Cloudman said:
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The central gameplay mechanics involving the FLUDD backpack aren't much fun. It blows my mind how bad the level design is at utilizing it, especially the booster nozzle. The levels are typically too easy but in the worst way possible. For example, instead of having bottomless pits that kill you outright and place you back at a checkpoint in the middle of the action there are bodies of water. I can not stand falling into the water because I have to swim to the shore and slowly climb back to where I was which is just a giant pile of busy work, it's so damn boring. Mentioning boring gameplay there's the fact that so many jumps require me to slowly hover across the largest gaps possible which makes for tedious, repetitive sections which are pretty much the antithesis of fun platforming. Then come the sections without the FLUDD that are far more difficult which just makes the game feel disjointed and downright schizophrenic. These sequences are generally quite good but they feel like the development team realized that Mario 64 was a vastly superior experience and they tried to recapture some of that previous success. You know you're doing a bad job when the portions of your game where you regress backwards are blatantly the best parts. I have a myriad of other issues such as how useless Yoshi is, the flawed camera system, some of the outright dreadful mission design and all of the unutilized space in the giant empty levels (making them feel like very little effort was put into the game). I wasn't blown away by the soundtrack or graphics and the story is lackluster even by the standards of a Mario game. I don't like anything about Sunshine, it was easily the worst platformer I played that entire generation. I'm really having a hard time understanding what makes Sunshine good outside of the a couple boss fights and the secret levels.
Edit: The extremely manic music that plays during time trials is generally very poor. The sound that plays when you die is grating. Collecting the blue coins is horribly tedious and unrewarding. The art direction for the secret levels is extremely uninspired. Riding the boats in Delfino Bay is slow and boring (a common theme in this game). Getting kicked out of the stage everytime you collect a 100 star coin is awful. The lack of content (half as many levels as Mario 64) does it no favors.
2nd Edit: Collecting the Shines really shouldn't have been so linear, they had an opportunity to imporve over Mario 64 in this respect and they failed utterly. Many of the missions don't even require any platforming and these sequences are often very poor (pushing the watermellon in particular). The camera attempting to reposition itself behind Mario as you hover works poorly and causes nothing but frustration during more difficult levels.
3rd Edit: The final level is terrible. The final boss is disappointing. The ending is garbage. The voice acting is lousy. I promise this is my final edit. If I keep thinking about Sunshine's flaws I'll be here for days. It's objectively bad in so many ways it blows my mind.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
Sunshine feels like a poorly thought out, half finished, heavily padded, boring, fragmented mess.
