Super Mario 64 - I'm old enough to remember playing Super Mario 64 on the N64. The vibrant colors and magical world(s) entered through Peach's castle was enthralling back in the late 90's and early 2000's. This game was so polished back then and still holds up now playing it over two decades later. Once in grad school me an buddy got a 30 rack and just speed ran this game enjoying that local play style of spending time that seems elusive these days. I will note, if you never played this (or its been decades), the camera management can almost ruin your good time. Mario is also a little slippery imo. But this gaming history right here.
I had never played the other titles in this game package of 3 and was eager to see them, so I moved on before completing it (I had already done a pretty thorough run on the DS version when that was released). Hopefully I'll find time to come back and grind through to the end (and complete more stars).
Current star count: 58
Super Mario Sunshine - I never played this entry back when it came out. I will admit, its quite strange. I have to agree with many other critics that the cut scenes are so bad and cringey that you almost want to bail on the experience (but they are few and far between). Some of the sprite missions are awful. Mario I found to be a little hard to control even after playing for a while, and the FLUDD mechanic resulted in many of my favorite jumps being removed (long jump, backwards high jump). For someone who is not a fan of the Mario franchise of platformers I would probably skip this....
But: I found the missions with "secret" in the title where you lose the FLUDD and its purely a platforming challenge infuriatingly satisfying. Some of them are tough and kind of ruthless, but I found myself screaming "YESSS!!!" upon completing many of them. They became a fun challenge (so many deaths!).
I did mostly the bare minimum here: 61 sprites
Super Mario Galaxy - What a delight! I loved this one. This title was a major motivation for grabbing this collection of games. Here they have built on everything from the first two games and improved many other aspects as well. I recommend this title wholeheartedly, 'nough said.
Star Count: 87