#F.L.U.D.D.

[hannahpetersonart]

F.L.U.D.D. did just as much work as mario and deserves to relax 🍹 don’t ask me how they’re holding that drink because i don’t know either

sticker available here!

[lore-of-the-mushroom-kingdom]

Iggy Koopa In Super Mario Sunshine

Fun fact, the Koopalings are referenced in Super Mario Sunshine, Iggy Koopa makes a cameo in the footage displayed by F.L.U.D.D. It's a little detail I believe we have all seen but didn't pay attention to.

[krissiefox]

Super Mario Sunshine (Gamecube) (Review)

"I'm having Sonic Unleashed flashbacks…"*

Despite my love for the genre of platformer games, I seem to be having a rough time with 3D offerings of the genre as of late…

Super Mario Sunshine is one of the many Mario titles in my collection I was long overdue for sitting down and trying to complete, and finally began to do so when my wife suggested I play it alongside her while we were resting in our Bungalow lodge on a trip a couple years ago. It starts with Mario, along with Princess Peach, Toadsworth, a bunch of other unnamed Toadstool folk, traveling to a resort island named Delfino. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving, a strange imposter of Mario begins causing messes of weird slime and graffiti around the island, and even cursing away the sunshine!

Shortly after meeting a seemingly sentient robotic back-mounted water pump machine named F.L.U.D.D., poor Mario gets blamed by their not very good court system, lacking any hard evidence and sentencing him based on the fact that "he looks kinda like the guy who did it". Mario is then sentenced to clean up all of the pollution and graffiti using F.L.U.D.D.

The water-themed game play gimmicks are a fun idea, but already present one of the difficulties I had with this game - one of the more important functions F.L.U.D.D. can perform is to spray water forward at enemies to stun or defeat them. Unfortunately, the aiming for this system is very awkward, and you have to very lightly press the fire button if you want to be able to shoot water while running, something that also barely worked for me. These awkward controls resulted in me suffering a lot of cheap-feelings hits, being unable to orient both the camera and my aiming in time to stop an approaching enemy. Thankfully, the other special F.L.U.D.D. moves are more reliable - there's a water jet-pack move that lets you briefly hover after jumping, helping with both reaching far platforms and making a precision landing. You also get to eventually unlock a water-blast jump that sends you flying high into the sky. Sadly, while the controls for both these functions are quite responsive, they tie into another big problem I had with the game - the camera and the physics. Every time Mario goes airborne, he always feels kind of awkward and floaty to me, and because of how the normal high jump works, I'd sometimes send Mario back-flipping in the opposite direction I wanted to send him. The camera seems to be a semi-cinematic style, sometimes moving involuntarily while I'm on a moving platform making it really hard to line up my next jump or rocket blast.

The game's world is set up like it was in Super Mario 64 - You have your main Hub world, Delfino Island, with magical portals that you can eventually discover and unlock that send you into other locations. Each of these special locations contain many different missions. Some of the missions I found pretty enjoyable, even with the awkward controls and camera, the environments are lovely to look at and fun to explore. Some missions will send you into what I call "obstacle courses" where Mario gets F.L.U.D.D. taken away and is tasked with navigating platforms over a bottomless pit -meaning that the controls and camera become just that much more of a nightmare. I dreaded every one of these obstacle courses and couldn't wait for them to be over so I could go back to hopping around on solid ground again.

Graphically, the game is delightful. Being one of the Gamecube's launch titles, it did a nice job of showcasing the water motion and shader effects the new console could pull off, which are pretty impressive for a game from 2000, and it still looks really nice to me now. As with any Mario game it is also bright, colorful and full of fun character designs. The music and sound design are great, though the limited voice acting in the game made the cut scenes feel kind of strange and disquieting - characters would often speak to Mario, but Mario would just stare back at them and barely emote at all, making him feel kind of creepy. This is a shame because having gotten to meet Charles Martinet (Mario's voice actor) last year, I find Mario all the more charming as a character because whenever he makes his happy Mario sounds I think of Mr. martinet having himself a good time in his little voice recording booth, and can't help but smile at that.

Outside of wonky controls and a fussy camera, another problem with the game is the usual Nintendo sexism. Not long after starting the game, Peach is once again treated like a trophy object and repeatedly kidnapped, needing rescuing multiple times over. This sort of thing i off-putting when it happens, and makes me glad that they aren't doing this to her in that recent Super Mario movie.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about this game. Much like with Sonic Unleashed, I love the visual presentation, the audio design, and some of the level missions are a lot of fun - while others are a slog to be simply endured. If you have a lot of patience for difficult 3D platforming, you may have a good time, but otherwise I might suggest looking into one of Mario's other game offerings - there's certainly no shortage of them!

*Note: This is another game I decided to just post up my review of even though I haven't finished it, due to continuous frustration and loss of interest.

[starlyfeather]

sunshine!

[pjunicornart]

Do you think Lewis' favorite Mario game is Super Mario Sunshine purely for the F.L.U.D.D.?

Like... he thinks it's a cool invention and therefore wants to build it one day?

Imagine Lewis flying around with the F.L.U.D.D. that would be so cute.

[midnightmoonbeams]

Max D. drew this scary scene featuring... THE F.L.U.D.D.!!!!

October 7th, 2019

Funny how this actually becomes somewhat of a thing in Splatoon 3's story mode, huh?

