The thing that amazes me most about this entire run is that I did not die a single time. I've recorded several runs, and I gave myself an allowance of 5 deaths. However, every other run I recorded broke that limit. My second best run had 7 deaths. I just didn't feel comfortable submitting a run with so many deaths, so I kept trying. Somehow, some way, I didn't die once this time. That's something to be proud of in and of itself.

Work on the run:

This is my first speed run. I started trying for this late last year when I saw that there was no record for 100% completion of Super Mario Sunshine. I decided it was a worthy goal, and I began practicing. Other things came up in my life, so I had to quit for several months. I started trying again this summer. I chose to do a single segment run because I thought that it would be hella cool to watch, and I just have a preference for single segment runs.

One of the biggest challenges was route planning. There are 240 blue coins in the game (every 10 of them earns you a shine), and they are scattered all over the place. You can waste hours wandering around trying to find them all. I had to come up with a route that minimized travel in between them, and that was no easy task. I spent over a week running over everything in my mind, and I even made my own maps of some of the levels. I think the route I came up with is pretty solid. There's probably a few spots that could be improved, though. 100 coin routes were also challenging in their own way, since every episode of each level has drastically different coin locations and numbers of coins.

The biggest run killers were the obstacle courses (I call them "Voids"). Most levels have 2 Voids, and there are 5 in Delfino Plaza. Most of the level Voids must be completed twice: Once without FLUDD, and the second time by getting all 8 red coins. A grand total of 29 shines are earned by completing "Voids". Since they're so hazardous, I get 20 out of the 29 shines in the first half of the run, in order to minimize time lost by failed runs. There are other risky areas, but those pose the greatest threat.

There are a few time saving tricks that I employ frequently. First is the belly slide across a wet surface. It's just so ridiculously fast, and easy to pull off if you have a fairly straight and even stretch of ground. Another is what I call the "backwards dive jump". If it has an official name, then I don't know what it is. In order to do it, you pull the control stick in the opposite direction you're facing and jump - just like you would do if you were back flipping - but then you press B to dive almost instantly. You gain some decent height and serious distance with it. I remember being freaked out about it when I first watched Dragorn's run. The last big time saver is taking the memory card out before I start a game. With no card, all I have to do is mash "A" after collecting shines and blue coins. Otherwise, I'd have to take a moment to navigate the little menu and select "Continue" or else risk accidentally saving and losing a few seconds to that each time. Plus, there's no point in saving a game you only get one crack at anyways, right? I know there are other tricks out there, but when doing a single segment run of this size, one must weigh speed against consistency.

Five-plus hours is a long time to play, and it used to be hell to get through. A few runs were lost because I just gave out during the last hour and a half. But I eventually got used to it. It's amazing what you can adapt to. With a run this long, there is going to be mistakes. But I had to be willing to let the minor ones slide. There's a couple of real stinkers in there (and I will point them out), but I manage to keep a pretty good and consistent level of play throughout.

During my earlier attempts, I would tell myself that the attempt I was playing was "the one". But having that kind of pressure on yourself causes you to mess up more and feel worse about your mistakes. Eventually, I had to stop thinking about that. My goal changed to simply finishing a run no matter how many mistakes I made, and then seeing if I could beat that time with the next run. For a long time, my completion times hovered around the 5:30 mark. When I started this run, it was just another try at beating that time. But when I got to the last hour and a half or so, it started to dawn on me that I was doing better than I'd ever done, and I got enough of an adrenaline surge from that to overcome my fatigue. Luckily, I didn't pressure myself too hard at the end. The time for this run is a little over 5:10. That's a good time. I'm pretty tired of this game, so I don't plan on improving it.

Another note: Since this run was so long, I had to use 2 video tapes (recorded at SP speed). Near the middle, you'll see that I pause the game at Sirena Beach in order to switch out the tapes.

