Mario Sunshine For The First Time (Day 3603 - 10/6/19)

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Stephen and Mallory planned to have brunch with Dan and Lindsey today, but they woke up late since they went to bed late. So, they had lunch at Taco Bell instead. Stephen says that he's never tried anything hotter than the mild sauce before, so he decided to try all of them today. He didn't record it since it wasn't interesting, but mild and hot tasted identical to him. Stephen notes that you notice the spice, but it's not very hot. The Diablo sauce was much hotter compared to the other 3 sauces, but it wasn't that hot in general. He comments that the level of spice of the Diablo sauce was the same as the Costco salsa they were complaing about a few months ago.

Back at home, Mal plays with Sagan using a UFO cat toy with a string attached to it. Sagan really loves the UFO cat toy and refuses to let go of it, while Mal slowly drags him across the floor by using the string attached to the toy.

Later, Stephen talks about how they're recording Super Mario Sunshine today for the next Let's Play. He notes that doing a 100% run of the game is difficult since you have to collect all the blue coins. Stephen says that finding and keeping track of all of the blue coins is difficult, so they need to rely on a player's guide. He recalls that he has a player's guide from Nintendo and Prima Games, but they are both in storage. Stephen says that they didn't have a good place to display the player's guide in their current house, so they put all the player's guides in storage boxes. He notes that you have to store player's guides carefully in a room that doesn't have any natural light so that the color of the spines don't fade over time. Stephen says that he likes to keep the player's guides in good condition since he collects them and some of them are a bit expensive. He mentions that most of the storage boxes contain player's guides, but some of them contain Nintendo Power magazines. Stephen hopes that he will be able to find the Super Mario Sunshine player's guides without much effort. He recalls that all the player's guides were sorted alphabetically before they stored them in boxes, so he just needs to find the player's guides that start with "S".

A bit later, he finds a Prima Games player's guide and a Versus Games player's guide. Stephen thought that he would find the Nintendo player's guide near these 2 versions, but it wasn't there. He then starts to wonder whether or not he even has an official Nintendo player's guide for the game. Stephen notes that Nintendo did stop making player's guides, but that it was definitely after Super Mario Sunshine was released. He says that he also doesn't have any indication in the list of player's guides in his collection that tells him which version he has. Mal then googles what the cover of the Nintendo player's guide looks like. Stephen looks at the image and states that he defintely owns that player's guide. Mal wonders if it might be at his parents' house, but they both remember that they got all of those guides when they moved to their current house. Stephen then talks about how he always bought an official Nintendo player's guide whenever he got a new game. He doesn't remember the 2 player's guides that he found, but he's sure that they'll work just fine. Stephen even points out that both of them state on the cover that all the blue coins locations are shown in the guide. They just needed the guide as a checklist for all the blue coins, so these guides are just what they needed.

Later, they finished recording the first 3 episodes. It's been a while since Stephen played the game, but Mal has never played it before. Stephen says that he played the game at launch and finished it in a week or so. He says that he never completed it 100% and only got 81 shine sprites which is about 2/3 of them. So, this Let's Play will be his first time getting all the shrine sprites.

For dinner, they are having yesterday's leftover pork and a salad. Stephen talks about how the controls of the game weren't hard for him since the muscle memory he had of playing the game as a kid came back once he started playing. On the other hand, Mal had a lot of difficulty with the controls. Stephen says that the overworld of Delfino Plaza is like a playground where players can get used to the controls. But, Mal didn't get a chance to play around with the controls before starting a level, so she was just thrown into it. She tried to play it, but she was really struggling with the controls. Stephen says that the controls are a combination of all the gymnastics from Super Mario 64 and a water jetpack. Stephen has never watched someone play the game for the first time, but he got to tonight from watching Mal play. After the 1st episode, it was clear that Mal was struggling. So, they took a 30 minute interlude to let play around with the controls by jumping around Delfino Plaza. She ended up getting used to the controls and the recording for the next 2 episodes went more smoothly.

After the 1st episode, Mal was really worried about how hard it was. This was when Stephen realized how difficult the game was for a person who was playing it for the first time. So, they decided that there would times in between episodes where Mal will just take a break and practice. Then, he talks about how there are sections of the levels you can skip if you get good enough. For example, there was a cave in the Bianco Hills level where Mal just did a spin jump, a wall kick, and then hovered over the obstacle using the jetpack. Mal says that with Super Mario 64, she had played some of it. But, she has never played Super Mario Sunshine.

Stephen welcomes Kepler onto his lap and talks about how the physics in Super Mario Sunshine are bad. He says that they aren't as good as the physics in Super Mario 64. Stephen doesn't like that Mario doesn't have any gradual acceleration in Super Mario Sunshine. He says that Mario just goes from a speed of 0 to 60 instantly and there's no way to dial him down. Stephen notes that this makes it difficult to tiptoe in the game. He says that the physics in this game are different in way that's completely unfamiliar to anyone that hasn't played it before. Stephen says that other Mario games have a gradual acceleration, but everything in this game is just fast-paced. The player either has to adjust or die trying. He then talks about how they will continue working on it and that it's going to be interesting. Stephen states that it's harder than Super Mario 64, but they'll just see what happens.