's a joy to control.

3D World was notable for its introduction of the cat suit, but Bowser's Fury goes a bit overboard in the cat direction. Almost everything in this game is cat themed: outfits, enemies, the environments are themed around named after cats, etc. There are also these adorable wild cats running around everywhere. They'll ignore Mario when he isn't transformed, but, once he dons a cat suit, they chase after him and nuzzle him if he stops. It's adorable, even if you get the sense that somebody at Nintendo perhaps loves cats a bit too much.

I want to briefly mention difficulty, power-ups, and the role of coins in this game. There's no lives system in Bowser's Fury, so collecting 100 coins randomly rewards the player with a new power-up. Unlike most Mario games, though, the player is able to hoard up to five power-ups of each type at a time, and there's six different power-ups to collect in total. There's also a particular transformation that gives the player a ton of coins when they ground pound from a high distance. In short, this game is SUPER easy to break if you spend even five minutes grinding coins by jumping from high surfaces, and even if you don't, there's almost no fear of death most of the time, because you usually have so many transformations on you that you can take countless hits from enemies (considering a fully transformed Mario takes three hits to kill before he can die, each new power-up used gives him three more hits to tank, and you can store five of each power-up). Interestingly, the lava kills Mario instantly, so there are still obstacles to stymie progress, but, in general, the only challenge here is actually finding and collecting all of the shines. Although it's worth pointing out that hard Mario games are usually hard for the wrong reasons. My favorite games in the series are almost all ones that could be considered easy overall. Still, the ability to abuse power-ups here is particularly egregious, although it can be used to sequence break certain shines by muscling your way through the damaging black muck that surrounds sections of the map that are supposed to be inaccessible at first.

Probably the most damning criticism of the game is that its challenges tend to be fairly repetitive over the course of the adventure. Not that this is unique to this particular game, as Mario 64 and Mario Odyssey had the same issue, to some extent, but a LOT of cat shines involve completing the same basic task across different islands. There are also way too many of these tedious shines that require Mario to track down baby kittens and return them to their distraught mother cat, which recalls the horrible missing Penguin star from Mario 64. Although, unlike that game, the basic act of moving from point A to point B isn't infuriating, so that certainly helps. Six of the 100 total shines also only appear when Fury Bowser does, so that can involve a lot of tedious waiting around if you accidentally leave them until last like I did. There are also a number of interesting shine challenges, though. One of the more memorable ones baffled me for a while. I was tracking a challenge marker on the map for a cat shine challenge, but it kept popping up on different parts of the map, and I never saw anything. Finally, surmising it must be moving, I climbed to the tippy-top of a volcano and, sure enough, watched as a giant floating island slowly inched its way across the sky. Once it passed close enough to the island in its rotation, I was able to climb up the side of it as Catsuit Mario and collect the shine. Instances of discovery like this are what kept me coming back to the adventure.

Musically, the game isn't going for any best-in-series awards, but it plays some really nice pieces as you explore. I already posted the Fury Bowser metal theme that plays when he shows up, but consider some of these charming compositions as well.

Every single OST for a 3D Mario game has been strong since the original Galaxy, and this game is no exception.

One of the more interesting aspects of Bowser's Fury is how rough the game is performance-wise. When docked, the game targets 60fps/720p, but there are some really mad drops when things start kicking off all at once. If Fury Bowser and all of his particle effects show up, and there's enemies surrounding you, and stuff is moving everywhere, the game just slows to a crawl. It's super reminiscent of those old NES games where everything would just slow down and almost feel like it was going in slow motion. Bowser's Fury does this, and it's absolutely fascinating. The game often feels like it was designed to be a stress test for the system, with its huge, interconnected environment, taxing visual effects (it IS a very pretty game), and willingness to throw multiple challenges and moving parts at the player all at once.

In handheld mode, the average framerate drops like a rock. It's playable, but it feels like the game is running at 25fps most of the time, even before the taxing setpieces and whatnot show up. It's surprisingly lacking in polish in this regard, as Mario games on Switch almost always run beautifully.

Oh, and this game actually has a decent photo mode! You can adjust the direction of the camera, zoom in or out, and apply some fun filters for neat screenshots. I'm not the most creative person in the world in this regard, but I could see some really delightful screenshots coming out of this game.

