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Marathon
Description:
Since
Christmas is quickly coming up (or, at least it was when I
wrote
this), what better way to celebrate
than to watch a Marathon featuring everybody's favorite elf, Link!
(Yes, I know he's technically a Hylian, but work with me on this...).
We'll be playing
through a whole bunch of games in The Legend of Zelda
series, including...
- The Legend
of Zelda
(NES)
- Zelda II:
The
Adventure of Link (NES)
- The Legend
of Zelda: A
Link to the Past
(SNES)
- The Legend
of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time (N64)
- The Legend
of Zelda:
Majora's Mask (N64)
- The Legend
of Zelda:
The Wind Waker (GC)
- The Legend
of Zelda:
Twilight Princess (GC/Wii)
Plus, we've had the (mis)fortune
of acquiring a Philips CDi!
For those of you who don't know the significance of this, the CDi is
the only non-Nintendo system to feature Legend of Zelda games. As you
can imagine, these games don't quite
measure
up to the standards set by their Nintendo-made counterparts (as
evidenced here).
In any event, we'll also be playing (or trying to play)...
- Link: The
Faces of
Evil (CDi)
- Zelda: The
Wand of
Gamelon (CDi)
- Zelda's
Adventure (CDi)
All the money raised will go to the Free the
Children, a charity that
provides clean water, healthcare, food and education to children in
developing nations!
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Why
Zelda?
Why not? We like Zelda. You (probably) like Zelda. Everybody likes
Zelda. This also gives us a chance to play through and comment on those
Legend of Zelda games for the Philips CDi.
What's
the criteria for completion?
The Legend
of Zelda is over once we've beaten
Ganon. We consider Zelda II done once Link's Shadow is defeated. A Link
to the Past and Ocarina of Time are done once we've beaten Ganon
(again). Majora's Mask is completed once the final form of Majora is
destroyed. Both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are over with once
Ganondorf is beaten.
What
system will
you play the games on?
We'll be playing The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II on both the Zelda
Collector's Disc on the GameCube and the Virtual Console on the Wii.
Ocarina
of Time and Majora's
Mask will be played on their original cartridges and on the Virtual
Console.
Wind
Waker will be played on the
GameCube and we'll have a copy of Twilight Princess for both the Wii
and the GameCube.
Will
you be playing through New Years?
You bet! To the best of my knowledge, this is the first ever trans-decade video
gaming Marathon
to be broadcast live over the internet.
An accomplishment that
just rolls off the tongue. Somebody call the Guinness World Record
people.
I
want to watch, but I'll be away. What
do I do?!
Provided there
are no unforeseen
technical issues, we'll be recording the entire Marathon
so you can re-watch
it whenever you'd like!
What's this I
hear about raffling off a CDi?
We're raffling
off
the
Philips CDi (and 18 games) to donors!
For every $5
donated, you will
receive one
entry in the
raffle. The CDi
works perfectly, is worth approximately $100 and comes with everything
shown below (except the backpack-- that's mine):
(Click for larger image) |
Includes:
- Philips
CDi 220/37
system
- One
remote (with
joystick)
- Power
cables
Games:
- Compton's
Interactive
Encyclopedia (2x)
- Pinball
(2x)
- Paint
School I
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- Palm
Springs Open (2x)
- Video
Speedway (2x)
- Tell
Me Why I
- Power
Hitter
- Escape
from Cybercity
(2x)
- Voyeur
- Top
Gun
- Battleship
(2x)
- Link:
The Faces of Evil
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Banner
Contest:
We
held a contest to design a
banner for the Legend of Zelda Marathon. Once all of the entries were
received, we set a poll up to let you guys vote on your favorite
banner. The top three banners were placed in a random rotation and were
made by Dr. Pain (who
won 27% of the total votes), Smithy
Smitherson (who
received 19% of the total votes) and Hinkles (who
also garnered 19%
of the total, just 1 vote less than Smithy Smitherson).
Usually, I'd include the total number of votes each banner had here
but... well, something happened and the results were lost. I think I
might have
overwritten them with the N64 banner contest results accidentally...
whoops. In any event,
here are all of the entries in the contest:
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...by Dr. Pain.
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...by Smithy
Smitherson.
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...by Hinkles.
(Hinkles #3
in the poll)
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...by Hinkles.
(Hinkles #2
in the poll)
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...by Hinkles.
(Hinkles #1
in the poll)
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...by Drew.
