Super Mario Bros. was the reason I got into video games in the first place. I loved that game more than any man should love a game. Super Mario 2 was great, but it wasn't the same thing as Super Mario 1. Then Super Mario Bros. 3 came along. It had everything I loved about Super Mario 1, 2 and more. The depth of the game was like nothing I ever could have imagined. I played that game until I was so good at it, I could go through the entire game without warping on one life.

When the Super NES launched and I got my hands on Super Mario World, it wasn't long before I turned my nose up at it. Here was a Mario game on what was supposed to be a better, more powerful system. It had much less variety than Mario 3 (Cape and Fireflower only, no Racoon tail, no Tanooki suit, frog suit and for the love of God, no Hammer Bros. suit!) and the secrets were few and a little too direct for my tastes. (Star Road and Secret World...you'd have to be playing the game with your feet in order NOT to find them) Still, given the competition at the time, it was easy for me to look at it this way. Final Fantasy II (IV), Suer Castlevania IV, Actraiser, Contra III and even Legend of the Mystical Ninja had captured more of my attention. I disliked Super Mario World.

Luckily, near the end of the Super NES' life, a little game called Yoshi's Island reminded me how much I liked Mario platformers. It was completely different than the rest of the series. It replaced the secrets with a score based completion extra level opening system, which I found refreshing. At the time though, I felt that there wasn't too much more that cold be done with Mario games.

Then came Super Mario 64. This game exceeded everything I could have possibly imagined at the time. It was revolutionary not only as a Mario game, but as a video game period. It definately changed my view towards Nintendo, and the importance of the Mario series. I played Mario 64 as much as I played Mario 1 and 3. I had one file on my cart at one point when I'm sure I had gotten every coin possible in the game. Only truly, great revolutionary games keep one's attention for so long.

Now we come to Super Mario Sunshine. I enjoyed it, I really did. I liked the throwback to simple platforming but in a 3D space. I liked certain levels. Yet, it didn't have as much variety in environments as Super Mario 64. The camera was still a problem. It had points in the game that when I completed them I said, "Thank God I'll never have to do that again..." (cleaning up all the goo within a certain time...soooo angry). After I saw the ending once, I never did finish collecting all the shines. I just lost interest in it after I felt it had been completed, which was doing just enough to see the credits roll. I'll go back and play the game again someday, after I can't remember how much it frustrated me. It still is a very, very good game. A great game in fact.

The problem is that Super Mario Sunshine is not only the 7th game in a series that has defined video games for the last 20 years, but it is also the follow up to one one the most revolutionary games on all time. The most revolutionary 3D game of all time. There is no way....even with a huge variety in environments, a narrative like Paper Mario, no camera problems and enjoyable tasks 100% of the time.....that this game would have ever surpassed Super Mario 64 in the hearts and minds of gamers. It was always destined to be the one of the lessers of the series, to take it's place with Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World. If Super Mario Sunshine had been Banjo Kazooie 3 or Jak and Daxter, none of these complaints would be given any weight; they would've been written off  so that people could convince other people to share this unique experience. The expectations of the Mario series eradicates this thinking.

Super Mario Sunshine was a bit of a departure from the staples of the series, I feel it's very experimental. Sometimes a departure can be refreshing and pay off, as was the case with Yoshi's Island. But such is the nature of an experiment. It can go either way.

I've been playing Super Mario World on my GBA as of late, and finding that I really enjoy it. In retrospect, it's a really solid game. Really solid games are rare. That's how Super Mario Sunshine will be percieved 10 years from now. Just a really solid, enjoyable game.

With Super Mario Galaxy on the horizon, it's hard to say how that will be percieved. I have my bets on it fitting into the Yoshi's Island category....different, but it works. I can't imagine anything more revolutionary than Super Mario 64 happening to the Mario series. But, I've made that mistake before....