I had no idea (or had forgotten) that a third game existed!
Really wanted to like the first game as a kid, but the sun thing did hold me back. Liked the idea of playing outside, but in practice I didn't feel like doing it much. And by the time I got a GBA SP, seems like I'd end up leaning over the system in a way that made it hard to get sun, too.
Might be too evil to say it, but I think if I go back to (1 & 2) these days, I might look for some kind of GameShark or whatever code to just keep sun on. <.<