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...by
Papermariofan
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...by Eli
Schumacher.
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...by Tom.
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...by
Anonymous.
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...by
Nintendud.
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Synopsis of the
Marathon:
If anybody remembers the first Pokemon
Marathon, I made a comment
somewhere along the lines of, "You know
guys, I don't think we'll ever
do a Zelda Marathon."
Fast-forward a few months. It's early November and I'm
looking
for Marathon ideas for December. Having decided that the initial idea
of an N64 Marathon (which would eventually become the 64 Hours of the Nintendo 64 Marathon)
would be far
too expensive in terms of the games we needed, we settled on a Legend
of Zelda Marathon. Everybody loves Zelda, right?
The Marathon started at noon, December 30th. Before it
officially began, we occupied our time messing around with the Philips
CDi that I had ordered to showcase some infamously awful Zelda games.
As is to be expected with that wretched console, every single game we
played on it was utter trash. The on-rails shooter, Escape from Cybercity, relied
on superhuman reflexes to
progress and rewarded the player with nothing but cheesy cutscenes. Video Speedway eschewed
background
music in favor of an engine "sound effect" that serenaded the player
with a constant, droning, farting noise. Voyeur was
some sort of
semi-pornographic point-and-click game and Hotel Mario's
embarassingly-bad
cutscenes were matched by its
repetitive and bland gameplay. Lovely.
Noon rolled around and we split into two teams, Team Navi
and
Team Tatl (named for Link's fairies in his N64 games). The first game
on the list was the original Legend
of Zelda on
the NES. I played for Team Navi and
used the version on the Wii's
Virtual Console while Peter played for Team Tatl and used the GameCube
Zelda's Collector's
Disk. While Team Tatl initially pulled ahead, both teams eventually
found themselves lost in Ganon's lair where Team Navi had a chance to
catch up. At the final, climactic battle, Team Navi beat Ganon mere
seconds before Team Tatl, bringing the game's total completion time to 5 hours, 32 minutes.
Zelda
II: The Adventure
of
Link was
up next. Just like the first Zelda, Team Navi
played
via the Virtual Console while Team Tatl used the Collector's Disk. I
suppose this matchup was a tad unfair, seeing as how Peter, playing for
Team Tatl, had actually completed the game before whereas
American
Steve on Team Navi had not. Despite Team Navi putting up a good fight,
Team Tatl ended up defeating Dark Link first with a total completion
time of 7
hours and 40 minutes.
Once Zelda II was
finished, we moved on to The Legend
of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
Peter on Team Tatl played the
Game Boy
Advance version while I played for Team Navi and used the Virtual
Console. It turns out that the Game Boy Advance version runs quite a
bit faster than the Virtual Console version does (though I suppose that
slight advantage is meaningless compared to the fact that it took me at
least an hour to finally defeat the Helmasaur King). This race was
pretty stacked from the start and after about 7 hours and 9 minutes,
Team Tatl had
defeated Ganon and completed the game.
Instead of moving on to the next game on the list, The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time,
we decided to take a break and load up the good 'ole CDi to play a
little bit of Link: The Faces of Evil.
Despite technically
being a
Zelda game, it was not actually made by Nintendo (and it really shows).
Instead, it was created by a Russian-owned company called Animation
Magic. And... well, at least half of that name applies-- there is a
lot of animation in the game.
Bad, bad animation rife with embarrassing dialogue, incomprehensible
plot points and bizarre characters.
The gameplay isn't any better. The game never distinguishes
between background and foreground, a problem that usually
results
in the player unwittingly jumping into a bottomless pit. Holding down
and button 2 causes Link to enter doors AND open the menu screen. The
lamp sucks down absurd amounts of lantern fuel in just a few seconds,
resulting in repeated slogs back to the Morshu's store. Ropes disappear
whenever the player uses them. Enemies appear out of nowhere and once
you kill one there's always another
to take its place. Link takes several seconds to put up his shield to
defend himself. The jumping controls are unbelievably unresponsive and
stiff. This isn't aided at all by the CDi's controller which is very
much like a DVD remote with a joystick. If the controller isn't pointed
directly at
the CDi console, the system will just ignore all of the controller
inputs. If you're too lazy to read all of that, know this: the game is a disaster.
Don't play it. Needless
to say, we never actually beat it and moved on to the next game.
Once we were done torturing ourselves with the CDi, we began
The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time.
