Zach

Super Mario Sunshine is a very challenging game, probably the hardest 3D Mario. That is what made it so satisfying to beat this game because along the way I felt so demotivated to continue. And that is probably the biggest issue with this game: it is very unforgiving. You can spend 5 minutes working your way up a level to progress, and one mis-input or bad jump and you have to do it all over again. I get why a lot of people don't finish this game because it is extremely annoying to beat. However, this aspect is also what makes it so good. Because you know you have to make a jump or you will spend 5 minutes working your way back, it forces you to try as hard as possible and really pushes your abilities. I noticed how by the end of the game I was so dialed in making a simple jump, whereas at the start I would just blow through it expecting to always make it. This game is pretty hard and honestly the unforgiving factor goes a little too far in my opinion, but it still is a fun, satisfying platformer.

This was my first "traditional" Zelda game and I thought it was awesome! The dungeons and side quests were great, just generally very fun game play all throughout. I didn't find traveling amongst the islands too boring because there some stuff to do along the way. The puzzles were clever and satisfying to solve. The platforming was fun and relatively forgiving. Overall just an awesome game and definitely recommend it. It is not perfect, though. **SPOILERS** My biggest problem with this game is there were multiple instances were I could not for the life of me progress and/or had to backtrack a lot. The first was getting the ballad of gales. I was good at avoiding tornado so I only got caught in them like once or twice. How in the world am I supposed to know to look all the way up, and then shoot the guy with a bow 3 times? I had to look up how to get it and progress to mother and child isle. Next was right after when you have find Medli and Makar. I went through the cut scene at the wind temple with the cello player and knew I had to find Makar. Naturally I went to Forrest Haven and searched for nearly an hour until I looked it up. Apparently, no matter what you are supposed to find Medli FIRST and do the earth temple. There was absolutely no indication of this, the game just says to "find the players". The last big progression problem was finding the Ghost Ship chart. As you fill out your map the Map Fish tells about the Ghost ship and how you need the map to find it. Also, the pictograph guy has a picture of it and says you need a map to board it. Other than this, there is literally no indication of how to find the map. Unless I am missing something, you are just expected to explore all 49 islands until you find it, which is absolutely ridiculous. I just looked it up and found the island where it is located. Next, the camera control is pretty bad. I'm not too upset about this because I know that older games all have this problem. But it was still really annoying especially in boss fights were half the time you don't even know what you should be looking at because you're so focused on controlling the camera. Also why the hell do some items just not activate when you press the button. The bow was the worst. You lock on, and are spamming the button and like 3 seconds later it fires. Maybe a skill issue but that was constantly an issue for me.