I liked the atmosphere of SMS. I really liked the whole beach feel, and the level design in general. But! I think it was the height of cheapness to put in invisible graffiti for Blue Coins and Shine Sprites. That’s completely ridiculous, in my opinion.
Sunshine was once described as the best wrestling game on the GC. You spend the game wrestling with weird camera, strange controls and a plot that makes you cringe. The ending cinematic is punishment for beating the game, really.
But I liked the game. Just spending time sliding through paint and getting all goopy is fun. I like how it built on SM64’s star collecting things, where you reply the same level but with slight differences with each sprite. Everything was colourful and beachy. It was nice.
Unlike SEGA with the Sonic Franchise, it seems as though Nintendo really has a knack for keeping what works for Mario in future installments, and cutting out all the fat that no one cared about.
Even in games like Sunshine, with it’s bonus levels that paved the way for a lot of Galaxy, and Mario 2 with it’s handling and throwing of items; Nintendo can see what in these games worked, rather than scraping everything because it wasn’t as well received as they had hoped.
**AllWalker **
Did you play Galaxy?
Unfortunately, no. I’ve barely played any of the games on any system this generation. I’m sitting in a videogame no-man’s-land where I’m too old for my parents to buy me games but too young to have the disposable income to buy my own.
For me, that was the SNES. My parents bought our family a NES, but refused to upgrade. When I finally got a job in high school, I could afford my own game system - the N64 at launch. However, there is a whole swath of SNES games that I never played that I need to download on Wii’s virtual console and play for the first time.
I hear ya. I just made a thread about rolling coins for extra cash. Even though I’m, almost 29, sometimes my parents are goodly enough to get a game for me on a birthday or on X-mass, (if not a game then it’s money… video games or money, you can’t go wrong).
Just reading your post, I got the vibe that you may actually like Galaxy if you hadn’t played it. When you play the same level in Galaxy, you can quite literally take different paths, and see different parts of the stage, or secret areas that you may/or may not have had access to upon your first arrival. If you were to think Sunshine remained a fresh experience because of the different objectives, I would think you would find Galaxy to be even more-so.
But life comes fist, Maybe one day you’ll get a chance to play it. 
Yep, that sums me up pretty much. I love the games that are more open and encourage exploration. Watching the world change around you as you work your way through it is beautiful, when done right. And the Mario series have a beautiful atmosphere - I was swooning when Mario first went 3D on the N64, where there was the early beginnings of this effect.
This time next year I should have a job and some money. Once Wiis get really cheap and I get some cash to my name, I’m going to Mario it up.
Not only that, but it uses a character introduced in SMW (which moves in almost the exact same way), as well as Mario (when you get the star). The gameplay is vastly different, but it’s still Mario.
As far as I know, the use of emulators for games you already own is considered by most to be perfectly legal. The methods for copying the game into the computer are a little more dubious, however.
Oh, and Yoshi’s island is also available for the GBA, and I think the portability makes the gameplay even better.