Certainly mediocre in my book; monotonous setting, garish music, uneven difficulty curve...

Sunshine is mediocre compared to other Mario games, though.  But it does have its moments where it "shines" like the mecha-bowser rollercoaster battle, which is incredible.  

Mario 64 was one of the single most impressive games ever for its time.  It's kinda hard to compete with that.  But like someone else said, Sunshine often feels unfinished - like Nintendo hadn't finished polishing the game before releasing it.  And although the control has been tightened up from 64, the camera feels downright broken in some levels (most notably the pachinko level).

Also, the voices of Bowser, Bowser Jr, and that judge during the opening cinema where Mario is on trial, are despicable.

I wasn't too fond of 64, I didn't really like many of the levels and many of the missions were either lackluster or just broken (I'm look at you Blast Away the Wall). I still like 64 in it's own way, the physics are incredibly wacky and it's fun to find all the crazy things you can do with the game. Sunshine as a whole I felt was rather unpolished, but I did like the overall gameplay more.

I'm still waiting for my Super Mario 64 HD. Super Mario Sunshine takes the backseat.

Mario Sunshine is brilliant. Wasn't too fond of Super Mario 64 to begin with. A bit outdated nowadays. I had fun with the DS game though.

I prefer Sunshine.

Growing up with both and having strong memories of both, I couldn't choose as a kid. Maybe Sunshine for more dynamic-type levels.

I went back and played both recently, and now I can easily say 64 was better.

I love both equally. Though I do feel that a lot of people who played Sunshine originally came in with the wrong mindset and were disappointed because it didnt play like SM64

Super Mario 64 is superior for sure, but Sunshine still has tons of creativity put into its music and level design, as well as its gameplay which was partially made possible with the different Fludd nozzles.


I love Super Mario Sunshine in the same way that I love Halo 3: ODST, Majora's Mask and Dead Space: Extraction. They may not be the best entries in their respective series, but they excel in areas which would not have been possible if they stayed true to what we are all accustomed to.

I played Mario 64 back when it was first released. Kids today who play it on vc or whatever don't get how truelly revolutionary Mario 64 was in its day. Not wanting to sound condescending but ya really had to be there...
Anyway, reason I mention this is so I can then emphasize the long and frustrating wait for a worthy follow up and it sure as hell wasn't Mario Sunshine. Sunshine was a fine game but no way did it have the impact of Mario 64.
Galaxy was sort of a return to form but I thought it was a bit too easy so it was a bit of a letdown. Galaxy 2 I much preferred. I guess if you combine the 2 Galaxy games, that's the closest you'll get to a 64 successor...for now.

I had a lot of fun playing (and replaying) Super Mario 64, you go from a simple bob-omb battlefield to a mysterious sub-aquatic city, the controls were just fine even if there were some small camera issues but Super Mario Sunshine was frustrating, the fludd was annoying and the setting was repetitive, it felt like you just went from a beach to another beach and I felt it had a lot more camera issues then Mario 64.