AUS Speedruns Marathon 2024 Recap: Takeaways and Interviews with the Zelda Runners

This post was co-authored by Josh Wittmershaus and Kora Burton.

The Zelda Runners take a trip down under for this year’s AUS Speedrun Marathon, which was held from July 16-21, 2024 in Adelaide, Australia. This year featured a Friday filled with about 12 hours of Zelda titles, including a 100% run of Skyward Sword HD, a unique tower-based race in Breath of the Wild, and a randomizer race in A Link to the Past. Amidst all the running that happened on the stream, our team got a chance of getting exclusive interviews with some of the runners from ASM 2024.

We hope you enjoy our coverage as much as we enjoyed these!

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Skyward Sword HD (100%) by Clubwho

Summary and Reactions

The Skyward Sword HD 100% run done by Clubwho was certainly worth watching for more than just the skills of the runner. This becomes apparent when you realize that this run was played during the marathon’s graveyard section. This means that from around midnight to roughly sunrise, Clubwho and his couch commentary had to entertain themselves in many ways.

When you must keep the blood flowing for an estimated nine-hour run, you do so in any way possible. For example, any strat (a speedrunner shorthand for strategy) that Clubwho absolutely nailed, he and the entire couch popped-off loudly, which is certainly enough to keep anybody awake. They’re also the reason why I’ll never quite hear somebody scream “Lumpy Pumpkin!” differently ever again.

Near the halfway point, the new side task they gave themselves to keep their eyes open was making a tier list of bad animated shows. Clubwho at one point goes to the restroom, so he gave the controller to the one person on his couch who hadn’t played Skyward Sword before. During the run, Clubwho also decided to donate his strat pages to the marathon, with each page signed by himself. Then, for whatever reason, the category title on the stream layout changed to “100% Just Gaming with Extra Gaming” because that’s how much this run changed.

The run itself wasn’t at all boring either, because it was most certainly anything but tedious. Clubwho nailed some solid death warps, absolutely destroyed the Pumpkin Pull mini-game, and more. Then during the last portion of his run, he talks about how one of the people on the couch, syo, was the one who got him into speedrunning, which ultimately led him to running Skyward Sword HD.

As for the finish to Clubwho’s run, while he didn’t defeat Demise on the first attempt, he still managed to complete the run with a time of 8h 52m 09s 007ms. That is roughly 30 minutes off of Clubwho’s current PB (Personal Best) for this category, which has him third on the leaderboard with an 8h 22m 31s 150ms run.

Overall, Clubwho’s 100% run of Skyward Sword HD was a solid run that had some highly entertaining moments from the person running, as well as the people supporting him the entire way.

Interview with ClubWho

Grovyle got a chance to get some answers out of Clubwho not only about speedrunning through the marathon’s graveyard section, but also advice on getting started with a Skyward Sword run.

You and your couch commentary team’s energy was surreal at times considering you had a near-nine hour graveyard shift to work through for the marathon. Where do you think that energy came from?

Clubwho: It really comes from being really good friends with the couch and having really good chemistry with them. Syo and I would often do runs with each other to keep us both entertained (he runs FF games) with a few other people in a call that we dubbed the Sunday Service. Then being silly and goofing around just happens when we’re together. Syo and Chokkochi did the graveyard the night before so they were more acclimatized which helped. Jymmy and I have been best mates for a while too and he’s really supported me through this endeavor!

Having a more relaxed nature about the run is also important, when you do a marathon run the chances that you get a PB or something is extremely slim so instead of sweating and trying to make the best time, just do your best, have fun and make a bit of a show about it. But again, I can’t give the couch enough credit, I love them so much and without them the run would’ve just been a documentary of man’s descent into insanity.

Are you interested in running any other Zelda games besides Skyward Sword?

Clubwho: Zelda is my favourite game series so I’m constantly thinking about it. I’m tempted to learn Skyward Sword on the Wii since it’s pretty different to HD but I’m also looking to just play a lot of other games casually with my limited time since the past few months have been work, AusSpeedruns, work and Skyward Sword runs.

Near the end of your run, you mention how you got into speedrunning. Is there any advice you would give to those trying to get into Skyward Sword speedrunning? Do you have any advice for someone who is looking to start speedrunning in general?

Clubwho: I actually am planning on writing some form of blog post about this soon since I normally do sub one-hour games so to jump to an eight-plus hour one was crazy. For Skyward Sword, motion controls are hard, and practice makes it less hard. For speedrunning in general, it’s all about two things, having a goal and starting. I have wanted to speedrun Skyward Sword HD since it came out (and subconsciously since 2016 when I watched the SGDQ 2014 run and started speedrunning in general). After being a part of ASM for a few years and being so thankful for the graveyard runners I decided that it was my time to help out.

