Super Mario Sunshine Level Review - Part 4

[Alolan_Apples]

I am done with my short break with SMS level reviews, so I'm gonna share my opinions on Pinna Park today.

Pinna Park:​

The level starts out with Mario trying to rescue the princess, only to realize the true identity of the culprit and what his intentions were. But then it became more about doing repairs to the park and bringing peace. The bad news is that Peach is gone for the rest of the game, but the good news is that after half the missions are completed, Mario can use Yoshi for the rest of the game if a Yoshi egg is found. Strangely enough, Bowser Jr takes Peach to Corona Mountain for the rest of the game, but he doesn't stay there. He keeps stealing FLUDD, he runs around town with a Yoshi egg and two machine parts, and he runs around in every level after six main missions are completed.

Back when I first played this game, Pinna Park was my favorite level, until I started going for Sirena Beach more. Even so, this was a pretty good level.

Best to worst missions:

• #1 - 100-coin Shine Sprite: Normally when this is one of the better missions, it sounds like I'm not overly fond of the missions. But not this time. I actually liked the missions, but I liked getting this shine sprite even more because you can easily get 100 coins in this level without even going inside the park. Once the flying, hat-stealing, Goomba-wannabe creatures (also known as Swipin' Stus) start appearing on the beaches, you can kill them all to grab coins and spray down the beaches while you're at it. You can rack up 100 coins quite easily.
• #2 - Red Coins of the Pirate Ships: When a red coin mission is listed, it automatically ranks higher than the rest, but it depends on the case. And this one is not an exception. In fact, it's one of my favorites. Some of the red coins require riding the pirate ships, but most involve climbing on grates. I use this mission to explore the park and collect most of the blue coins.
• #3 - The Runaway Ferris Wheel: Pinna Park is one of my favorites for another reason. When you explore most of the level, it gets more interesting. This mission requires climbing a series of fences behind the Ferris Wheel. My only complaint is that you don't get to see the Green Electro-Koopa very often, and you have to kill him in his sleep the first time you meet him. I know he's causing the Ferris Wheel to spin even faster than it should, but I feel bad for this guy even more than I did for Gooper Blooper.
• #4 - The Wilted Sunflowers: At the half-way point, you notice that the sunflowers, which keep the beach all beautiful, have wilted because of these strange turtles on the beach. They were also the reason why Yoshis have not came back to Isle Delfino. The mission itself is okay, but the consequences of it explain why this is better than most missions. If you complete this, Yoshis will return, and you can use Yoshi anytime.
• #5 - The Beach Cannon's Secret: Pinna Park is the second level to have two secret stages. This is one of them. What happens here is that the park is closed due to the cannon being hijacked, used to harm visitors. And this was one mission after the mission with Mecha Bowser. When far away, it launches bullet bills, but as you approach closer, digital-faced bob-ombs are being tossed out, and you want to spray them with water. Once again, FLUDD gets stolen, but this one is an easy mission. It might be challenging for you, but it's easy when you're getting better.
• #6 - Red Coins in the Cannon: Like almost every secret stage, the regular FLUDD-less mission is better than the red coin version. But it's not that bad here either.
• #7 - Mecha-Bowser Appears!: This is the turning point in the entire game's plot. This where Mario, Peach, and FLUDD learns who's really behind the whole pollution. What happened here is that he used the magic brush to disguise himself as Mario to pollute the island and set him up just to kidnap Peach. But as Mario continued to clean the island and fight against the shadow form, the inhabitants are beginning to believe that Mario isn't the culprit behind the pollution anymore, but is still to clean the island if he wants to leave, and of course, save the island.
  Fighting the giant robot was hard for me when I was younger, but the more I played this, the better I have gotten at it.
• #8 - The Yoshi-Go-Round's Secret: Pinna Park had some really good missions, but not all of them are that good. The secret stage in this mission had the easiest access out of all secret levels, but one of the hardest secret stages. The first part isn't that bad, but when it comes to riding the egg blocks, this is when it starts to get worse. And when you get to the last part, the elevating block is tricky. Even though I don't recall a time when I screwed up on this part, but if you screw up, you screw up big time.
• #9 - Roller Coaster Balloons: This is the point where Pinna Park's missions are starting to suck. This one is hard because you have 20 balloons to shoot, three laps to do this, and the ride moves fast in weird directions. And what if you don't get it in time? Answer: another cheap death. They could let you restart there, but I don't know that.
• #10 - Red Coins of the Yoshi-Go-Round: This is not just worse than the original secret stage, but also one of the few red coin counterparts to be really bad compared to the original stage. When you get to the egg blocks, it requires backtracking, and over large gaps. Typically, backtracking is bad for gaming in general, at least mandated backtracking. The more, the worse. This is what Donkey Kong 64 did wrong, and we don't want future games to be like that.
• #11 - Shadow Mario in the Park: You probably guessed that I would put the Shadow Mario mission last. This time, he's not as tricky as usual, but since the missions were pretty good, this one goes last.

Level Rankings:

• Plot - 4 out of 7: Aside to the turning point, Pinna Park is rather more of a "park is in trouble, help" kind of plot. Each different episode focuses on a different ride (or on the beaches).
• Theme - 2 out of 7: Like I said last entry, the middle three levels are better than the rest because of the resort themes. Somehow, an Amusement Park theme is quite nice for a level.
• Music - 2 out of 11; 6 out of 11: The beach music is one of the best. It sounds like a beautiful party music using the marimba. Best fit for the tropical theme. The amusement park music, is okay rather than good.
• Missions - 2 out of 7: This time, I actually liked most of the missions, especially when it comes to working on the rides. Another interesting fact is that it's the only level with a unique entrance to not have a red coin mission as its eighth mission. It's also one of the two levels where most of the missions require going inside some area that you can't get out once in, and one of the two levels that you can see almost anywhere in the background.
• 100 Coins - 1 out of 7: This one is the easiest level to get 100 coins at. Even if not much action is required, you can still generate high scores so quickly.
• Blue Coins - 2 out of 7: Another thing this level did right was the blue coins. Some levels I condemn for hiding blue coins very well (like spraying some random object) rather than making it simpler (like the graffiti cleanup ones). This one hid their blue coins in more reasonable places. The only weakness is getting the caged blue coins since it requires a bullet bill to break them.
• Secret Stages - 5 out of 10 (Cannon) and 7 out of 10 (Yoshi-Go-Round): The Beach Cannon one was kinda easy if the appearing/disappearing tiles don't ruin your experience. But this one is almost like a walk-around thing rather than something with more action. The other, was pretty much ruined by the egg blocks in the middle, and the blocks at the end are too narrow to be just "careful".
• Overall - 3 out of 7: This level made it to my top three favorite levels. It was my favorite level before I went further into Sirena Beach, then my second favorite for a while. Now it's my third favorite.