Today began the first day of the 502 RPG Marathon, a speedrun event that, as the name suggests, revolves around RPGs. The first day saw good runs of Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, Lufia II, Treasure of Rudra, and Phoenix Wright with promises of further entertainment tomorrow and the next. For each day we'll be providing a recap of each run's times, goals, and any records or events that occur. The main goal of the event is to gather donations to raise enough money to help bring runners to SGDQ 2015, one of the largest speedrun events in the world that begins on July 26th. The asking amount is $800, and as of the end of the first day they have raised $717.38.
Super Mario RPG was first, being run by 0xwas in the Any% category. The estimate was 3:05:00, with the end time being 2:56:57.
Secret of Mana came next and was run by LeonP in the 1p2c category. The estimate was 2:30:00, and the end time was 2:21:27.
Lufia II was after, run by Trogdor in the Any% Glitchless category. The estimate was 4:30:00 and the end time was 4:18:27.
Treasure of Rudra (Part 1) came after that, run by Zerovii in the Riza's Scenario category. The estimate was 2:15:00 and the run failed close to the end around the 2:24:00 mark when the runner lost a battle and hadn't saved in quite a while. Part 2 will apparently go as scheduled.
Phoenix Wright was the final game of the day, run by Boredeathly in the "beat original story" category. The estimate was 3:00:00 and the end time was 2:50:15.
The schedule for tomorrow is as follows: Final Fantasy Legend begins at 1:45 AM EST, followed by a break starting at 3:20 AM EST, coming back on with Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest at 10:00 AM EST, Final Fantasy V at 12:35 PM EST, Dragon Quest 3 at 5:20 PM EST, and Treasure of Rudra (Part 2) at 10:25 PM EST. A full schedule of the marathon is available through this link.
I talked with one of the runners, Boredeathly (primarily a Tails Adventure speedrunner) and asked a few questions about the marathon's history and future events.
"So the guy that organized it is LeonPowalski, and he was like 'Hey guys, we should do an RPG marathon.' We've done two or three marathons in the past, just small community things, and they were just whoever wanted to play whatever game they had we'd just do it."Boredeathly explains that the name "502" comes from when a popular forum went down with an HTTP 502 error during an older GDQ marathon, which prompted people to donate $5.02 amounts (or similar). Others were curious about the group of people doing it, so they ran with it as a joke.... And so people that are doing the runs, they're all just friends or people in the community that actually took the challenge of learning the game."
LeonPowalski runs The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, and holds the world record for the "Any% (No WW, No OoB)" category. Leon will be playing the same game at SGDQ 2015 this summer for the 100% category, along with other 502 runners ShinerCCC (playing Final Fantasy Legend tomorrow at 1:45 AM) with Super Turrican and Mashystrr (playing Megaman Battle Network 3 on Sunday) with Ducktales.
There's sure to be many more great runs tomorrow and on Sunday, so be sure to check out the 502 marathon channel at Twitch.tv/502Marathon and keep an eye out for recaps at the end of each day here at TechRaptor.
Interested in speedrunning, have a suggestion for us to improve coverage, or just want to give feedback? Let us know in the comments.