Bowser's Fury is a fascinating reimagining of Mario game design, as it marries 3D World-esque linear challenges and obstacle courses with a huge open environment and a sense of exploration that calls something like Super Mario Odyssey to mind. Some of its challenges are rote and tedious, but others are inspired. What ultimately ends up defining it for me is its creative abandonment of typical Mario tropes in favor of something more experimental, which I suppose Nintendo can do, since the game is really just an add-on to the main course that is Super Mario 3D World. As a supplemental extra in a larger package, it's hugely impressive, as this is so fully realized an experience that it absolutely wouldn't be out of place as a smaller budget experience like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. The entire game only take 5 - 7 hours to 100%, and half that time to beat it, but, despite its performance hiccups and flaws, I came away fairly satisfied with the experience, even if I'm not ultimately convinced that a level-based approach isn't still the best way for Mario games to be designed. Bowser's Fury gets a solid 7.5/10.

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As a smaller adjunct to the excellent recent work by @RogerRoger @RR529 @Ralizah and others, I humbly submit —

My Review of
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
(Or Ludonarrative Dissonance: The Game)

When I decided this year to revisit some old favorites in my game library, the first to come to mind was the Uncharted series. The whole series has always been a favorite of mine, but I’ve never played any of them more than once. Thanks to Bluepoint studio’s fine work and PS Plus’s generosity, I have the Nathan Drake Collection sitting on my PS4 hard drive. So I thought to myself, “What’s stopping me?”

The timing was ripe for a relatively short (by today’s AAA gaming standards) gaming adventure. I chose to start with Drake’s first outing since I want to replay the series in order and watch it grow and develop with each passing entry.

The Master of Remaster

Before I get into the gameplay experience, a word on the technical performance — I spent my first couple hours of the game wondering why the game felt so foreign to play. It wasn’t until I remembered the game played at 60 FPS that I knew why it felt so much quicker than I remember. I’m not a frame counter, so I don’t really have the expertise to know how many frames per second I’m seeing, but I could feel the difference in how the game camera moved and how Nate responded. I’ve often seen people say that upgraded game specs make a game feel like a whole new adventure, and I think this is the first time I’ve actually understood that statement.

The environments look wonderful, and I mentioned this on another thread, but the character models appear to have received an upgrade. Elena looks graphically splendid (can a Western game have a waifu? If so, she’s just become mine) but I felt like Sully aged poorly. His face is more washed out and I don’t remember those old-man wrinkles under his chin, in any of the entries. Also, Nate’s clumsy chicken-like running animation is still intact, unfortunately.

And I don’t know how many times I’d click L3 in an attempt to sprint. Alas, improvements still could be made.

Now, if I had a complaint about the visuals or performance, it might be that the camera was too snappy. There were many times where the camera would shift around (either from my movements of the right analog, or by a preprogrammed rotation within the game code) and it would be disorienting and may end up in my falling to my death, missing a jump, or losing track of an enemy. I wish the camera was less touchy and more easy to command. But the fact that I never went into the settings to see if I could tinker with camera sensitivity tells you I acclimatized.

A Tale as Old as Time

As was recently stated elsewhere (attributed to @TheBrandedSwordsman ), the game is akin to playing a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Focus is on the action, keeping the player engaged, and having bombastic moments. The quality of storytelling a real strength of the series. However this time around I tried to take a more objective and critical eye to the storyline. And the realization I came to was that you can’t make an over-the-top narrative with all the twists and turns if you expect to stay within the realm of logic and the laws of nature. Swallowing a good serving of ‘suspension of disbelief’ is the only way to keep your brain traveling from one outrageous set piece to another. Never mind the fact that you play as a homicidal mass murderer who shrugs and smirks as he leaves hundreds of bodies in the wake. Ludonarrative Dissonance indeed.

And I never realized how much of a, how should I say... homage (read: knock-off) the game’s narrative is to Indiana Jones. I mean, even the hero is a lovable lug of a quipster that a young Harrison Ford would not feel out of place with at an archaeological society meeting. Adventurous strong female companion? Check. Globetrotting for ancient artifacts? Check. Supernatural Forces? Check. Nazis? Sure, why not go all in. It makes me wonder if Sony called Lucas and Spielberg seeing if they could license an Indy game and upon refusal decided to do it anyway.