Credits:

• Radix, Nate, and Mike for having an awesome site, and just being who they are.
• Dragorn for his segmented, any % run. I aimed to be pretty much on par with his quality of play throughout my run, and I learned tons of valuable tricks and shortcuts from his videos.
• Sydynski had some cool tricks in the videos he posted in the thread for his segmented run that he's working on.
• Bulbax had some good ideas in his thread that I put to use here.
• Other people (whose names escape me) who posted cool little tricks in various SMS threads.

Individual shine comments:

1) Ugh... these cut scenes. I got so sick of them. They cannot be skipped. Every time I made a significant mistake, it meant I had to sit through about 7 minutes of cut scenes again. If I screwed up during my earlier run attempts, I just started over and thought little of it. But after sitting through these cut scenes dozens of times, I would ask myself if a mistake was worth watching these scenes again. With that in mind, I became a little more forgiving of myself. As for the first star itself, everything basically went as planned.

2) My first blue coin! There's also some comedy after I take out the paint monster and I have a few seconds to spend as I please. Shadow Mario went down without a hitch. Getting the shine from the paint monster in Bianco Hills went pretty smoothly, too.

3) Whenever I can, I try and spray the graffiti that yields blue coins without zooming in. It's a tad quicker, and cooler looking. The wall kicks up the windmill was an awesome stunt I saw in a video that Sydynski posted in his forum topic. The fight with Petey Piranha could've been better, but it wasn't bad.

4) My aim on the first dive jump was slightly off, but it only cost me a couple of seconds. I like this Void. Quick, easy, and cool looking.

5) Another small mistake getting back to the Void for the red coin challenge. I actually get a big kick out of these red coin challenges in the Voids. They're so frantic and it's at times like these where my focus is pure (but that doesn't mean I'm immune to mistakes, lol).

6) Since I have to explore a good chunk of Bianco Hills to get all of the red coins, I grab some blue coins while I'm at it. Oddly, I think this is the first time I've ever missed that last blue coin I try for. Since it would be fairly time consuming to try it again, I put it on hold and just grab the shine.

7) The second fight with Petey Piranha was pretty nutty. After I wake him up, I have a little time to go for a blue coin. I normally go for the one at the end of the river, but since I missed the one on the cliff that I would usually get along with the red coins, I decided to go for it instead. The fight itself can be really annoying. There've been some runs where he kept hurling tornado after tornado. Amazingly, he didn't do that a single time in this fight. But there were still those annoying little paint bubble dudes all over the place. It was crazy, but it could've been worse!

8) Everything with this Void shine went well enough, except for diving into the wall near the end.

9) The red coin challenge went pretty well.

10) Man, I owned Shadow Mario quick. It's very satisfying when that happens.

11) I leave Bianco Hills at this point because I will need Yoshi in order to get 2 of the blue coins left in the level. Yoshi does not appear in this level until you rescue him from Shadow Mario back at Delfino Plaza. After leaving, I grab a blue coin, beat the paint monster, and proceed to collect some blue coins before fighting Gooper Blooper. A few of the coins only appear in this episode of Ricco Harbor, so I get them and any others that happen to be nearby. Gooper Blooper was pretty easy.

12) This shine is pretty fun. I always pick the green blooper because it has the best handling. I remember being very impressed with the shortcut when I saw it in Dragorn's run, and the satisfaction from pulling it off correctly never gets old.

13) I get this shine from doing the blooper race again. Nothing special here.

14) My first 100 coin shine. I put a pretty good amount of planning into the coin route. I also grab several blue coins along the way (as I usually do when going after 100 coin shines). Normally, when I get the coins on the crane, the crane stops in the other position. But the timing was a little different this time, so I ended up under the fencing that I will need to climb on in just a second. Impulsively, I decide to try and jump for it, but I don't make it, so I go the standard route by jumping from the ship's smoke stack. Everything else went normally, and I got the shine.

15) Lord... This is one of the most embarrassing parts of the run. Jumping from the crane and hovering up under the cage is so damn cool, and I lamely screw it up a few times. I probably lost at least a minute messing around.

16) No matter how many times I do this Void, I still die a lot. So I'm kind of cautious in this one, especially when I get to the three green spinning things. Those are scary. Being a little slower and surviving is always faster than being reckless and getting killed, so I'm not ashamed of being careful here.

17) Red coin challenge. Yay.

18) I have a brain fart and accidentally go to episode 4 again. So I exit the level and re-enter. Now THIS is how the trick I tried to do on #15 is supposed to look. I DO NOT trust Chucksters, so I always take a moment to make sure I'm in the right position for them to throw me. Gooper Blooper gets owned again.

19) This shine has ended so many runs. I don't know why, but even after doing it over a hundred times, I still mess up a lot. As you can see I miss a couple of red coins on my first pass. But it actually went pretty well compared to some past runs. In one ill-fated run, I missed the same coins time after time, and died three times in a row. I was so demoralized I didn't try to run the game again for about a week.

20) Shadow Mario lasted a little longer than he normally does, but he still went down fairly easily.

21) I exit Ricco Harbor because Yoshi won't be in episode 8 and I need him to be. Watch my silhouette after I spray the "X" at the docks, lol. I open Gelato Beach and enter the level. I grab a few blue coins on the beach before going into this level's only Void. This is my favorite Void. That's probably because it's the easiest for me.

22) Back to the Void again, only this time for the red coin challenge.

23) Those weird duck things on the mirrors can be a pain to deal with, but this time they didn't give me much trouble.

24) Wiggler's given me a lot of hell on some previous runs, but this is one of the quickest fights I've ever had with him. Also, I think this is the first time I've managed to be precisely at the shine's landing point after beating Wiggler.

25) I like this shine. It's a great chance to calm down a bit for the upcoming Sand Bird.

26) Ah, the Sand Bird, a notorious run killer. Getting all of the red coins and blue coins before making it to the top of the tower in the center is always stressful. Thankfully, nothing went wrong here.

27) I like Racing Il Piantissimo. Since you don't get the shine until he finishes the race, I always take advantage of the extra time to try and grab a blue coin or two. Unfortunately, the blue birds near the flag didn't feel like cooperating with me. Oh well.

28) I leave Gelato Beach for the same reason I left Bianco Hills and Ricco Harbor early. Since I have to head in the general direction of Pinna Park, I go ahead and get the shine from the void behind Gelato's entry. After I get the shine, I'll be warped to the center of Delfino Plaza, and I can go to Pinna Park from there.

29) The fight with Mecha Bowser went better than average with only one missed shot. I also get to watch more cut scenes! Well, actually I take this time for a quick bathroom break, lol.

30) Wrangling the Bullet Bills so they can blow open the boxes with the blue coins in them can get pretty frustrating. Since most of the boxes are out of direct targeting range, I have to wait for a purple, homing one and lure it over to a box. I used to get the 100 coin shine by shooting the stray BB's and collecting their coins. But I'd usually finish one task way before the other, and end up standing around waiting for the BB's to come so I could either lure them to a box or shoot them for coins (whichever task wasn't done). So eventually, I got tired of doing the 100 coin shine here. I think the new way of getting it is faster anyways. For the Void, I basically just copy Dragorn's route. It's a good one!

31) The red coin challenge for this one is a little tougher than at some of the other Voids, in my opinion. The platforms like to disappear when I need them. If I'm too slow to get to the red platforms towards the end, I just have to stand there and wait for them to reappear. Luckily, that didn't happen in this run.

32) The game designers were evil with the placement of some of the blue coins I get while going after the red coins. As you can see, I mess up a couple of times and I have to wait for the ships to get in the position I need them to be in. There are a couple of other sloppy bits, but I get through it.

33) My attempt to take out two of those weird turtle monsters at the same time goes bad. Otherwise, things went fine.

34) I was a tad sloppy with the blue coin collecting. Those blue birds are annoying. I almost ran out of water right before collecting the shine.

35) This is one of the easiest 100 coin shines.

36) Thankfully, Yoshi required a pineapple. I hate it when he needs a coconut. I try to catch blue birds with Yoshi whenever possible. This is one of the Voids that still gives me some trouble, so I'm a little cautious. But I still get through it pretty quickly.

37) Red coin challenge in the Void. I think this is the fastest way to collect the red coins in the section with the orange blocks.

