Super Mario Sunshine 4K Remaster Is Everything We Ever Wanted

Now almost 25 years old, Super Mario Sunshine is the Mario game I remember most fondly from my childhood.

In that time, we’ve had a countless number of new Mario games, but none have really been able to return to the spirit of the original Super Mario Sunshine.

While we may never get an official sequel or remaster from Nintendo, except for an emulated port coming to Nintendo Switch Online in the future, this fan-made overhaul seems to be doing the trick.

Modern Henriko Magnifico has developed a texture pack for Super Mario Sunshine that adds 4K textures into the game, making everything feel a little crisper and more detailed.

This is achieved by injecting the custom textures into Super Mario Sunshine via emulation of a legally obtained copy of the game. Remember that Nintendo released this in 2002, so 4K textures were not a priority back then.

Out of the thousands of textures in Super Mario Sunshine, Magnifico says several hundred of them have been completely re-textured by hand, while others have been AI-upscaled.

These textures have also been scaled to eight times the default resolution, meaning some textures are at a staggering 6832x3480 resolution, which is pretty massive.

Magnifico’s goal with this is to “enhance the original game visuals while staying faithful to the original vision”. In addition to the increased texture quality, the mod also includes a 60FPS patch to make it run smoother, and some new shader presets to introduce features like bloom, depth of field, and ambient occlusion.

As for why you should pick this over the version of Super Mario Sunshine from the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection that came to Nintendo Switch in 2020, Magnifico says that better visuals, Android & iOS support, and widescreen support are what sets it apart from its official predecessor.

You can download the Super Mario Sunshine 4K Texture Pack from Henriko Magnifico’s website now.