[saikaberry]

[966] 100 Super Mario Characters Challenge Day 26~30

[egot1stical]

Here’s art of Mr M getting stuck in a tree because, um, fuck you

[mefiman]

Rossa with her weapon, F.L.U.D.D

If you guys can already tell, she modified FLUDD who was given to her by Zio (Uncle) Mario as a pass down gift ^^

[valariemoon]

Only in Mario sunshine man 😭

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: F.L.U.D.D. (Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device)

Debut: Super Mario Sunshine

F.L.U.D.D. was Mario's first ever Platforming Buddy! Unless you count the Lakitu Bros. from 64, but they just operate the camera and don't affect Mario's platforming moveset, so I do not. So really, F.L.U.D.D. is- hold on, I really don't want to write every individual period each time I write its name. I'm just going to leave all the periods at the end of the post and you can put them where they belong yourself, or anywhere else you think is funny. Or you can keep them, I don't mind. Put them on a bagel and tell a friend they're poppy seeds!

FLUDD is a big deal. A landmark for the series in terms of mechanics. Not that these specific mechanics returned, but the concept of a buddy granting Mario some new abilities has become a recurring thing. FLUDD even talks, and is fully voice acted! In a robot voice! Like mine! A cute and silly little robot buddy for Super Mario.

So then... why don't I absolutely LOVE it? I feel like I should! But I'm just not getting that urge to imagine it driving a kart or playing tennis like I do with far less important characters. Does it work so well as a Tool that I have a hard time viewing it as a Character? Let's See!

I think FLUDD's design is honestly kind of perfect. The two massive screws that evoke eyes are really clever, and especially great is that they give it + shaped "pupils"! Aside from that, the nozzle's funnel shape is an extremely funny shape for a mouth, and FLUDD does indeed speak out of there. Excellent head! Though I feel like the excitement fizzles out once you look past the head, because the rest is much more "equipment" than "character". That's fine, this IS a piece of equipment! It just makes it feel less like a character, when I'd like it to have a bit of a balance of both. Maybe if the handles also functioned as little feet that it could walk around on? I don't know. Maybe that would be stupid... but I do love when creature designs are stupid!

FLUDD was made by E. Gadd, but that's all the backstory we get. We never learn why it was just there on the Delfino Airstrip, and that's really weird! The perfect tool to combat the game's main conflict is just there immediately when Mario arrives. It could have been a cool little mystery, but I guess the reality is just that some Pianta ordered it when the Goop Incident happened and got express delivery. Or maybe someone already had it and was just waiting for a calamity like this to happen, to justify the purchase!

I don't need to go over everything FLUDD does, right? I'm not the Super Mario Wiki, it's not my job! I'm here for the Weird. And a weird thing is that FLUDD freaken dies.

During the final boss against Bowser's Hot Tub, FLUDD starts stuttering, as if breaking down. And then in the final cutscene... it Dies! Mario goes to it, it tells him it hopes it was of assistance, and it dies. And Mario is sad, because this was his friend. But then in the very next scene FLUDD is back! Some Toads fixed it and it's fine now. So this ends up having the emotional impact of Mario needing to change the battery on his TV remote.

Even though it's our and Mario's friend, FLUDD is still an object, a product. It's technically not just FLUDD, but A FLUDD, one of many, mass produced. I have to wonder if it actually formed any bond with Mario, or if it was a one-sided friendship. Is it even capable of friendship...?

Whatever the case, the others absolutely consider FLUDD a friend, and well, that's just so sweet. During the credits we get to see some extremely compressed pictures of Mario and friends enjoying their real vacation, and FLUDD is there with them! It's not even on Mario's back anymore, or always WITH Mario, for that matter. Sometimes it's hanging out with Peach and some Toads, sitting there independently. I think it is safe to say FLUDD is a real true friend, and likes to just Hang Out sometimes! Even better, maybe it wasn't originally sentient, but learned how to love over the course of the adventure. Such a wonderful robot thing to do!

As expected, thinking in depth about FLUDD has absolutely endeared me to it. Hooray! It's about time. Well, it's too late for FLUDD to be relevant again, probably. I'm not saying it should be a driver in Mario Kart, but I AM saying there should be a kart based on it, and I'm also saying that this kart should canonically be the FLUDD, now upgraded. This feels like something that should have happened long ago!

This has been a long post, but it is far from all FLUDD has had to discuss! So next time, I will post about FLUDD once more, and its various appearances during the GameCube days and beyond! There is milk involved at some point. Get excited to learn what milk has to do with any of this!

Here are all those periods you were promised! I hope you like them.

....................................................................................................

[hannahpetersonart]

☀️ my shop update is live and all my sunshine stickers are available now!

[lore-of-the-mushroom-kingdom]

F.L.U.D.D. Mario Game References

In the Super Mario Sunshine the F.L.U.D.D. screen displays some text. If you take the text and flip it, it lists off several games.

One is Super Mario Bros. 2, usually when Nintendo references the 2 Mario 2 games they specify one as Super Mario Bros. 2 USA. Due to the lack of USA present in the list it could be referring to Lost Levels. This might mean the suggestion I've seen people make that Lost Levels is not an alternate universe but just a special alternate world Bowser took Peach to could actually be the case. If so that means Blue Bodied Bowser is part of the main universe.

Continuing on the text also mentions Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, I believe this confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that the kart games are indeed canon.

The full list includes Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros 2., Super Mario Bros. 3,Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and Mario Sunshine.

[kc5rings]

Weedy is a F.L.U.D.D. gijinka

[laguzmage]

Tuye canonically has a F.L.U.D.D.

[nintendometro]

F.L.U.D.D 'Super Mario Sunshine' Gamecube