• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

Is Mario Sunshine more difficult than the others?

Joined
May 11, 2011
Is Mario Sunshine WAY more difficult than the other 3d marios? Or is it just me??

I'm playing through it at the moment, and I am having a rough time indeed! Some of the platforming is just brutal and unforgiving.

I never, ever, found the other 3d marios as difficult as this. 64 is mostly easy, and I can't remember having any trouble with the galaxies, or 3d world/land.

Tbh, only 2 mario games are harder for me - Mario 1 and the lost levels. But, for mario 1, that is because you can't save, so that's a different case completely to Sunshine's difficulty.

The shine sprites on Sunshine just seem like they would be on par with optional/bonus stuff that is really hard. Yet it is compulsary in Sunshine. The shine with the manta rays is just ridiculous, there is far too many of them. Petey Piranahs return I hated too, because the gooey blobs kept getting in my way and harming me. I had a horrible time with the shine sprite up in the cage in Ricco harbour, climbing up to it, because the platforming was intense and so precise and Mario would keep falling, and keep getting knocked down by those weird invisible-like enemies. And the camera kept changing and screwing me over. Then there was the red coins one in Ricco harbour, which was kind of easy, but then you had to jump to the shine sprite on the blooper at the end, with massive risk of dying. No indication of this, and trial and error kept occuring, making me sit through the same cut scenes over and over again. The sandbird is obviously hard. And some of the old school levels are very difficult too.

However... this is the strange part... later shine sprites on levels seem EASIER! Or is that just me? :S

I will be happy to see the back of this game.
 
Yes, yes it is.

The obstacle courses without FLUDD are the worst for me. I'm stuck in every world on those missions, many other missions are difficult too.

I suck at Mario games to begin with but Sunshine is just evil.
 

Mido

Version 1
Joined
Apr 6, 2011
Location
The Turnabout
I find Sunshine is sort of a practice in inconsistency if anything when it comes to difficulty. Some levels are legitimate challenges like The Goopy Inferno, which is one of my favorites due to the old-school platforming. Still, then there are level such as the sand-bird and watermelon missions at Gelato Beach that are more unforgiving. It is ultimately difficult for me to gauge its difficulty to other installments in the 3D Mario portfolio because I only played 64 and this one, missing out on the Galaxy games.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
The Sand Bird level is all kinds of balling the player up and flipping them on their head. I can lose 99 lives to that singular level and never finish it, no joke.
 
Joined
May 11, 2011
I've just beat the game! That's all the main mario platformers beaten now except lost levels.

Mario Sunshine is really weird because the first half of the game was 10 times harder than the second half. Anyone else agree with that?

The last boss was difficult and frustrating, but apart from that, the later shines were easy, while the early shines were extremely difficult. Note that I stopped collecting after 7 shines on each level.
 

Pen

The game is on!
Overall I don't think Sunshine is particularly difficult actually. Sure it's got its hard levels such as the secret one where you ride a lillypad down a stream while collecting 8 red coins for example. But I never have too much problems with the levels in Sunshine. This might have to do with me having grown up with this game, having played it a whole lot, so I can understand what could make the game hard since I used to struggle with it myself when I was a wee lad. But today I find Sunshine to be among the easier Mario games, and it's one of my absolute favourites.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
May 5, 2012
Location
American Wasteland
hmm,I've the played game so many flippin times everything just seems null in difficulty for me
i suppose i can see some of the earlier levels being a bit of a challenge, but im not sure if I'd consider it a hard game
 
Last edited:
Joined
May 11, 2011
My god. Just to compare Sunshine with 64, I fired up 64. I beat it in just a few hours. 100 times easier than Sunshine!
 

MW7

Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
Ohio
I don't think it's super difficult, but I think it's reasonable to call it the hardest 3d Mario since 3d Mario games are generally pretty easy. What I find hard to judge is how difficult the levels where Fludd is taken away are. Is it that they actually are that difficult or are you just conditioned to rely on the Fludd so that it seems more difficult? We can play through other Mario games without a jetpack with no problem, but the moment it is taken away in Sunshine the game gets much harder. Also Super Mario 64 has got to be the easiest game in the series. Other than falling off the sides of race tracks, deaths are really rare. There are some hard stars, but they don't reach the level of other games.
 

Night Owl

~Momentai
Joined
Oct 3, 2011
Location
Skybound Coil Tree, Noctilum
Gender
Owl
The levels without Fludd are hard in part because you get used to hovering with Fludd and don't always use Mario's base platforming skills. The other part of the difficulty is the weird camera angles on those levels making it easy to misjudge the jumps.

I think sunshine is a good amount of difficulty, challenging but not too hard.
Galaxy had stages that were harder than some of the hard ones in sunshine
 

Pen

The game is on!
My god. Just to compare Sunshine with 64, I fired up 64. I beat it in just a few hours. 100 times easier than Sunshine!

I've never seen how quickly I can beat Mario 64 in one sitting, but I've timed myself playing through Sunshine from start to finish and I did that in only 3 hours and 20 minutes. And I'm not at all a speedrunner or anything like that. I think it all boils down to what you're the most used to since I don't think I would be able to beat any of the other Mario games that fast.
 

Brian Frost

JPEG DEATH
Joined
Apr 22, 2014
Location
New York
Gender
Español
There's a level to which Sunshine's sub-optimal controls make it harder from a platforming perspective, but I think simply in execution of 'required' or non-optional levels, it is easier than a few of the older Mario titles. I don't think anything harder has been released since then, barring Mario Maker which is unfair to include.
Level-for-level, the HARDEST level in Sunshine is not, to the best of my memory, as hard as the last bonus level in either of Galaxy 2 or 3D World.
 

MW7

Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
Ohio
Personally I would give that title to Super Mario World
Factoring in being able to fly over virtually every level, I can't argue with that. Also if flying isn't considered, the multiple paths through the overworld would let a player skip virtually anything that's "too hard" for that particular player. On top of that, the hardest levels are all optional and somewhat hidden. Finally once you find the Top Secret Area, you should literally never see the game over screen unless you're too lazy to go back for one-ups and the best items.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom