MFGG - Mario Fan Games Galaxy

Review Information

Game Reviewed	Super Mario Bros: Seeking Sunshine, by Hello
Review Author	VinnyVideo
Created	Nov 30 2009, 2:52 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview

SMB: Seeking Sunshine is one of approximately 1,452 platform games Hello has made over the years. This time, the game is mostly puzzle-based and uses a format Hello hasn't tried in a couple of years. Unfortunately, the game feels like a step back in time - but not in a good way.

Pros	+ Stable engine + Mushroom Houses make more sense now + Frequent save opportunities
Cons	- Nothing new - Most levels contain irritating glitches - Game crashes if you press F2 to restart - OK music, but nothing special, and one song is overused - Later levels, especially the last one, are extremely frustrating

Impressions

Gameplay 6 / 10	It's a Hello platform game that uses - drum roll, please - the Hello Engine 3. This means adequate but unremarkable mechanics, and in this particular incarnation, lots of glitches. The game is based on a familiar Hello premise - collect all the items (in this case, Shine Sprites) to open the door to the level exit. As in SMB: Shine Pursuit and many other games, collecting the Shines requires you to manipulate a bunch of switches that control the [!] Blocks. I'm disappointed Hello hasn't really added anything to new to the Hello Engine in almost two years. I'm also disappointed about the plethora of glitches - for example, in those awful places where you have to use a bouncing shell to keep hitting a switch block (a gimmick Hello hasn't tried in years), if you stand in front of a block while it's off and it turns on, you'll usually get pushed off the bottom of the screen. Also, the last level is profoundly frustrating - it'll take you an easy ten minutes to finish it, but somewhere during that time you'll lose your concentration and fall into one of the countless lava pits. A deeper storyline would've also been nice, and so would have been a few new mini-games. Hello should also use a greater number of level environments - he doesn't have to use the exact same order of level types every time he makes a game.
Graphics 7 / 10	What do I say? It's a Hello game, and he uses recolored Black Squirrel tilesets. Period. Hello despises Super Mario World enemy graphics and always replaces them with custom sprites. While there aren't major graphical problems, there's nothing remotely original in this department, so it's a reach to give a rating this high. Although he has fixed the Hammer Suit after all these years...
Sound 6 / 10	Hello uses the Ogg Vorbis file format - which I feel is the best - and lots of OC Remix arrangements. There isn't a huge range of music, and I didn't recognize some of it (not the Hotel Mario remix or the oft-recycled SMK Wii Bowser's Castle theme, though). As usual, it's OK music, but not in the upper echelon. You won't hear any unusual sound effects, either.
Replay 4 / 10	This isn't a game you're likely to play more than once. Even if you're feeling nostalgic for a Hello collect-the-stuff game, SMB: Shine Pursuit is better. Some levels have alternate exits through keyholes, and finding all those might be fun. However, these only take you to semi-useless Mushroom Houses, which you have to pay to use (still better than the one-shots of old).

Final Words

SMB: Seeking Sunshine is a standard Hello puzzle game, but it has too many glitches and too little originality for me to consider it as anything better than average.

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Comments

	Old Yuanxian Jun 1 2010, 8:20 PM
IT DON'T USES HELLO ENGINE 3. If you're a Hello Fan, you should know the Hello Engine 4 on his website.


	VinnyVideo Jun 13 2010, 1:42 AM
Hello Engine 3 and Hello Engine 4 are pretty much the same thing. There are only small changes in coding and a few incremental changes, like a better map. Also, at the time I wrote the review, HM4 wasn't publicly available.


	Old Yuanxian Jun 15 2010, 3:42 AM
The new powerups & enemies are from the Hello Engine 4. But I think that Hello can add anything to any engine, and professedly, the engine that uses on the game is now unknown.

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