DOLPHIC TOWN (HUB) WALKTHROUGH:

*Note: Dolphic Town is called Delfino Plaza in the US version of Super Mario Sunshine.

*Note: Things like Yoshi and the two extra pump nozzles will open up automatically as you progress through the game. We are actually not sure exactly what triggers the nozzles in Dolphic Town...it seems to be multiple factors. Just keep getting Shines, especially in the earlier levels, and they will eventually open up. Yoshi will become available after you beat Story Four of Pinna Park. Once you have the required Shine(s), a cut-scene will automatically take place when you return to town. Water Mario will take off with whatever item you’re about to unlock, and you just have to chase and spray him as usual. Then you can save and the item he was carrying will be permanently enabled. This note will be repeated elsewhere in the guide to make sure everyone sees it.

The main town is easily the largest, most complex area in Super Mario Sunshine. Counting the ones you get for redeeming Blue Coins, there are a total of forty Shines in Dolphic Town. Many of them won’t become available until you unlock certain items in the city, so I’ll classify each Shine according to what you need to get it.

With Nothing (Available from the very beginning.)

Spray the sand on the far side of the beach until you start hitting something. Keep spraying there until you wash off a Shine symbol. This one may not be available until after you’ve made the Lighthouse appear, but you still won’t need any special nozzles unlocked.

Offshore from the beach is a set of pillars rising out of the water. Use high jumps and your hover to climb each one, until you get the last pillar, which has a green warp pipe. Enter to find a pretty easy obstacle course; it’s just a giant slide and you have to get to the end. Jump as little as possible, and if you do jump, be prepared to steer quite a bit so you can land back on the track. There’s a Shine at the end.

Go into the open door of a building to the left of the Shine Gate. The man there will ask if you want to compete in his contest to break all the crates in a certain time limit. When you do, he’ll give you a Shine.

Go back into the crate building and talk to him again. This time you’ll have to be faster, but once you win you’ll get a second Shine from the guy.

Jump on the boat that goes in and out of the center of the city. Get up on the boat’s roof/awning, and when it passes beneath the arch on the edge of town, do a high jump into the opening above. (There’s a coin in the opening to help you time the jump.) You’ll be warped to a giant Pachinko machine, which is a very popular gambling game in Japan. It’s a red coin hunt: three are in the launch chute, the over five are in the slots. If you fall down even once, you’re dead. Getting all the coins is one of the most frustrating Shine objectives in the game, but there are a few tips that might help. First, try both launching up the chute with the springboard and also using Wall Jumps to get up to the top. Both are good for getting certain coins. Second, notice that if you bounce up and don’t touch the controls at all, Mario will land on a nail right above the center slot. From here it’s fairly easy (although nerve-racking) to jump down to either the bottom-left or bottom-right slots. Use your hover skills and a lot of patience to get the other coins. Reader Chris Lucas suggests this alternate strategy: “I discovered that, if you're standing in the center area where the Shine will appear, it is possible to wall jump [between the back of the machine and the transparent front] up and out of it. Once you're out of it, you can direct where you wall jump to little by little and eventually get to one of the slots you haven't gotten yet. However, if you touch, basically, anything while doing this, you will immediately stop wall jumping and fall to your doom. ‘Anything’ includes the sides of the Pachinko machine, a nail, the side/bottom/top/inside of any slot, etc. Also, I had an odd thing happen to me while doing this. When going for the upper left slot, it would keep pushing me back. I think Nintendo originally placed some kind of failsafe to stop people from doing this, but I only encountered it in that one spot. I then found it was possible to go down and around to the other side in order to get that particular red coin. I hope this helps others and saves them the frustration of attempting to complete this difficult task.” When the Shine appears in the center slot, do a hands-free spring onto one of the nails, then jump over the slot opening and Butt Stomp to get down there. The stomp ensures that you won’t hit one of the slopes and somehow get thrown out...yes, this happened to me once and I almost punched my TV. Despite it being available from the start, you probably don’t want to attempt the Pachinko game until you’ve become very proficient with hover and Wall Jumps.

Swim out to the island with a clogged-up pipe and shoot down the yellow bird for a Shine. It will appear over on those big pillars in the water; rocket jump is the easiest way up there, but if you’re really good with Spin Jumps and the like, you may be able to grab the Shine without any special nozzle.

Look on the left side of town for a man on top of a building. Get up there and talk to him...he’ll throw you in whatever direction you were facing. Now position yourself so that he throws you through the window of the tall nearby building, the one that the boat passes underneath. There’s a Shine waiting inside.

