The best family games like Super Mario Sunshine are Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. Below are 8, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to family costs you.
Filtering to family means the game has to work for a child and an adult at the same table without either of them being bored. That is a much harder design problem than a difficulty slider.
What you get: Something you can put in front of anyone. The best family games make the skill gap not matter rather than pretending it is not there.
What made Super Mario Sunshine worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the family part of that answer, and only the family part.
The direct descendant, with a moveset this deep and a camera that works.
The origin, and the cleanest expression of the moveset.
The best-designed 3D Mario, if you can live with less freedom.
Hub-and-levels platforming where every world is a new idea.
The best indie take on this era of 3D platforming.
The best-feeling modern platformer, and full of one-off gadgets.
For the hosing — Nintendo's other game built on covering things in liquid.
The other GameCube-era 3D mascot platformer, and just as uneven.
Edge. Family games rarely go anywhere uncomfortable, and a few of them are too generous to hold an experienced player for long alone.
Specifically, these are strong answers for Super Mario Sunshine that are not family games, so they are not on this page:
The full list is on games like Super Mario Sunshine — 9 picks, no genre filter.
Super Mario Odyssey. The direct descendant, with a moveset this deep and a camera that works.
No. Super Mario Sunshine released on the Nintendo GameCube, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.
Age ratings cover content but not difficulty or frustration, which is what actually ruins a family session. Five minutes of unedited play footage tells you more than any rating.
With mixed ages, co-operative usually wins. The competitive ones that work are the ones where being in last place is still entertaining.
By hand. Each pick was written for the full Super Mario Sunshine list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is family — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.
Or read the family guide for where to start in the genre generally.