A last thought on the story - It’s been said many times but the vocal performances are spectacular. We all know Nolan North and Emily Rose, but special shout-out to Richard McGonagle. His Sully performance is so outstanding that I can only assume we don’t see (well, hear) him in other roles because his Sully is so spot-on that he’s been typecast and could never be realistically fit into anything else.

Gameplay is King

But how does it play?
I can say the game is still oozing with 3rd person cover shooting goodness. The aiming and gun control has apparently gotten an overhaul (although I don’t remember the game’s shooting to be a problem in the original) and I really felt the unadulterated joy of trying out all the weapons and burning through enough ammo to stock an entire nation’s defense system. I’ve never been good at shooters, first or third person (much less second person for that matter) but the game is very approachable and easy to pick up and play. The waves of enemies can be frustrating at times (as well as making zero logical sense) but it’s all about the fun of taking down enemies, trying to get headshots, and running from one locale to another. The climbing and platforming is actually my favorite part, and it feels as satisfying as ever. The thought did occur to me: Is this the first game to highlight ledges and handholds (in this case with white paint) so as to know which are “grabbable”? It’s a nice touch and wonderful innovation to lead and guide the player.

Overall the gameplay is fun, offers a decent challenge, and doesn’t grow old. Sure, it’s shallow by today’s standards. There are no ability trees, experience points, armor or weapon upgrades, or side quests. But the game feels right without all that stuff.

Is It Nostalgia or Legitimate Quality?

I came away from the game feeling more convinced than ever that the original game from the Uncharted series is a bona fide classic and has stood the test of time. The gameplay’s a tad cursory and the story doesn’t survive a critical analysis of its granular components, but in the end I don’t think it’s meant to. It’s popcorn-flick type of fun and it definitely delivers there. The fact that the game ushered in a new era and sub-genre of story driven third person action games means it deserves its spot on the PlayStation wall of fame. Can’t wait to play Among Thieves.

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Super Mario Sunshine

Platform - GameCube (2002); Nintendo Switch (2020, reviewed)
Completion: 111/120 “Shine Sprites” (including 162/240 blue coins of torment)

There is something rotten on Isle Delfino. A festering black ooze festoons much of this tropical former paradise, reducing tranquil beaches and sleepy mountain villages alike into warped grotesques. Welcome to Super Mario Sunshine.

As the long awaited followup to 1996’s Super Mario 64 and helmed by Nintendo EAD and Yoshiaki Koizumi (who went on to direct Galaxy), Sunshine arrived on the GameCube to much fanfare in 2002. It was the first time since the release of the Japanese Famicom that there wasn’t a Super Mario game ready for a system launch, so Nintendo were keen to release Sunshine as quickly as possible in order to shore up weak post-launch GameCube sales. It certainly seems as though there was some degree of rushed development, as the game became known for its abundant bugs and glitches, as well as some padding and rough edges. Nonetheless Sunshine garnered rave reviews from most of the gaming press of the time. While I was not fully enamoured with Sunshine when I originally played it, I was excited to replay it as part of the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection and eager to see if my opinion would be more positive this time round.

The GameCube ushered in an interesting period where Nintendo were eager to innovate, although players reacted with genuine befuddlement over Sunshine’s central gimmick. The headline feature is the utilisation of the Flash Liquidiser Ultra Dousing Device jetpack, otherwise referred to by its rather awkward acronym, FLUDD, and used by Mario to squirt water and hover around Isle Delfino like an overexcited kid in a candy store. We’re informed that it’s designed by Luigi Mansion’s own Professor E. Gadd, in an unusual piece of Nintendo continuity. Nintendo have a crafty knack of making things feel organic, if not integral, and FLUDD is therefore an important piece of the overall Sunshine gameplay experience, eventually turning most of those anecdotally confused players round. I’m happy to report that FLUDD works for the most part, although the turning angle of the hover mode is quite narrow, and aiming the squirt function is akin to a geriatric amputee attempting to use a urinal.

