Super Mario Odyssey (NS)

[Son of Bryce]

I think a lot of people are out of their damned minds with the revisionist Sunshine hate stuff (Oh yeah, you really hated on Sunshine back in 2003 or whatever). I think it's really hard to hate on Sunshine because it's still in the top 5 of 3D platformer games of all time. I think it's biggest failure is that 1) it was a followup to Super Mario 64 and 2) It wasn't a GameCube launch title.

Years later... Super Mario Galaxy came along and improved on issues that Sunshine had (mainly camera), but I don't think that makes Sunshine a worse game.

Maybe I'm smoking crack since I haven't replayed it in 10+ years but I don't remember it having bad control, poor graphics, bad level design or anything excessively horrible.

Today my wife started an Odyssey game on Baby Mode. It's great because it doubles your base life up to 6 and up to 9 with the Super Heart. It points arrows everywhere to go. It's hard because games like this already feel like Baby mode sometimes but she has no clue what to do in some obvious places even though there are essentially only 2 buttons in this game. I take for granted how well verse I am in "game language." So far I think Nintendo's done an amazing job appealing to super hardcore and super casual players at the same time. It's something that's easy to take for granted.

[Frogacuda]

Playing it the same day as Odyssey does it no favors I'm sure. But I hated it back then, too, and I liked a lot of middle-of-the-road platformers. Sunshine and Sonic Heroes were the only ones I remember just saying "Fuck this game" when I was 3/4 through because I wasn't having fun.

Anyway, Odyssey is really great. In an effort to save the game for the train I've been forcing myself to stay on the first two small levels this weekend, and I still keep finding stuff and having fun. This game is exactly what Nintendo needed it to be: Something new and exiting for the series that can appeal to new and old fans. Zelda was too, for that matter.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

There’s no revisionist history going on. Sunshine was a disappointment to many people when it launched. I remember posters here shit on the main game, but insisted the post game levels were sublime and what the main game should have been all along.

[James]

Yeah, Sunshine never was a particularly well-received Mario. I will say, though, that I liked it much better the second time I tried it and wouldn't have 100%-ed it otherwise. Once I adjusted my expectations and took it for what it was I had a much better time.

[Drewbacca]

I think a lot of people are out of their damned minds with the revisionist Sunshine hate stuff (Oh yeah, you really hated on Sunshine back in 2003 or whatever). I think it's really hard to hate on Sunshine because it's still in the top 5 of 3D platformer games of all time. I think it's biggest failure is that 1) it was a followup to Super Mario 64 and 2) It wasn't a GameCube launch title.

The way I recall it everyone thought Sunshine was shit back then. Wasn’t enough platform levels and the overall level design wasn’t great for exploring. I didn’t mind the backpack thing as much as others, but people hated that too.

Funny how the same mechanism for spraying is used in Splatoon to rave reviews.

[Bacon McShig]

I stalled out on Sunshine pretty quick when it first came out. Went back to it a number of years later and ended up liking it okay enough to finish it, but I don't think it's any sort of stretch to say it's the worst 3D Mario. Not so much because it's awful or anything, but because every other 3D Mario is really damn good and it's just decent.

Lack of location variety's the main sticking point. I mean, conceptually, good on it for not doing the fire world - ice world - cloud world - etc. thing that every other platformer does, but the solution to that isn't to just do one single theme world for the whole thing.

[icarusfall]

I liked Sunshine. Y'all crazy.

[YellerDog]

'Wa-Hoo Mario' has always sucked. Some of the games are ok despite this.

[kedawa]

Since SMW, I've liked the Galaxy games and Maker, but that's about it.

[Frogacuda]

Since SMW, I've liked the Galaxy games and Maker, but that's about it.

The 3D World games were more or less Galaxy without the motion stuff and with some nostalgia trappings tossed in. That's both good and bad -- it wasn't really fresh enough to get anyone excited, but they still played great and had some great level design (especially World).