Naming our characters "VINCE" and "B. MAYS", we set out on a mighty
quest across the vast land of Hyrule to determine which spokesman was
worthy of the title of "King of Infomercials." Mike, playing for Team
Tatl, played as B. MAYS and soon captured the lead, leaving VINCE on
Team Navi (my team) far behind. This lead would soon become slimmer as
both teams switched players halfway through the game. Jeff substituted
in for Mike on Team Tatl and American Steve took over for Team Navi.
Eventually, Team Navi caught up (as one would hope, considering the
fact that the team name comes directly from this game). Fun fact: We
were about halfway through the Spirit Temple when it became 2010 on the
East Coast-- this Marathon was so long that it spilled over into
another decade!
Eventually,
Team Navi (VINCE) managed to defeat Ganondorf before Team Tatl with a
completion time of 10 hours and 51
minutes. Vince coming out
ahead of the legendary Billy Mays? Something isn't right there-- we've
got to revisit that one day.
The
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was
up next. Now I'm sure a lot of you will disagree with me, but Majora's
Mask is probably my favorite game in the series. Despite it being a bit
shorter than Ocarina of Time,
the atmosphere, emotion and general depth of the gameplay and
sidequests give it more of a lasting appeal than its predecessor. But
hey-- that's just my opinion. So... Jeff played for Team Tatl and I
began to play for Team Navi. Turns out you can defeat the first true
boss encounter, Odolwa (in Woodfall Temple) in a matter of seconds if
you've mastered the quick spin attack (which is a lot easier to do with
a GameCube controller, I'd like to add). After playing through Snowhead
Temple, American Steve took over for me on Team Navi and proceeded to
play through Great Bay Temple. Then his game froze. Considering the odd
nature of saving in Majora's Mask,
he essentially had to start the entire area over again from scratch
losing hours of work. Despite all of this, the lead never shifted away
from Team Navi who eventually defeated Majora, the final boss, in 10 hours and 51 minutes.
That's not a typo! According to the recorded material, the completion
time for Majora's
Mask was the same as Ocarina
of Time!
The
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was
an odd case. We had intended to play it all the way through. There was
just one problem with that, though-- turns out we're all pretty
terrible at Wind Waker!
Besides the fact that it was putting us behind schedule, it just wasn't
much fun watching us get lost and die all the time. So, we put up a
poll asking if we ought to move on to Twilight
Princess
and the vast majority of you agreed it was the best idea. Because the
GameCube and Wii versions of Twilight
Princess were
mirror images of each other (Link is usually left-handed but he's right
handed on the Wii version to accommodate most right-handed players), we
thought it be neat to have the games running side-by-side.
But then, disaster struck.
After hooking up the Wii, we turned the TV on, expecting to begin
playing. However, within seconds of it powering on, it blinked off. The
thing just refused to turn back on. Our 17 year old, 27" CRT
Sony Trinitron, which we had used for every Marathon so far, was soon
pronounced dead. Pay your respects here:
And the worst tragedy of all is that the rest of the
Marathon had to be played on a tiny little 13" CRT...
Why yes, that is my den (and those are Post-Its from Rutgers
University).
So, while we figured out what we were going to do for the
remainder of the Marathon, I hooked up the good old CDi again and
played some Zelda: Wand of Gamelon.
This is essentially the same exact game as Link: The Faces of Evil
except you play as Zelda and the locations and storyline are somewhat
different. It's still a terrible game. Don't play it.
Once we had our fill of another awful CDi game, we pressed
on (with just one screen now) with The
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Peter took
up the controls. After naming Epona "RIP TV" in memory of our recently
deceased television, he was off. Later down the line, the controller
would be passed off to Jason and eventually American Steve (I really
can't say I enjoyed Twilight
Princess too
terribly much). As was the case with Wind
Waker,
between the fatigue and lack of sleep, we just weren't playing the game
very well. Considering the Marathon had already lasted almost 80 hours,
we decided to call it quits (but not before playing a bit of Hotel Mario and
Zelda's Adventure
on the CDi one last time). We ended the Marathon with one final
climactic battle against Ganon in Ocarina
of Time
(who knew you could use bottles to reflect his energy blasts?). Thanks
for tuning in and making this our most successful Marathon to date!
As for what happened to the television, well...
...a few weeks later, after making sure there was no sort of
miraculous recovery, we dropped it off at the local recycling center
(yes, that's me in the screen's reflection). Farewell, TV-- we'll miss
you.
