The game, harnessing the new graphics capacity of the GameCube, is covered in a dewey haze, making the experience of playing feel like driving through a mudslide with a windshield that won’t defrost. Most of the game takes place inside the Isle of Delfino, where Mario has been ordered by the local government to clean out all the toxic guck, should he ever want to return to his vacation with Princess Peach. Unlike its predecessor, you don’t hop from world to world all that much. Taking place on a tropical island that has been utterly ruined by pollution and an anarchic graffiti monster (who looks like a translucent clone of Mario), Sunshine has almost none of the joys of Mario 64. And, like my experience in the murky waters of our hotel pool, there was a visceral disillusionment about the game. I didn’t own a GameCube, but I’d sprinted to my friend’s house to try Sunshine when it came out earlier that year. I’ll never forget the feeling of a clump of hair drifting across my face as I rose from the water of the disgusting inground pool. The hotel we stayed in was so unsanitary and gross that my mom called Trip Advisor’s customer service and demanded a refund. And though that trip was supposed to be a vacation, to me, it felt like a punishment. Petersburg, Florida, with my parents for spring break. Super Mario Sunshine came out the year I turned 11, the same year I went to St. I thought Nintendo should have left the weird, wet game where it belongs: in 2002. Many call it the worst of the series, others defend it endlessly. In the 18 years since the game’s debut, Sunshine has been met with equal parts derision and controversy. That was intentional on Nintendo’s part, I think. Packaged with it’s better-known counterparts, Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy, this marks the first time in Nintendo history that Sunshine has been made available on anything other than its original 2002 home, the GameCube. Super Mario Sunshine was released on the Switch today as part of Nintendo’s 35th anniversary celebration of Mario’s debut in 1985. Just when it seemed Nintendo had found a winning formula for a 3D Mario series, it went and threw the plumber into a dirty water park, where everything is covered in brown, toxic sludge, and you’re not allowed to leave until you clean it all up with a super-soaker.

For about six years, the game stood on its own, with all its accolades and glory. Unlike Ocarina of Time, Mario 64 never received a direct sequel.

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