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Marathon
Description:
While most people know Mario for his excellent platforming games, many
forget he starred in some equally superb role playing games. While the
gameplay may be slower paced and there might be some unfamiliar
characters, we'll pay homage to these games the only way we know how--
by playing them nonstop for charity!
We'll be playing through four Mario RPG games,
including:
- Super
Mario RPG
- Paper Mario
- Paper
Mario: The Thousand Year Door
- Mario and
Luigi: Superstar Saga
All the money raised will go to the UNICEF,
a charity devoted to fighting world hunger and disease.
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Why
the Mario RPG
games?
First off, everyone knows (and loves) Mario. Second, we had all of the
games available (which is always a good thing-- we're really cheap).
Plus, we needed a break from the breakneck speed of the Sonic Marathon
last month.
What's
the criteria for completion?
For Super
Mario RPG, we consider the game over
once Smithy is defeated.
Paper Mario is finished once Bowser is defeated, and Paper Mario: The
Thousand Year Door is done once the Shadow Queen is beaten.
Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga is completed once Cackletta is beaten.
What
system will
you play the games on?
Super Mario RPG will be played on the Wii as an SNES Virtual Console
game.
Paper
Mario will be played on a
Nintendo 64.
Paper
Mario: The Thousand Year
Door will be played on a Nintendo GameCube.
Mario
and Luigi: Superstar Saga
will be played using a Game Boy Player for the GameCube.
Will
you (play this other game/get 100% completion/do something else not
initially planned?)
Who knows, I guess you'll have to tune in to find out!
I
want to watch, but I'll be away. What
do I do?!
Like last
time,
provided there are no unforeseen
technical issues, we'll be recording the entire Marathon
so you can re-watch
it whenever you'd like!
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Banner
Contest:
Similar
to the Evolution of
Sonic the Hedgehog Marathon, I decided to take some pressure off our
art guy by letting you guys design us a banner. The only
requirements were that the Marathon name was included and it had Mario
on it. Once all of the banners were
received, people voted for their favorite. KARL
won the banner contest, but I've included all the entrants, as
well as the poll
results. Good job, everyone! |
...by
KARL. (27%, 37 votes) |
...by
Speff. (4%, 6 votes) |
...by
Demi (Demi #1 in the Poll) (11%, 15 votes) |
...by
Demi (Demi #2 in the Poll) (5%, 7 votes) |
...by
Kendo-Magna. (15%, 20
votes) |
...by
CompC (12%, 16 votes) |
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Synopsis
of the Marathon:
The Marathon started
noon, Eastern Time on Friday, August 21st, and throughout the next 76 hours and 58
minutes, everybody
involved with the Marathons thus far would make an appearance (Tim,
Jason, Cuban Steve, American Steve and Peter).
In the few hours leading up to the start of the
Marathon,
we played through The Oregon Trail
a few times. It still perplexes me how a character can be perfectly
healthy, then break his leg and later die of typhoid in the span of two
days. Even though the Marathon revolved around the Mario RPG games,
this would not be the last we'd see of the Oregon Trail...
At precisely 12:00 PM, we kicked off the Marathon
by
playing through Super Mario RPG.
I played
through most of this seeing as I was the only person who had played the
game (I actually finished my first playthrough the day before the
Marathon-- how's that for planning ahead?) This game started a few
trends that would last throughout the Marathon, including "Martichello"
(when Cuban Steve forgot the name of a boss and just made one up), me
whistling the incredibly catchy Super
Mario RPG
battle theme constantly, and,
most importantly, the birth of
Neosquid. For the uninitiated, Exor
is one of the main enemies in Super Mario RPG. You can hit his left
eye, his right eye or his mouth (inexplicably called the Neosquid). In
any event, the game was completed in 13
hours and 48 minutes.
Next up was Paper Mario.
After some fun of
blowing into the N64 cartridge (and wondering how one of my files had a
total playtime of nearly 70 hours), we were off. Can't say a whole lot
happened here... although, we did bake a fantastic cake for Gourmet Guy
(the secret ingredients are salt
and dish cleanser).
We completed the game in 15 hours and
11 minutes.
We then passed the controller off to Jason so he
could
play Mario and Luigi: Superstar
Saga.