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Schoolhouse
Details:
The $12,219.20
raised
from the Zelda Marathon is going to be used to fund the construction of
a schoolhouse in Ecuador. While I don't have many details quite yet, I
do know that construction takes about 8
to 10 months
and that we'll receive updates twice
a year
(the first one should be coming shortly).
While the following are not pictures of our schoolhouse,
they are examples of other schoolhouses built in Ecuador by Free the
Children-- consider them representative of what ours may look like.
I'm actually
quite
impressed with the size and quality of the
schoolhouse-- it looks well constructed and pretty comfortable inside.
Good job, guys-- this is something we can all be proud of.
And
what use would the school be without some children to go with it?
Agan, just a reminder-- this is not
our school. Ours will be
built in the coming months-- the photos
are merely there to give a representation of what it will likely
ultimately look like.
Free the Children recently sent me this photograph of Ecuadorian
children standing out in front of a schoolhouse. The frame is signed by
various members of Free the Children staff (click the image for more
detail).
I am not sure if this is a photo of our schoolhouse but I will let you
know if I find out any new information!
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Conclusion:
I
remember looking at the Free the Children website in early November and
noticed that they had constructed hundreds of schools for children in
developing nations. While I was initially captivated by the idea of
raising enough money to build a school, one simple fact grounded me
back in reality-- they cost $8,500. Although our last Marathon raised a
respectable $2,000 for UNICEF, that was still thousands away from
funding a school.
Turns out
we had
nothing to worry about.
The initial goal for The Legend of Zelda Marathon was set at $2,000.
Thanks to everyone's generosity and support, we not only met our goal
but exceeded
it by over $10,000,
raising a total of $12,219.20
for Free the Children! That money will be put toward constructing a
school in a developing nation, filling it with books and furniture,
paying for teacher training programs and salaries and providing a
school lunch program.
We played
through The
Legend of Zelda series for nearly 81
hours
straight. During this time,
we received over 300,000 total viewers
(313,298 to be exact). The total time everybody spent watching the
broadcast was 2,656 days and 27
minutes-- that's more than seven
years! Honestly, between the
massive amount of money raised and
the enormous number of viewers, this Marathon surpassed all of our
wildest expectations.
Of course, we could not have been nearly this successful if it wasn't
for all of you who watched, donated and spread the word. First and
foremost, I'd like to thank everyone over at Reddit
who upvoted the posting about the Marathon, getting it not only to the
top of the gaming page, but also letting it break through to the first
page as well (here's
a link to the AMA everyone requested).
I'd also like to thank FriendCodes.com
for advertising
our Marathons since our very first broadcast. Additional thanks go out
to The
Sacred Realm, GameMarathons.com,
Legend Zelda,
Zelda Capital
and all of you
who advertised our Marathon on social networking sites and various
forums. We couldn't have done it without you guys!
So, as you may remember, the Marathon was formatted as a race between
two teams: Team Navi and Team Tatl (named after the fairies in the N64
Zelda games). Who won? Let's take a look...
Team
Navi Completion
Times:
- The Legend of
Zelda:
5:13:34
- Zelda
II: N/A
- A
Link to the Past: N/A
- Ocarina
of Time: 10:31
- Majora's
Mask: 10:13
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Team
Tatl Completion
Times:
- The
Legend of Zelda:
5:13:48
- Zelda II:
7:38:29
- A Link
to the Past: 9:47
- Ocarina
of Time: N/A
- Majora's
Mask: N/A
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Just a brief explanation of the table above-- the two-screened race was
formatted so when one team beat the game, both teams would move on to
the next one. We did not wait for both teams to complete the game. The
"N/A" means that the team did not complete that particular game, as the
other team had finished it first.
You
may notice that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are conspicuously
absent. There's a reason for that! About halfway through Wind Waker, we
realized that there was no way we'd have the time to be able to
complete both Wind Waker and Twilight
Princess. We made a poll and nearly everyone opted to switch over to
Twilight Princess (where we'd have a mirrored race with one team on the
GameCube and one team on the Wii). Well, disaster struck-- one of our televisions died.
Due
to this, we no longer had two screens and could not continue the racing
format. I'll miss that television...
I
just want to thank everyone again for making this fundraiser such a
success and I hope to see you at our next Marathon!
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Site by Tim
Troppoli, artwork by Chris
Bo. Everything else is
© their
respective owners.
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