38) Shadow Mario was kinda tough to bring down this time. I swear he has more hit points than normal in this level. After downing him, I get revenge on one of those electric turtle dudes while I wait for the shine to be touchable.

39) The roller coaster balloons are usually rough, but this went very well. It's hard to tell exactly where you're aiming. But I got them in just over 1 lap, which is better than I usually do. Pinna Park is the first level that I clear out in a single pass.

40) Now I spend some time in Delfino Plaza. I love the triple jump to the palm trees next to the weird red coin Void. It's so much faster than blasting up there with the rocket nozzle, which is what I did until I saw the video in Sydynski's topic.

41) After finishing that Void, I'm warped right next to Shadow Mario with the Yoshi egg. It's important that I knock him down next to the bananas, for obvious reasons. Once I have Yoshi, I use him to get the 2 blue coins that are behind those weird orange things that he has to spray with juice. I also nail the two blue birds and open Sirena Beach. Now for the stunt that I practiced more than any other while training for this run. Rather than taking the really long route by jumping from boat to boat, I go to the sewers, and then do a running spin jump. If my aim and momentum are just right, I fly all the way out to that platform in the sea. It's a neat trick. So neat that it muffles the music! I pull it off perfectly and ride the boat over to the island. This river void was one of the toughest in the game, so I practiced it religiously. It paid off, since now I complete it on the first pass about 90% of the time.

42) This Pachinko machine void is strange. The direction and how hard you press the control stick on the big jump into the machine affect where you end up, and it was tough to get the hang of. But once again, religious practice paid off, because now I finish it with good consistency. It used to be a run killer.

43) As long as you don't leave Delfino Plaza, you get to keep your coins even after getting a shine. That means I always have at least 1 coin by now to give the Chuckster who tosses me into the broken window.

44) Shadow Mario drops the turbo nozzle near where I like him to. I equip it and head for the Void that needs the nozzle. This one's pretty fun.

45) Easy as pie.

46) This is another stunt that I'm quite proud of. The fastest way to get to the island with the gold bird is to turbo nozzle over there. Once I activate the shine, I turbo over to the blue coin behind the doors that must be broken down with the nozzle. Now this part is tricky. Without the regular nozzle or the rocket nozzle, it's almost impossible to get on top of that pillar with the shine. But if you do a backwards dive jump from just the right position and pull back on the control stick a little, you'll land nicely on top. Just like this.

47) Shadow Mario wasn't too bad. Once I have the rocket nozzle, I grab the shine on top of the light house. Nothin' to it.

48) Eastern bell tower.

49) Western bell tower.

50) Getting the durians for the lady who wants them is usually a pain. I lose a durian by accidentally kicking it the wrong way and into the water. Since I'm nearby, I always go for the first of two box smashing games and get a shine from that.

51) I take care of banana lady and pineapple lady. I have a bit of trouble with the first pineapple. Then I rocket up to the giant shine gate and clean off the shine.

52) I jet over to the island with the coconut lady. I enter the sewers and grab the blue coin down there on my way back to Ricco Harbor. Now that Yoshi's there, I can get the last shine and the blue coins. The fruit machine sucks. I've wasted a lot of time on past runs thanks to the random fruit. This time, it wasn't too bad. Getting to the shine in the cage went according to plan.

53) After cleaning out Ricco Harbor, I head over to Bianco Hills to finish it up. I get most of the remaining blue coins while getting 100 coins. I had some trouble on those rings of flowers. I then get Yoshi and use him to nab a butterfly and knock down the beehive with the blue coin.

54) Nothing remarkable here. Despite some minor blips, getting the red coins and the leftover blue ones went as usual.

55) Off to Sirena Beach and the horrendous fight with the giant Manta. It certainly could've gone better.

56) On my way to the hotel, I pause the game because the tape was about to run out. I took a 5 minute break, and then put the second tape in and continued. This Void's a notorious run killer because it's tough, and by now I'm usually starting to feel some fatigue. I was a little careful, and this time I wasn't feeling very tired, so I got through it pretty well.

57) Red coin challenge. Nothin' fancy.

58) 100 coin time. I grab a few coins and a couple of blues before entering the hotel. I follow the route you'd normally take for 'Mysterious Hotel Delfino'. I stop to grab a few coins from lights because the coins I get from ghosts have a nasty habit of getting stuck in the walls, and there's only about 102 or 103 coins available without taking any lengthy detours.

59) Nothing remarkable here.

60) Gah... I hate the casino! You can stand there forever and not get the 7 7 7 combo. And what do you get for winning? A tough Void, of course! This Void gives me trouble, so I take my time on it.

61) Oops. I meant to go back and do the last Void again, but I accidentally selected episode 5. So I just get it over with. The fight with King Boo went pretty well.

62) Back to episode 4 and the casino Void for the red coin challenge.

63) Scrubbing Sirena Beach could've gone better. I usually miss a patch that I have to waste some time hunting for.

64) I take down Shadow Mario fairly easily, but I make some stupid mistakes going for the blue coins. I have to make a few attempts to get the blue coin from the triangle graffiti. Also, I completely forgot to get the blue coin from the crate in the pineapple room. Maybe I was feeling some fatigue at this point after all.

65) Yeah, I think so. My brain craps out again during the red coin hunt and I forget where the 8th coin is. I run around in panic for a minute before I remember it's in the room that you get to by going through the poster. I also stupidly pound through the floor in the wrong place. This shine, and the fiasco during shine #15 are what I consider to be the worst mistakes in the entire run.

66) I'm a little sloppy getting up to the waterfall.

67) I always detour and get the blue coin under the waterfall first. I used to get it during the 100 coin shine, but that fish down there has killed me before when I was close to having 100. So I figure if I have to die, it might as well be early in an episode. I get the blue coin with no trouble. I get a few others on the way to Gooper Blooper, and I take him out pretty quickly.

68) Red coins in a bottle. Pretty good.

69) The fight with the eel can get pretty chaotic, and I don't do as well as I like to do during the fight. On top of that, I miss one of the blue coins on the pillars and end up wasting some time looking for it.

70) Il Piantissimo again. Sometimes I get lucky and this boxing glove comes out of the wall during the race and knocks me towards the flag a good distance, but not this time. Since I have a few seconds to spend, I grab a blue coin floating over the water.

71) I spend a long time on episode 6 of Noki Bay. I'm a little sloppy getting up to the gold bird, but otherwise it goes pretty smoothly.

72) Now for 100 coins and all of the remaining blue coins. Getting the coins in all of those little coves can be quite a pain. I make some goofs trying to get to the shine at the end.

73) Getting to the void via the tight ropes is always stressful. Once I was inside, things went pretty well.

74) I accidentally triple jumped over the edge of the platform and I had to take a slightly different route back to the Void than the one I'm used to taking. No big mistakes during the red coin challenge.

75) Shadow Mario was a bit troublesome.

76) A few times, I managed to get all 8 of the red coins out of the fish in one pass. That rarely happens though. This time wasn't bad, although one of those dumb fish got me.

77) It is possible to get up to the entry for Pianta Village without the rocket nozzle. But I was never able to get any good consistency with it, so I always go back for the rocket nozzle. Eventually I realized that I could just warp over there after beating box challenge # 2, which used to be at the end of the run and a bit out of the way.

78) After beating the box challenge, I put on the rocket nozzle and blast up to Pianta Village. I have some trouble with the baby chomps, but this episode rarely goes perfectly, so I don't sweat it. I especially didn't mean to douse the third baby as quickly as I did, lol.

79) I make a tiny mistake that costs a few seconds during the race with Il Piantissimo. Oh well.

80) I get some blue coins on the way to the pond, and then I jump out of the water to create a little clean spot on the ground. From there, I employ one of the coolest and most time saving uses for the backwards dive jump. Once I have FLUDD again, I grab a couple of blue coins that only appear on this episode before getting the shine.