Since Jason was the only person to ever actually play the
game, he went through it
all by himself. He deserves a lot of credit here, considering it took a
whole 17
hours and 30 minutes
to complete the game.
And then... we moved on to Paper Mario: The Thousand
Year Door.
A game far too long for its own good. Sure, there were a bunch of good
times. Some may remember Cuban Steve's Italian voice overs for the
Pianta Mafia (around
the end of this segment) or tracing
Gonzales and
Neosquid's rise to power in the Glitz Pit.
Others may remember the
time when I felt
like I was going to collapse
midway through the
game (wouldn't you know it, 56 hours
of gaming on 3 hours of sleep
isn't healthy after all).
Everybody else had left, so it was on me to finish the Marathon.
However, there was no way I could've have stayed awake for another 12
or so hours to finish up Paper Mario, so I decided to postpone the
Marathon for a few hours while I slept. Thanks for understanding,
everyone! I'll make sure this doesn't happen again in the future.
So, about 8 hours later, I was
back to finish
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.
That game is far too long for
its own good... Anyway, after getting smited by a ghost on the Excess
Express a few times and a particularly exciting
search for General White,
I finally found myself face to face with the final boss, the Shadow
Queen. Which I lost to. Twice. But hey, she
went down on my
third try, bring the game's
total completion time to a whopping 26
hours and 22 minutes.
But I couldn't end the Marathon just there.
Everyone
wanted an Oregon Trail playthrough.
Who am
I to say no? Since you guys were so great, getting us not only to
$1,500, but to $1,750 as well, I booted up the Oregon Trail once more.
Let's just say that... things didn't go
especially well
for us. I suppose I'm not a very good pioneer, because both of my
expeditions to Oregon resulted in failure. The first time, we lost
everybody (and 2 sets of clothing) at the Green River Crossing. The
second attempt saw our party members die off one by one from various
diseases (why drink water that's obviously dirty anyway?). We were
nearing Oregon by the time I was the only one left alive. Then,
disaster struck-- 35 miles to Oregon,
I got a fever and
died the next day. What luck!
I saved the trail journals from both of our
attempts so
you can read them whenever you wish. Click here
for the first trail journal and here
for the second. |
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Fan
Art:
We received a bit
more fan art this time around. I know this isn't all of it, but it was
all that I had in my inbox. If you have more, shoot me an email.
...by Matthew Yonkaitis (I don't quite
look
like that...).
...by Matthew Yonkaitis (...although this does resemble Jason a bit).
...by Spiral Au (Referencing Jason's difficulty at getting out of my
bathroom).
...by djjomon (Okay, I admit I pronounce "water" oddly).
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then there was all the Wikipedia
vandalizing (I'm not condoning it, but it was all in good fun). It got
so bad that the page was semi-protected by the end of the Marathon.
Below are some exerpts (thanks whiteboydoom and everyone else who sent
these in!): |
...it started small...
...but soon, the phony sequels kept piling up...
...until not even the original Mario RPG series was safe. |
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Conclusion:
We raised $2,030
for UNICEF during the Mario RPG
Marathon, making it our most successful Marathon yet! Our initial goal
was $1,500. We met our
goal with
time to spare,
so we bumped the goal to up to $1,750. Thanks to your continued
generosity, we not only reached
$1,750, but continued on to raise $2,030
for UNICEF!
Throughout those 76 hours and 58 minutes, a total of 9,618 viewers
(from over
60 countries) tuned
in to watch. Thanks for all of your generosity and support!
I'd also like to express my gratitude for
understanding my
decision to postpone the Marathon for a few hours during Paper Mario:
The Thousand Year Door while I slept (56 hours of gaming and 3 hours of
sleep is surprisingly not
a healthy
combination). I was
also flattered that everyone was so concerned for my health and
well-being. Plus, waking up to see that we had met our initial $1,500
goal was a pleasant surprise!
Thanks to everyone out there who helped get the
word out
on Digg, Reddit,
Stumbleupon, or various other social networking sites. I know I say the
same thing at the end of every Marathon, but it's still true-- we
couldn't have been anywhere near as successful without your help. |
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Site by Tim
Troppoli, artwork by Chris
Bo. Everything else is
© their
respective owners.
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