Mario himself feels quite snappy and has a pleasing degree of fluidity to his movements, although precision platforming is at times tricky because of how sensitively he reacts to movements of the analogue stick. It’s therefore easy to misjudge jumps, rendering FLUDD a necessity in steadying Mario’s landing over platforms. It’s now easier to pull off certain signature moves such as the triple jump, side somersault and wall-jump, but Mario’s moveset is slightly more limited than in 64. Gone is the long jump, although its functionality is essentially replaced by FLUDD’s slower hover move. FLUDD does introduce some fun new tricks to Mario’s repertoire, such as the ability to quickly cover large distances by spraying a little water and sliding on his belly. He can also spray water all around himself after spin jumping via a twist of the analogue stick.

Sunset on Sirena Beach

Core Mario games are not well known for their stories; usually the princess is kidnapped, it’s up to our stout moustachioed plumber to rescue her, and that’s that. It’s therefore surprising that Sunshine does have a slightly more involved story, complete with some horrendously voiced FMV cutscenes. One can only assume that as this was Nintendo’s first major foray into the brave new world of video-game voice acting outside of wahoo’s and mamma mia’s, they thought it would be okay to hire the office tea lady and a few people off the street before calling it a day. Some time after the events of Super Mario 64, Mario, Peach, and an army of Toads decide to holiday on Isle Delfino. Luigi isn’t invited, as usual. Upon landing they soon find that the island is soiled with black goo and red graffiti, and seeing as the perpetrator looks like a watery, shadow version of Mario, Isle Delfino’s famed criminal justice system pins the blame on real-Mario and immediately sentences him to clean up the mess. We don’t know what the implied “or else” is, exactly, so we’ll just assume that if he doesn’t do as he’s told he’ll be forced to play Wand of Gamelon for all eternity. As it happens Peach is soon kidnapped, but there’s a whole other disturbing subplot involving dinosaur sex that I won’t get into.

Delfino Plaza serves as the island’s capital city and the game’s hub world, from which all other levels are accessed. While it doesn’t have the same sense of grandeur and is more compact than Peach’s Castle from 64, its design is nonetheless fairly intricate and it effectively serves as a full level. Isle Delfino itself has a real sense of space; other levels can be seen far in the distance and each area is fully populated by various island folk, most of whom have a few lines of dialogue. This gives it a unique identity among Mario platformers, and is something that wasn’t really explored again until 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey.

When I played Sunshine in 2002 I felt that the tropical visual motifs of the levels were lacking in variation and imagination, but this reappraisal has changed my mind completely. Yes, there are sandy beaches, sunny skies and palm trees abundant, but level design is for the most part excellent, and the tropical setting is a breath of fresh air when judged against typical platformer staples. One highlight is a coral reef where the level has incredible verticality. An enormous cliff rises from the water, littered with caves and crevices that Mario can use to reach the higher portions. A later level includes a haunted hotel where most of the rooms' doors are locked and Mario must navigate an alternate route through its maze-like interior.

Noki Bay

The massively increased power of the GameCube enabled Nintendo to craft quite a beautiful game by the standards of the time, with considerably more intricate level design and visual motifs. Eighteen years later it is still reasonably impressive; bright, crisp colours abound, and clever use of the system’s texturing abilities yield effects such as heat haze and motion blur, although it is the water that is the true star. While the GameCube was incapable of rendering the complex shader techniques we take for granted today, it did have a few tricks up its sleeve, resulting in absolutely gorgeous water effects. It’s easy to see why Nintendo placed such importance on this, given the tropical island setting and ways in which water is integrated into the gameplay. Mario himself also saw a huge upgrade, now more closely resembling his CG renders and modern design. In keeping with the setting he now wears a short-sleeved shirt under his dungarees, which is a nice touch. In terms of the HD port itself, this is a bare-bones presentation, with little done outside of a resolution bump to 1080p and new widescreen presentation. Performance is disappointing, with frequent stutters below its nominal 30fps ceiling, particularly in the Delfino Plaza hub. This is surprising for an 18 year-old game, perhaps suggesting that less time had been spent on the emulation process than Sunshine fully deserved.

