Bless my 120 stars, Super Mario Sunshine is finally here! With the Internet abuzz with early release rumors, I decided to call my friendly neighborhood Lawson's (where I'd pre-ordered last month) to see if the game was in. Sure enough, it was; the following are my very initial impressions of the final Japanese version of the game.
The game opens with a mix of real-time cinema and FMV depicting Mario, Princess Peach Toadstool, and Grandfather Mushroom onboard an airplane bound for the tropical paradise of Dolphino Island. The characters' voices during these sequences, surprisingly enough, are all in English, with Japanese only in subtitles. Onboard the plane, our trio watches a video preview of the island, and are awestruck by the beautiful sights that await them, to the point of Mario and Grandpa missing a shadowy Mario-shaped character run by in the background. Peach is rightfully distressed, as is made evident by the large glops of paint on the airport runway. Once one of the locals equips Mario with "Flood," his water-squirting backpack, our hero cleans up the mess and is promptly arrested, tried, and convicted by the local officials. Mario's sentence: to not leave the island until he totally cleans it up. With Mario set loose with his backpack in town, Peach is suddenly seized (to much surprise) by Mario's impostor, only to soon get out of harm's way escape into a portal of paint.
The first three stages of the game are those found in the E3 demo version of the game, and have only undergone minor changes needed to set everything in place for the final run. Stay tuned to the Dojo for further impressions and our complete review!
