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Miyamoto Shrine> Kong: Features> The 6 year wait: Experiencing Mario Sunshine Time Played: 1 Hour People have said it but I never believed them: Mario Sunshine is to Mario 64 what Mario World is to Mario Bros. 3. Mario Sunshine makes Mario 64 look like Croc. The game plays just like Mario 64, there's about 12/13 worlds and about 10 shine stars in each of them. When you teleport to a world by jumping through the painting (like Mario 64) you get a list of shines to collect (again, like Mario 64) and when you choose a star the camera will zoom through the world showing you where the shine is, which is very handy if you've imported and don't understand Japanese. The cut-scenes are nothing like the ones in Mario 64, this time around it's just like an episode of the Super Mario Super Show that used to be on TV. The toads have their grindy voices like Toad in Mario Tennis where as Mario doesn't talk at all, which is actually a good thing because it could make the story very cheesy like Sonic Adventure. This game pays so many homage's to past Mario games you'd think it was made by a group of Mario fans. When the game starts and the Nintendo logo appears you hear the classic coin sound from Super Mario World, just like the old days. When you teleport to a world you hear the classic pipe sound, and all the old 1-Up mushroom and coin sounds are in there too. The game's load screen is even very similar to Mario World: it has Mario A, B and C and a list of how many Shines you've collected. One very cool thing I encountered in the first world was in the water. Nintendo for some reason have changed the swimming controls and they are very hard to get used to. So I jumped out of the water and onto a floating lily pad when I noticed one of the bug enemies that float on the water from Mario 64. I turned around and fired my water cannon at the enemy when to my surprise I moved the lily pad across the water! I could move to anywhere I wanted just by shooting at the water with my water cannon! Very cool. I've played for one hour and only have 4 Shines. There's a small course in the first level that's like the Bowser levels from Mario 64, where you jump from platform to platform. I found it very difficult and died about 5 times, trying to jump from platform to platform as they moved up and down, side to side. More impressions in a few hours! Time Played: 2 Hours I've unlocked two extra worlds, one in a harbor with all the netting from Mario Word and one on a beach with Wiggler the caterpillar. I've had three boss fights thus far and they're all very reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. You don't simply spray them down and then jump on their heads, they've all got special ways of taking damage. Everything I've seen thus far I've already seen before in screenshots and movies, I can only hope this game has a lot more stuff Nintendo hasn't given away. The boss fight with Wiggler wasn't only technologically impressive, but it was pure Miyamoto magic. I won't give anything away, but Wiggler is huge! I forgot to mention that in the small platform courses hidden in every level you have your water pump taken away from you by the evil Mario, so you can't glide across using the jetpack mode. In the second platform course the platforms disintegrated as I landed on them, so I had to get to the Shine without stopping. Needless to say it took 2 lives before I completed it. One odd thing I notice: you cant pause the game while you're in the air, an error noise will play and the game will not pause. More impressions in about 2 hours! Time Played: 4 Hours I found a new nozzle for my water pump, it was a rocket nozzle that launched you extremely high into the sky. The bad thing about the new nozzles is you can only have one at once, so I can't have the rocket nozzle and the hover nozzle. A few things happened in the plot which of course I wont mention, but I'll just say that the best villain ever has turned out to be lamest villain ever. I unlocked a new theme park world and spent 20 minutes trying to reach the top of the level. The draw distance puts Mario 64 to shame, I could see everything in the level including a big wheel and a huge winding Rolla coaster. The boss in this level was like nothing you've ever seen before in a Mario game. The new platform course wasn't too hard, the platforms disappeared so you had to time your runs. Nothing much else has happened in the game. I might post more impressions tonight if I get particularly far, but most probably there wont be more until tomorrow. Time Played: 5 Hours I'm updating now because I just gained access to the coolest thing ever: YOSHI!!! To hatch the Yoshi eggs you need to bring them the food that the want to eat, it will appear in a think bubble above the egg. Yoshi can spit out juice just like Mario's water pump shoots out water. When Yoshi eats different foods he slowly changes color depending on what you ate, I think some Yoshi's even have a favourite fruit that makes them run faster! Yoshi's jump is the one from Yoshi's story and when you ride him some light drum beats go over the background music, just like Mario World! Yoshi Controls: A: Jump (you can do much higher than normal triple jump
and you can float for a few seconds) Yoshi's are not aloud in water! Time Played: 8 Hours I opened up two new worlds, one of a beach resort during sunset and another unlike anything I'd ever expect from a Mario game in a cliff area. It seems there's about 8 shines in each world. There could be 9 if collecting 100 coins gives you a shine... One thing I noticed: If you stand still for longer than 30 seconds while riding Yoshi he will die in an explosion of paint (which is how he normally dies.) After I unlocked the beach resort level Yoshi was no longer in the hub world for me to ride... The platform course was the hardest yet, with rotating cubes you had to ride on. One important aspect of a Miyamoto title seems to be missing: to be able to try a course as many times as you want without being punished for failure. You can die way too easily in some places... Well, back to the game! Time Played: 9 Hours I just decided to go back to the first world and sitting at the beginning of the level was a Yoshi egg! After bringing it the food it wanted I could ride Yoshi wherever I wanted! Eating enemies is... strange. Yoshi doesn't eat them, he appears to drag the enemies to his mouth but they just squash underneath him. When Yoshi gets hurt you get knocked off of him into the air, but Yoshi just stands still waiting for you to get back on him. Now to actually play the game... Time Played: 20 Hours Game completed. After the last update I was left to have fun collecting shines. Here are a few details about shine collecting (spoilers on the number of levels and shines.) There are seven worlds in the game not including the small Airport area, the hub and the area with the final boss. In each world there's one shine for collecting 8 red coins, one shine for completing a platform course and one shine for chasing water Mario. The chasing water Mario shine is always the 7th shine, so once you've got the 7th shine in every area you can go and fight the final boss. There are at least 110 shines in the game, and who knows what kind of extras you'll get for completing the game with all shines. Look out for my final Review of Super Mario Sunshine tomorrow. Time Played: 21 Hours I've just discovered something very cool a villager gives you once you've completed the game. Of course, click here for spoilers. Time Played: 21 Hours A few things about the games length: like Mario 64 you can complete the game with roughly half the amount of shines that are in the game, so I'm not even half way through finishing the game properly. I can see some of these stars are going to take ages to get, especially all the blue coin ones. Sunshine is definitely as long as Mario 64. Oh, and a note to the guys on the Gaming Age boards: I did not rush through the game, although I did know how you unlocked the final boss area, so the average time will probably be about 25 hours play time. Look out for the review tonight. Time Played: 22 Hours Click here for part one of my Mario Sunshine review Time Played: 27 Hours It looks like Yoshi is useful for something. When you shoot enemies with juice they turn into platforms that you can stand on, which can be quite useful for getting to high up areas. After spending a few hours getting 100 coin stars and collecting blue coins, I discovered that if you go back and re-visit the platform courses there is a secret shine that you can get by collecting 8 red coins in the platform courses. You can use your water pump too! It seems like there are two secret shines in each world, one for collecting 8 coins in the platform courses, and another which still remains a mystery. Unless the game steps up a level soon, then in my opinion Mario 64 will remain the better game. Mario Sunshine is more than a worthy sequel though. |
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