A look into the development of Super Mario Sunshine
The latest report from German website Nintendo-Online looks into the development of Super Mario Sunshine. There are a couple of new tidbits, along with ones that are older but aren’t as widely known.
Here’s what the site shared with us:
– An unused camera behaviour in the game’s code suggests that the developers at least experimented with a multiplayer mode. Although it was dropped for unknown reasons, the early beta multiplayer camera is still functional.
– At Space World 2001, Miyamoto presented the first trailer to journalists. It is famous for showing a very early version of Sunshine. According to a complete video of the presentation, which hasn’t surfaced until now, Miyamoto stated that the material was confidential and was not supposed to be published. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU2-T6evbjQ) This didn’t prevent IGN from sharing a filmed version of that footage.
– Work on Sunshine began around Late 2000/Early 2001, so that the game was in development for only around one and a half years. It heavily suffered from time constraints, which even Miyamoto admitted 2003 in an interview.
– Sunshine was originally planned to feature some kind of train system to connect the various areas.
– At least five worlds were cut from the final game. Their names can still be found in the game’s code.
– Corona Mountain was supposed to be a world like all the others with multiple episodes.
– Sunshine originally run at 60 fps, even the version shown at E3 2002 mere weeks before release was 60 fps. The final game was downgraded to 30 fps for unknown reasons.