With Rocket Nozzle

Shoot up to the top of the Lighthouse. See that weird looking pad under your feet? You need to break it. Do another rocket jump straight up, and start a huge Butt Stomp at the top of your jump. You’ll come crashing down extra-hard and the pad will break to release a Shine. Rocket up one more time to collect it.

Find a good flat place to aim from near the cave at the back of Dolphic Town. Now look up and spray water at the big Shine statue until it is totally clean. Then move to the side of the Shine Gate next to that lady and her basket, jump and rocket up to the top of the gate, then rocket again in the middle to claim your Shine.

Rocket up to one of the bell towers and spray the giant bell off until it’s totally clean (it takes a while) to make a Shine appear. There are two such towers, with a Shine at each one. For the tower on your left as you come into town, jump down into the sewer and pop up under the tower to collect the Shine. For the right bell tower, just rocket up on top and then again into the air to get the second Shine.

Swim past the big red cannon on the left side of town, keeping along the wall until you see palm trees growing out of the cliff above. Charge up the rocket nozzle, then jump out of the water right before it discharges to land on one of the trees. Make it over to the pipe warp and enter. This red coin hunt is actually fairly easy as long as you don’t run out of water. Just zoom the camera all the way out and you can see through the tall grass easily. Kill every enemy, shoot down the red bird, and find the one underground cave to get all eight red coins. The Shine will appear on top of one of the brown structures.

With Propeller Nozzle

Break through the shutter door of a building on the way to the Ricco Harbor entrance (and the Blue Coin shop). A Shine is just waiting in there for you to claim.

Break through the shutter door to the right of the Shine Gate. Two townspeople are “guarding” the door, so you have to line up really well in order to break through. The resulting obstacle course is pretty easy, just learn to jump right at the end of each platform and you’ll be fine. A Shine waits at the end.

Late in the game, when a new boat appears to take you back to the Airport, talk to the man next to it for a ride. Hit the red switch at the Airport and use the propeller to collect eight red coins within the time limit. If you’ve been practicing with the propeller, it shouldn’t be too hard. You’ll get a Shine for your efforts, of course.

100 Coins - Run around town and pick up some of the easier coins if you feel like it (you won't really need them, but it'll keep you from having to find all the hard ones later). Now go back to the Airport once again and use the propeller to cruise all over the place, collecting coins. There are about 150 out there, so you shouldn't have any problem finding enough. Your coin total from Dolphic Town carries over to the Airport, and consequently, the 100 Coins Shine you get at the Airport will count for Dolphic Town.

With Yoshi

Are you ready for a challenge? Go down into the isolated sewer opening between the Ricco Harbor and Pinna Park entrances. Follow the passage out to the island with a lady and a basket. Eat some fruit off the tree if Yoshi is getting low on juice. When the boat comes around (NOT the one that goes into town...the one that goes to the tower out in the water), carefully jump on the roof and ride it out to the tower. Then carefully jump up onto the tower and wait for the other boat. Eat the banana if Yoshi’s hungry; it’ll regenerate after a few seconds. Now carefully jump onto the second boat and ride it out towards the far island. Here you can spray the yellow crap from the boat if you’re nervous about the final jump to the island. Now suck up your gut and make sure you have plenty of lives for one of the toughest sub-levels in the game. Go down the pipe to find a wavy river filled with red coins. Hop on the lily pad and prepare to steer it with your water spray. If you touch the water, you die. Do your best to get as many red coins as possible, and when you see one floating high above the water, switch to hover, do a high jump into the coin, then hover over to the side of the river. The wall is narrow but safe to walk on. Carefully walk back to the starting point for a fresh lily pad, and try to get the coins you missed. An alternate method is to hover low from one side to the other, picking up coins along the way, but you’ll need to be an expert at hovering to pull this off. When you finally get all the coins (one is above the platform at the end), grab the Shine and be thankful it’s over. Note: if you enter the pipe at the end at any time, you’ll be dumped back in Dolphic Town and will have to start the whole process over again. Not recommended.

Other Things to Do:

Walk around the middle section of the town’s beach. See that red circle flickering in the sand? Do a butt stomp there to find a hidden sewer room with eight gold coins and a 1-up mushroom.

Swim deep in the little harbor towards the back-left corner of town to find a 1-up hidden in the wall at the bottom of the sea.

See our Blue Coin Guide section on how to get all twenty coins in Dolphic Town.