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502 Krew RPG Speedrun Marathon Finishes Second Day

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Published: May 3, 2015 5:14 AM

The second day of the 502 Krew Speedrun RPG Marathon is over, with one more to go. It brought with it great runs for Final Fantasy Legend, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy V, Dragon Quest 3, and the second part of Treasure of Rudra. The main goal of the marathon is to gather donations to help send runners to SGDQ 2015 this summer. The asking amount is $800, and as of the end of the second day the goal has been reached with $890.61 raised. Each day we'll be providing a recap of the times, as well as any met goals or major events that occur.

 

The first run of the day was Final Fantasy Legend, run by ShinerCCC. The estimate was 1:30:00, and the end time was 1:38:51.

After a break was Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, run by Arcbliss. The estimate was 2:30:00, and the end time was 2:24:15.

Next came Final Fantasy V, run by Knox. The estimate was 4:40:00, and the end time was 5:10:24, where the run was declared dead.

Up afterward was Dragon Quest 3, run by Countdown. The estimate was 5:00:00, and the end time was 5:06:30, with yet another unfortunate failure.

Finally we got to see the second part of Treasure of Rudra, run by Ramsus88. The estimate was 2:15:00, and the end time was 2:15:14.

The schedule for tomorrow is as follows: The final part of Treasure of Rudra starts at 12:45 AM EST, followed by a break, coming back with Ys Origin at 10:00AM EST. Afterward is Megaman Battle Network 3 at 12:35 PM EST, and then Pokemon Red at 4:55 PM EST. At 7:15 PM a group finale begins featuring a race with the Pokemon trading card game. A full schedule of the marathon can be seen here. Videos of each run can be seen on the marathon's past broadcasts page.

 

I reached out to LeonPowalski, the organizer of the group, and asked him a few questions about the marathon and speedrunning in general.

TechRaptor: First off, can you tell me a bit about yourself?

LeonPowalski: idk what to say here mostly other than that I'm a Canadian Link's Awakening DX runner which you already knew. We've done a few of these marathons in the past and each time has had a different person organizing it so I figured this time would be my turn to step up to do that

TR: What makes speedrunning so appealing for you?

LeonPowalski: I think the core appeal of speedrunning comes from a spot of mostly nostalgia, which is reflected in the huge bulk of speedruns being games over a decade old, often much older than that. Streaming itself makes the hobby more fun as it turns from playing a single player retro game repeatedly to being able to hang out and chat with people (your viewers) while you do it which makes it a really enjoyable way to spend time. Also the act of sitting down and playing a game from start to finish is a really different (and better, imo) experience than a more typical casual playthrough which would get done over the course of days or weeks. This is also what draws me personally in to watch speedruns the most: there's something nice about being able to watch an entire game in the span of a few hours without it being segmented viewings by someone who knows it really well versus a 10+ episode youtube let's play, or something to that effect. 

TR: How did the marathon's runners come together?

LeonPowalski: The 502 group (subcommunity putting on this marathon) are a group of people who came from a different gaming community who got really into speedrunning during AGDQ 2013. Since then a lot of us have started regularly streaming and participating in speedruns and the group has grown a bit pulling in people from beyond the scope of our initial community we came from.

TR: What runs or events are you most looking forward to this year, and what makes them interesting?

LeonPowalski: Marathons in general, I suppose. Marathons are really special and entertaining because they offer, to the viewer, a way for you to be able to watch speedruns of a huge variety and library of games in a non-reset environment which is very different from the normal speedrun viewing experience of a single streamer doing RTA attempts of a single game with a full playthrough being completed maybe 0-4 times per stream session depending on game. Marathons ensure (with a few exceptions of large errors that cause speedrun to not be able to be completed) that you'll be able to see all of the games offered from start to finish without having to sit through lengthy reset sessions.

Marathons I look forward to are the GDQs, and Collective Marathon which is very similar to our own 502 one, however the scope of how many viewers they want to bring in, money raised for runners is much larger than our own (I'm a member of this community as well and will be participating in their marathon at the end of May)
TechRaptor would like to thank Leon for taking the time to answer these questions.

 

There's still another day to go for the marathon, so be sure to check out Twitch.tv/502Marathon and keep an eye open for our recaps at the end of each day.

Have any questions or suggestions for our coverage? Want to talk speedrunning? Let us know in the comments.

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I've been talking about games for as long as I can remember, and now I'm writing about them! Follow me on Twitter @XavierMendel for hilarious(ly… More about Xavier