81) Something almost always goes wrong if I release the big chomp right away and try to douse him in front of the hot spring. That's why I pre-place a barrel there before I free him. This way's a little slower than perfectly pulling it off the other way (like Dragorn did in his run), but messing up it ends up costing more time than going the safe way.

82) I collect the coins under the village first, and then I get Yoshi his fruit. The bees give me some hell. Everything else went pretty well.

83) Jumping off the bridge to save time is cool. This Void can get ugly really fast. That doesn't happen this time, and I was able to land every Chuckster toss perfectly. The last throw is the hardest to pull off, but I do it.

84) Watch as I nearly kill myself jumping off the bridge this time. My heart almost stopped. The red coin challenge in this Void is the toughest of them all. There are so many places for something to go wrong and cost you a lot of time, and lives of course. I practiced this one several times, and it paid off.

85) This shine and its blue coins are pretty easy. Although one time, I cleaned them all but somehow one of them got covered in paint again (probably one of those paint bubble creatures), and I ran out of time a moment before I was able to find that one and clean him off again. No such trouble here, thank god.

86) This Shadow Mario was pretty easy.

87) This time I get the other secret shine from this level. No big mistakes.

88) This shine is a run ender. For one big reason, too. The red coin next to the beehive near the very back of the level is DEADLY. I've died so many times getting that one, and I always get the sweats when I have to go for that it. Those bees just love to watch me fall. The blue coin and the red coin underneath the village are also nerve wracking.

89) I head for Gelato Beach in order to finish it off. I get the blue coins that require Yoshi first, and then a couple of others that are out in the ocean. One school of red fish carrying a red coin disappeared several times into the walls of the coral reef. Annoying.

90) One last tussle with Shadow Mario.

91) After beating all of the Shadow Mario's in the different worlds, Delfino Plaza floods and you have to go into Corona Mountain to bring the flooding down. You don't have to beat Bowser, just enter the level. Once the floods go down, you can get on the boat and go to the airstrip, and there's a shine and a blue coin there I must get. Exiting the level is way faster than beating Bowser and sitting through the credits, lol. I go inside and grab the 10 blue coins. I hate the controls on the wooden boats, so I'm very careful. Sorry if this part is too slow to be entertaining, but since I'd made it this far I was determined not to get killed. Once I have all the blue coins, I exit the level. I make a trip through the sewers to get another out of the way blue coin and go back to Gelato Beach. Then it's time for the 100 coin shine. I always get 5 coins from a watermelon incase something goes wrong. I wouldn't make the viewer sit through me getting 10 coins from each of the 3 melons. I'm not that cruel ;). I get pounded by the duck things and I have some trouble getting the blue birds and doing the tightrope walking, but that's normal.

92) More duck trouble, but I get the watermelon over to the hut just fine.

93) I love this shine. =)

94) I get the last blue coin in the sewers and some gold coins for the boat fee. I then travel to the airstrip and get the final blue coin in the game from the block of ice. After that, I get the 8 red coins, a ton of gold coins, and the shine.

95) This is the easiest 100 coin shine in the run. I get to keep all of the coins I grabbed at the airstrip, so I use some of them to pay the fee and I get the last coins I need at the airstrip.

96 - 119) All of that hard work collecting blue coins finally pays off.

120) Now it's time to beat Bowser! There's a slightly faster way of getting across the section with those platforms that have the spikes and the flames, but it's risky. I go the safer, and marginally slower, route. By now, my nerves were shot because I knew that this was going to be the run I submitted. But I had to try hard not to think about that and just get to Bowser. The battle itself was good. I got hit by flames, and I was a tad slower than I usually was during the practice runs. But after over 5 hours of playing without deaths, you can understand me wanting to be careful, can't you? ;) Once I made the final ground pound, I let out a cheer, lol.

Closing:

I think a sub 5 hour run is definitely possible, but it would take someone with a lot more time to devote to a run than I have. The person would also have to have a much higher tolerance for the cut scenes, because those wore out their welcome fast. I do hope someone beats this someday, because that would be awesome to watch. However, I also hope I get to keep this spot for a little while. I hope you enjoyed my run and the comments.