If you've been playing Super Mario 3D All-Stars, you may have noticed something strange in Super Mario Sunshine.
The collection of Mario games is delighting players with heavy doses of nostalgia, but it's also raised some questions. First, Nintendo announced that the game would only be available until March for reasons unknown. Second, it was leaked that the games are running on emulators. Finally, the games don't look any different than the originals—which, depending on your point of view, is either a good or a bad thing. None of that, though, has stopped the game from becoming a best-seller.
Unfortunately, it appears that the abovementioned leaked rumors are true and the game is running on emulators. When you play the "Secret of Dirty Lake" level on Super Mario Sunshine you'll run across "debug cubes." As Twitter user @PJiggles_ notes, these cubes are not present in the original GameCube game. They are artifacts from the emulation process that, theoretically, should not be present in the final version of the game for the Switch.
The tweet was not intended to create a campaign against Nintendo but was instead meant to be a point of interest. Of course, their presence presumably speaks to editorial oversight. If that is the case, some people are wondering if Nintendo is justified in selling the games for $59.99. However, those concerns aren't reflected in the sales numbers as the game became the second-best-selling game of 2020 in just four days on Amazon.
Considering that the game hit "Number 2" in sales in just four days, it's hard to argue that Nintendo missed the mark here. It is unfortunate, however, that more care wasn't given to the game. Perhaps it wasn't worth remastering all of the games to run natively on the Switch. Logistical constraints are understandable and can be forgiven. Leaving debugging elements in the emulators feels like something that could have easily been avoided—particularly for the price. Hopefully, a patch fixes the problem.
Regardless of the issues, it's nice to have these games available on the Switch.
Source: Twitter