Switch 2's Mario Sunshine May Be Worse Than Switch 1's

Nintendo's trailer for Super Mario Sunshine on Switch 2 was presented entirely in 4:3 aspect ratio. Let that sink in for a second. The game that already got a widescreen, higher-resolution treatment in 2020's Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection appears to be arriving on the GameCube Nintendo Classics app in its original, unenhanced form. If that holds true, Switch 2 owners will be playing a version of Sunshine that's technically inferior to one that Switch 1 owners have had access to for six years.

Nintendo announced that Super Mario Sunshine will join the GameCube Nintendo Classics library on August 13, available to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers on Switch 2. The game originally launched on GameCube in 2002, and its only re-release since then was the 3D All-Stars collection, which bundled it with Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. That collection was pulled from sale in March 2021 after Nintendo made it a limited-time release, because Nintendo loves doing things like that.

3D All-Stars ran Sunshine in widescreen at a higher resolution than the GameCube original. It wasn't a remake or a remaster with new assets, but it cleaned the game up enough to feel like a proper modern way to play it. The GameCube Nintendo Classics app, by contrast, appears to deliver straight emulation of the original disc version. As GamesRadar's Scott McCrae pointed out, the entire trailer was in 4:3, which strongly suggests the 3D All-Stars improvements aren't included.

A strange situation for Nintendo

Previous GameCube additions to the Switch Online library have included resolution bumps, according to Kotaku's Ethan Gach, so there's a chance Sunshine gets some visual polish beyond what the trailer showed. But even if it runs at a sharper native resolution, the lack of widescreen support would still make it a step behind what 3D All-Stars offered. I find it baffling that Nintendo would put out a version of one of its flagship Mario games that looks worse than something already available on the previous console. This is a company that charges £49.99 a year for the Expansion Pack tier, and the GameCube library is exclusive to the £395.99 Switch 2. You'd expect the premium product to at least match what came before.

The catch, of course, is that 3D All-Stars is no longer for sale. Nintendo deliberately made it a limited release, so anyone who didn't buy it during that window has no legal way to play the improved version. That makes the Switch Online release the only current option for newcomers, which makes the apparent downgrade even more frustrating. You're paying for a subscription to access a version of a game that's worse than one Nintendo already made and then chose to stop selling.

Sunshine itself remains one of the more divisive 3D Mario games. Its FLUDD water-spraying mechanic split fans at launch, and some of its later levels are infamously punishing. But the movement system is exceptional, and there's a reason it's developed a cult following over the past two decades. It will bring the GameCube library on Switch Online up to 10 games, with Pokémon Colosseum also confirmed but still lacking a release date.

Nintendo is also adding two unreleased Virtual Boy games to that platform's library on August 4: D-Hopper and Zero Racers, the latter being an F-Zero spin-off that was completed but never shipped due to the Virtual Boy's commercial failure. Those are genuine curiosities for preservation. But the Sunshine situation is harder to celebrate when the version arriving on Nintendo's newest, most expensive hardware looks like it could be worse than what the old hardware already had.