Bianco Hills lake

While this increased processing power allowed for intricate geometry and level design, it also meant that there was simply more for the camera to get stuck behind. As you may recall, the real battle in Super Mario 64 was not against the King of the Koopas, but his loyal acolyte Lakitu, who served as the game’s cameraman. This cruel and demented soul would not settle for shattering the spirits of all who played Mario 64. No, it was world domination he was after. After an epic showdown, a coven of medieval Sicilian witches at last managed to seal his physical body and video camera in the pit of Tartarus. But it was not to last. In the darkness his spite and lust for power only grew, and from the depths he cursed the Mushroom Kingdom and its surrounding lands to an eternity of torment and poorly framed camera angles. In Sunshine it often feels like Lakitu is directly manipulating events from his underworld lair. Naturally, his faithful servant Pat Butcher is back - no witch could banish her - and tired from an eventful Christmas Day episode down The Vic’ she’s now parked firmly in front of Mario so that half the time he can’t see a bloody thing.

Pat Butcher

Nintendo’s answer was not to fix the camera, but to give Mario a silhouette when the view is blocked. Sounds good, right? The only problem is that level features such as platforms do not have a silhouette, so the player still has little clue what they’re doing. The silhouette doesn’t appear at all when the view is not technically blocked, although in these cases the angles are so skewed that it may as well be. A problem common to many 3D platformers is that it can be difficult to judge depth when jumping into the z-axis. Like some warped Lahaina Noon many platforms, ropes and poles lack shadows, complicating matters further.

I don't even remember what this was supposed to be

Sunshine follows the same general structural template established by Super Mario 64. There are 120 Shine Sprites (a tropical stand-in for stars), obtained by completing a predictable set of challenges, ranging from collecting red coins, winning races, and finishing boss battles. Boss battles are a genuine highlight; all are unique and feel more akin to Zelda bosses in terms of their size and the different methods needed to defeat them. My favourite is a giant oil-squirting Blooper squid in the port-themed level, where Mario must grab and pull off each off its legs. Much of the joy in playing a 3D Mario game lies in utilising Mario’s arsenal of moves in a range of uniquely designed environments, so while the challenges may be largely the same, the way in which the player goes about completing them will always be different. For much of Sunshine this principle mostly holds true, Lakitu and Pat notwithstanding. Shine sprites are split across discrete “episodes” in each level, and have to be obtained in order, excluding each level’s “secret” sprites. Each of the seven main levels contain ten shine sprites apiece, although there are also a total of 240 blue coins spread throughout the game. Delfino Plaza in turn houses a shop staffed by a shifty raccoon where ten blue coins can be traded in for an additional shine sprite. This undoubtedly pads the experience a little and there’s no real way of tracking how many blue coins are scattered in each “episode”.

Unfortunately the whole experience is dragged down by the many challenges that simply aren’t fun. One level sees Mario collecting red coins atop a giant bird comprised of cubes of sand. If the random gusts of wind fail to push Mario off, then the bird’s frequent loop-de-loops will. Another challenge requires pushing a ridiculously fragile watermelon across an enemy infested beach. The theme park level, Pinna Park has a red coin challenge where the coins are scattered across a series of swinging ships, and a later shine sprite where Mario must ascend Satan’s private ferris wheel while the camera does its best to destroy the will of the player. This left me with the impression that the game would have perhaps been a far more polished product if it was given more development time.

All this is nothing, however, compared to the darkest terror lurking within each level. Dimensional voids are concealed in such inane locations as giant mushrooms, sandcastles and random caves, yet even medieval Sicilian witches are unable to divine their precise origin or purpose. Either way, upon entering these wretched domains Shadow Mario instantaneously appears and snatches FLUDD away, leaving Mario with only his wits and a bottle of gin to soothe his sorrows. In these levels he must then navigate a series of moving blocks suspended over a void of nothingness, in order to reach a Shine Sprite conveniently placed at the end, as if mocking the player. These platforming sections are among the most difficult and frustrating in the whole game given how integral FLUDD is to the wider gameplay experience. Without the device to steady Mario and correct mistakes, and joined by the rather uncooperative camera, he frequently falls to his death. It feels like some Sisyphean horror; time and again he’s plunged into the abyss, and by the time the Shine Sprite is finally grasped, yes, Mario has the golden trinket, but in return Lakitu has splintered the player’s soul into jagged shards and now holds them to your throat. A war of attrition, it’s fair to ask was it worth it?

