What Mario did on His Summer Vacation

Everyone is aware of Mario, the mustached hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. The globe-trotting, galaxy-exploring, adventurer has helped a lot of people either by saving the princess or simply unclogging a drain. And after so much work, the guy deserves a little R&R. So with the help of his girlfriend, Princess Toadstool (AKA Peach), her steward Toadsworth, and her slaves indentured servants, the toads, Mario charters a private jet to take them to Isle Delfino. Upon arrival, Mario is instantly arrested and incarcerated. Must have forgotten his passport.

Unbeknownst to Mario and Co., before arriving, a doppelgänger of Mario has been wreaking havoc by painting graffiti everywhere with a magic paintbrush created by a mad scientist. That’s a sentence I never thought I would end up writing. The townspeople blamed Mario for this because while normal graffiti is easy enough to clean, albeit annoying, this magic graffiti is a lot tougher and caused their guardians, the shine sprites, to flee causing the island to darken in their absence. Since the residents of Isle Delfino are too busy dancing and lounging around to clean up the graffiti, they decide Mario has to at his sentencing because “Mama Mia” did not his win his defendant case. Luckily though, Mario isn’t alone in his quest to defeat the defacer of private property. No no, his friend’s aren’t helping him, they’re also busy standing around and not doing anything. He’s joined by the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device or F.L.U.D.D. for short. A device that’s basically a sentient hose and backpack combined into one, created by the genius/mad scientist Professor E. Gadd.

Together with FLUDD, Mario must clean up not only Isle Delfino, but all the areas around Isle Delfino including Delfino Plaza, Bianco Hills, Ricco Harbor, Gelato Beach, Pinna Park, Sirena Beach, Noki Bay, and Pianta Village. But since this is a Nintendo Gamecube game they couldn’t make the game open world, hardware limitations and all that, so instead various structures are covered in goop and only arise when Mario cleans them up after a checkpoint is met Once then, Mario can spray a magic M which will teleport him to one of the above locations. Each area is then further separated by eight levels with two hidden levels that are just secret objectives (like collecting 100 coins).

While Mario is busy trying to clean, Peach manages to get kidnapped by Mario’s doppelgänger so although he’s clearly busy, Mario has to go save her because the toads are all useless. He chases his doppelgänger all the way to Pinna Park where it’s revealed that the doppelgänger has been using the magic paintbrush to make himself look like Mario when he’s really been Bowser Jr. the whole time! Son of King Koopa himself! In a shocking twist he reveals he kidnapped Peach because he believes she’s his ‘momma.’ Although Mario beats him, Bowser Jr. escapes to Corona Mountain (wow I just realized that is not a good name for a level right now).

Despite all the witnesses at the park, nobody steps forward to help acquit Mario from his charges so before he can save his girlfriend he has to continue scrubbing every inch of Isle Delfino so that all the Shine Sprites return (or just enough until he beats episode seven of every stage). Speaking of, I have a bone to pick with a certain resident of Isle Delfino.

See, to unlock the second stage, you have to save the Boathouse. Inside are two raccoons who sell Shine Sprites for blue coins and I didn’t question it when I was younger but this is basically trafficking. He captured these living sentient creatures, that are sacred to the island, while they were trying to flee and then turned around trying to sell them for a profit. And for some reason, it falls on Mario to buy all of their freedom! This isn’t his fault at all, if anything the police that arrested Mario should be raiding this place and arresting the spritenappers and then releasing all the captives. Holding them is detrimental to his environment and his home! But whatever.

Eventually Mario goes to Corona Mountain to once again save his girlfriend, where he finds her maxin’ and relaxin’ with Bowser Jr. and his senior counterpart, Bowser. After a perilous brawl with the father-son duo, Mario emerges victorious once again and sends them packing while he and his girlfriend finally get a chance to relax. If you get less than the 120 shine sprites you see a standard ending of the magic paintbrush washing ashore. If you get all 120 you get a picture of the whole cast captioned “Have a relaxing vacation!” And I love love LOVE stuff like that. This was my first console game I ever owned myself and I’ll always cherish it for that.

Metacritic loved this game too and gave it a 92, and I don’t blame them!

I made my first video game YouTube video about this game, watchable here.