Super Mario Sunshine is presented as a bold but successful follow-up to Super Mario 64, republished to coincide with its arrival in the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack GameCube library. The review argues that Nintendo’s main gamble—giving Mario the FLUDD water jetpack—meaningfully changes the platforming while remaining enjoyable, versatile and well suited to exploration.

Set on the polluted Isle Delfino, the game has Mario wrongly blamed for the mess and tasked with cleaning it up, with Delfino Plaza serving as a busy central hub. The review criticises the story scenes for weak audio mixing and poor voice acting, but praises the returning Mario movement, the varied uses of FLUDD and the original GameCube controller’s analogue triggers; Yoshi is welcomed, though considered less essential to the gameplay.