Was it worth it? As an experiment within the timeline of 3D Mario platformers, there are certainly many aspects to enjoy. Sunshine both iterates and builds on the formula established by Super Mario 64 in some interesting ways, mainly courtesy of FLUDD. But it also grates and grinds. Its camera frustrations and the high difficulty of many of the challenges compound like a jackhammer. Super Mario Sunshine is an uneven experience, and in the end Isle Delfino is just a place festooned with festering black ooze.

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Sorry for the late replies, everyone.

@RogerRoger FINALLY got a chance to properly sit down and read your opus and, I gotta say, Rog, I'm stunned. Your encyclopedic knowledge of all things Bond-related, your natural wittiness, and your increasingly excellent grasp of the art of game reviewing all contributed to make this not only your best piece yet, but arguably the best piece of writing submitted to this thread to date!

It really was a vision of hell for you, though, wasn't it? You're such a good-natured dude that I was impressed with the sustained level of contemptuous snark you managed to muster for this game. Not that this is at all inappropriate, mind you: while I think we both agree most games are made by people trying their best and are deserving of some certain level of consideration for best efforts made, sometimes a game comes along that really is just ill-conceived in all regards and deserves a proper and public caning. In that regard, your piece reminded me of some of Roger Ebert's unapologetically (and hilariously) scathing pieces on films he hated.

I really liked the way you structured your cold opening. It flows brilliantly into the body of the piece, and the use of your first screenshot as a well-timed punchline was excellent.

The screenshot of Blofeld putting up his dukes is pretty ridiculous. I kinda like it, not least of all because I can just laugh at the idea of it being included in a Bond game at all.

Also, for the record, stealth missions in non-stealth games are pretty much always the worst parts of said games. And at least as late as 2017, developers were still including them in their games. Here's to hoping for the final death of the forced stealth mission.

RE: screen tearing, did you mess with v-sync on your computer? Sometimes older games have weird v-sync issues that require hardware-based solutions. It's really weird that the game doesn't support resolutions over 720p. Really, really weird.

Oh, and I'm impressed you created your own videos to show off music and compare tracks with other versions that appeared in Bond movies.

I should also note that you now have the notoriety of posting the longest piece in this thread to date, displacing the record held by my Three Houses write-up. Wear your crown of thorns proudly, my friend, as the curse passes onto you now until someone is foolish enough to try and beat the record again.

But yeah, incredible contribution. Truly.

@Th3solution

Great piece on Uncharted! The trilogy collection on PS4 is indeed a great way of seeing how the games evolved over time and adopted a unique identity (as you point out, the first game is more than a little reminiscent of the Indiana Jones films; I guess they all are, but subsequent entries felt more grown into their own mythology and narrative tone). I didn't have a great time with the first game myself, but some of that could be due to my using it as a test case for the viability of cloud gaming on PS Now. So, the unpolished old PS3 release plus the latency issues inherent to cloud gaming.

Even if it's not as slick as its subsequent entries, though, it does seem like the series started off on a solid foundation. Glad you enjoyed it, and would definitely be interested in hearing how your experience with this series evolves as you replay through the games via the Nathan Drake Collection.

@mookysam

I like the extended mythology you're establishing with Lakitu.

I played this game circa the mid 2010s and was still super impressed with how good this game looked on the GameCube. The water effects truly are out of this world, and the image quality as a whole was such a massive step up from the blocky, polygonal nightmare realm of Mario 64. I ended up liking this game less upon replaying it (probably primarily due to my insistence on doing EVERYTHING in this game, which led to some rather frustrating road blocks, and irritation at the blue coin collecting in general), but I think I still had a lot more fun with it than you did. At least, when I wasn't screaming at the TV during those chuckster shine levels, or after being knocked off the underside of the village for the millionth time during The Goopy Inferno level (Pianta Village really would be better off just burning to the ground). The 3D All-Stars Collection hasn't been treating you well thus far.

A fun read as always!