Normally, there's a short jingle when a Shine Sprite appears, but in the Japanese version the music sometimes won't play when a Shine Sprite appears and won't come back until you restart your console.There are some audio delays in the Japanese version (such as when Shadow Mario appears in Delfino Plaza) that were fixed in the international versions.The international versions have the life meter reappearing in silence.

In the Japanese version, if Mario has lost health and there is a cutscene, then when the HUD reappears, the sound of the life meter depleting is used even though no additional health was obviously lost.

In the Japanese version, only the sound of the normal life meter depleting is used.

When Mario's air depletes in the international versions, there is a trumpet-like chime that plays each time he loses a wedge of health.

A small voice clip of Mario saying 'Whew!' when exiting a Rainbow M is absent in the Japanese version.

In the Japanese version, the level theme still plays.

When racing Il Piantissimo in international versions, a unique music theme plays.

The Japanese version is lacking the short jingle that plays when the Delfino Airstrip returns to its normal state after defeating the boss.

The options menu in the American version was shuffled around a bit in order to make the new option fit, while the European version also adds the language options, and the 'Control Stick' icon was added. The Japanese version doesn't have the option to turn off subtitles, likely because all of the voice acting is in English. The reason that the layout was changed back may have been due to longer phrasing used in French (' Appuyez sur.'), thus the logo was simply redesigned to fit the layout better.

The European title screen keeps the title screen layout the same as the Japanese version, but the logo re-positioned the tree to be on the left side rather than on the right. To accommodate this, the 'PRESS START' text was also somewhat awkwardly moved to fit on-screen. The North American title screen has a bigger logo than the Japanese or European versions. The Japanese title screen has 'Super Mario Sunshine' written in both English and Japanese. At the beginning of the intro cutscene, SUPER MARIO SUNSHINE and Nintendo Presents were switched in international versions.

Super mario sunshine usa vs europe rom