A great platformer thats fun and worthwhile. It may not be Super Mario 64 but its a great Gamecube title.
Gameplay: The gameplay for the game mainly consists of you hopping around and using the FLUDD to help you manuever through and to defeat all the crap left by the shadow mario. The game starts when Mario decides to take a vacation. Unfortunately, upon arriving, Mario is put in jail for alledgedly littered the entire island he's supposed to be vacationing at. For his sentence, they make him clean up the entire island with a water backpack named FLUDD. This was also made by the weird scientist that made the vacuum for Luigi's Mansion (In case you didn't know.) As you begin your adventure you pretty much go from world to world within the city of the island. This is much like Super Mario 64 except there are less worlds but each world has 8 shines instead of the normal 6. I think that this made it so the levels are better developed, which I found them to be a bit better engineered to fit the platformer fluid rather than the worlds in Super Mario 64 where it was mainly a big open area with mission objectives placed around in the respective location. Instead, each time you go to a world with a certain shine in mind, the game seems to moddify the level so you can specifically complete the task instead of being able to do most of them no matter which one you choosed. I kind of liked this idea of making it a bit more linear for shines, but I wish they would've allowed you to have it so you could do more with it. The game seems to control better than 64, except for the fact that punching was replaced with the FLUDD. I like the FLUDD and all, but I'm not 100% bought on it being part of the Mario world just yet. I kind of wished they would have saved this idea for the Wii, but they probably weren't thinking of that at the time. The real downside I found was that it seemed that too many had to be taken with exchanging them for 10 blue coins instead of adding more worlds with more objectives. I like it how it is, but I would have rather had 2 or 3 more worlds. The other problem is the camera when you're in tight spots or just near a lot of walls. It can really get in the way and make things harder than they should be. But then again, this only happens in tight areas, which means that it only happens once in a while. Overall, there were some things that could have been changed to maybe make it the best mario yet, but that doesn't mean that the game is a s bad as dumb ol' Jeff Gerstmann says it is. 8/10
Graphics and Sounds: The game has some pretty good production values. The graphics, especially the water, are awesome. The graphics mostly stand out when you're playing a minigame without FLUDD. Then, the game seems to change it from an island to some odd minigame area that looks fantastic. The only thing hurting the graphics are some of the building details and some of the lighting. Some things could've been done a little better, but it was made in 2002 so stop whining. The sound is really good. I loved all the sound effects and especially the music. Somehow they managed to make the island music fit in perfectly with the whole Mario theme. The sound effects are also great, and fit in perfectly. However, some of the FLUDD sounds sound a little too cartoony and the voiceovers are only sub par. But whatever, that really doesn't make a difference.
Value: This is a great mario game. I found it really enjoyable. I only wish they'd make more of these other than Mario Kart, Golf, basketball, baseball, etc. If Nintendo made more than just one mario per console, they may draw more people than they'd expect. Also, at only 20 bucks now, this is a great deal for catching some great Mario platforming. Even though, it may not be the best Mario, it's still better than anyy other platformer outside of the series. 9/10
Buy this game! Do it for Mario, Nintendo, and to hopefully end Sony!!!