Blasphemy! Those are the two BEST 3D Marios! 

But I'm with you in that 3D World is solid - and I feel underrated, especially in its multiplayer. Actually had a good time playing it with a couple friends back in the day at my buddy's apartment while tossing back a few beers, one of the few memorable Wii U experiences for me.

And yeah 3D platformers don't do much for me these days like they used to. I've become more jaded and less patient as a gamer now in his 30s, plus the 3D thing has lost its novelty factor that it had in the 90s/early 2000s. 

It's funny, DK 64 was one of my favorite games of all time as a teenager. One of the few games I completed 100% (or 101% technically ha). Recently I went back to this and just felt meh. Was like "this is convoluted and disorienting.. I was actually crazy about this back in the day?"

I'm not the biggest Mario guy at all. I didn't even like Galaxy that much. Hated NSMB. Nothing really wrong with it. Just did not grab me. Sunshine I was looking forward to back in 2002. It seemed to promise the best mix of Mario World and 64. My two faves in the series. It delivered neither. It had some nice visuals on the system. Some cool music. A great setting. Then playing it and oh boy. The camera is just awful. Why does Yoshi vomit? Why does he melt? Why are the levels so frustrating? Why do the no backpack areas suck so much? Why does Bowser talk? Why is the final battle in a tub of green shit? It's not outright terrible but it's not very good either as a whole. I still have my copy but I have not touched it in well over a decade. Maybe 15 years.

It was okay. Easily the least of the 3D Mario’s though. Didn’t really care for cleaning up stuff and platforming with FLUDD, which basically killed the game because you didn’t really need any platforming skills to get to areas the way you do in the other 3D Marios. In my memory this wasn’t a very difficult game because of it. The levels where FLUDD gets taken away were by far my favorite, they’re almost like a 3D World-lite. I remember always thinking “yes, finally” everytime I’d see the little cutscene of FLUDD disappearing. The game did look pretty and had great music. Music is the one thing GameCube excelled at though; The Wind Waker easily remains my least favorite 3D Zelda but it’s soundtrack is stellar. Same with Mario Kart.

Yes, I do. I got a cold shortly after buying the game back in, what, 2002? I remember playing Sunshine and feeling pretty well despite the cold.

Sunshine is a good game, although it has a lot of flaws. The controls are probably the best in any 3D Mario game, apart from the underwater controls. Mario moves quickly and everything feels very responsive. I also like the theming: A sunny island is just a great place to be, so Sunshine is the perfect game to get into a good mood. I also enjoy collecting the shine sprites in most stages.

There are some flaws, though:

1. The game doesn't have enough stages. I like the idea of making levels feel larger than in Mario 64 but a few more of them would have been nice.

2. I don't enjoy the hunt for blue coins at all. It's confusing to find the last few in each stage and there's absolutely no reward besides that "thank you" screen for collecting all of them.

3. The game is very short, as you only need to collect 49 shine sprites to get to the final boss. Also, because of the lack of a reward for collecting more shine sprites, I never see a reason to go for the "secret" ones. 

Overall, it's a good game and I enjoy it.

One thing that 3D World does right is that it makes each character play differently like in Super Mario Bros 2.  That and they have Peach and Rosalina.  The main thing that irritates me about 3D World is that when I play it, I wish they did all of that stuff with their 2D Mario games too.  I guess they kind of did that with Toadette on the Switch port, but its not really the same. :/

But yeah, I am a full time hater of Super Mario 64.  When I think of all the things I don't like about modern gaming I can trace them back mostly to two games: Super Mario 64 and Doom.  Both had a huge impact on the direction of future action games, but I prefer the action games of 8 and 16 bit eras.

I think Galaxy 1 and 2, Odyssey and 64 are better, but still an excellent game.

While it’s a spin-off, I don’t think it’s shortcomings are forgivable as many of the spinoffs are still quite excellent games - Mario Sunshine was not. Outside of the obvious control issues, Mario games (even the spinoffs) are known as vibrant platforming adventures through a large variety of interesting and fantastic settings and diversity of gameplay - Mario Sunshine didn’t have this. It was bland.

It was the first Mario game was not met with excitement at launch. While being on GameCube contributed to that, it also speaks truth to how the presentation failed to inspire hype.

All in all, I think the game lacked soul. It’s only one of two Mario games I feel I can say that about (the other being New SMB 2 on 3DS).

I never played this game. The ONLY Mario game I've never played actually. At the time, I thought it was some Mario spinoff. I should've known better. If it got remade, I wouldn't be mad. Hell Windwaker got that treatment. This game should. Either that or Mario 64.

It might have been redacted into the mainline but, during development, it was presented as a spin-off by Miyamoto himself. Regardless, it wasn’t their main Mario project during the time of development - they had a “Mario 64-2” project in the works whose concept was based around non-traditional gravitational physics (such as running around a sphere) — that eventually became Super Mario Galaxy.

I still consider it a spin-off myself. Aside from it being the B-project Mario game in its time, it is lacking in the features and soul of the mainline series.

Do I like it?...yes, but I still find it the weakest 3D Mario game.