The hardest part, though, is starting, actually just sitting down and just doing a run. So I summed up all of my courage, blocked out every Sunday I could, got up early so I could walk the dog and be done with my run before dinner, and just started. I practiced once by splitting the run over a week and just following the WR (World Record) run at the time bit by bit. My first RTA (Real-Time Attack) run took 10 hours and 14 minutes. Also having a helpful community is so important, without 64bit_link helping me out I wouldn’t have been able to do the runs at all and would get much more frustrated, can’t shout out the man enough.

What was the most memorable moment of this marathon for you? How about during your run?

Clubwho: For the marathon itself? The Five-Minute Game showcase, due to the fact that the event went off without a major technical glitch (I am one of the heads of tech for the marathon), Syo defeating Necron blindfolded in the Final Fantasy IX run, raising $30k for cancer researchers, the Futurama run, the end of the Call of Duty run, and that everyone came out of the event having a really good time.

As for my run? The fact that I finished it at all. It went under estimate, had such an amazing couch, got vine clip second try, discovered new tech, got Lopsa roll even though I didn’t know that was a thing until after the run, had a really fun mine cart segment, and last but honestly most importantly… THE LUMPY PUMPKKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

Breath of the Wild (Traveller’s Challenge) by Aeonfrodo

Summary and Reactions

After the Skyward Sword run, veteran AUS speedrunner Aeonfrodo showcased a unique way to speedrun Breath of the Wild. This run did not focus on completing the main story, defeating Ganon, or completing every shrine; rather, the task-at-hand was reminiscent of a true race, where someone could “prep” as much as possible and use what they’ve gained to their disposal, whether it be an increased stamina wheel, food that makes you faster, or even the Master Cycle Zero.

The goal was simple: to touch every single Sheikah Tower in as little time as possible without the use of major glitches. This means that mechanics like “whistle sprinting” are acceptable, as well as anything that can be gained during the game, such as clothing,

Aeonfrodo starts by eating some food that increases movement before jumping off the first tower and starting the run. They mention that they’re working in a NG+ file so that they have access to all the Champion’s abilities – most notably, Revali’s Gale, which helps them scale vertical terrain to reach towers as quickly as possible. While the Master Cycle Zero adds a significant speed boost, it doesn’t come without its hazards and strategies, such as needing to resummon it after running into something, being mindful of the fuel levels of the bike, or using it to jump over any hurdle that’s encountered.

Brought up several times throughout the run is the potential for rain in the game, and how the randomness of it can play a huge role in one’s final time. Aeonfrodo notes that, in situations where rain might keep them from climbing a large surface, taking stamina-replenishing food is acceptable.

One strategy that I was surprised to see used was “voiding out” at the Woodland Tower in the Military Training Camp. This was a time-saving technique to place them back on a platform closer to their next destination.

Initially, I thought that this would be a pretty carefree run. However, I was quickly reminded of the Sheikah Towers in Hyrule Field, which are swarming with Guardian Stalkers. Aeonfrodo’s ability to time the firing of the Guardians and dodge them were quite impressive – even when they ran into a small brick wall and got blasted, they were able to quickly recover and summon the Master Cycle Zero without losing significant time.

I found the Traveller’s Challenge for Breath of the Wild to be a delightful and intriguing run, and enjoyed some of the mechanics and strategies that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

A Link to the Past (Master Sword NMG) by Sten

Summary and Reactions

AusSpeedruns Director Sten has brought his extensive experience as a speedrunner, with some impressive records in Super Mario World, to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. In what felt like an almost casual run of the vanilla version of the game, this Saturday morning segment both showed off Sten’s impressive skills and provided an enjoyable combination of chill but knowledgeable commentary, tips, and banter from the runner and commentators Kenorah and vichisuki.

The Master Sword (No Major Glitches) run requires the player to speed through the three Light World Palaces – Eastern Palace, Desert Palace, and the Tower of Hera – grabbing the requisite pendants before they can grab the Master Sword and end the run. Sten noted during gameplay that because no major glitches are allowed, the palaces have to be done in order. That said, as the commentators wryly noted, the official ruleset for No Major Glitches allows quite a few techniques, including saving and quitting to cut down on overworld movement time. Definitely check out the run to see which of these more “minor” (although no less impressive!) techniques Sten used!

As you might expect, timing for this run is straightforward: time begins on file select and ends once the runner collects the Master Sword. With 30 minutes allotted for the run, Sten finished in a breezy 24m 55s, ending a chill but enlightening segment to tune in for on the penultimate day of the marathon.

Interview with Sten

Moogle was able to contact Sten and got some responses about run preference, randomizers, and more!

You ran Master Sword Restricted, which meant no major glitches were employed. Do you enjoy low glitched/glitchless runs more? Was there a particular motivation behind showcasing this category versus another?

Sten: Generally I prefer runs with some glitches, but where you still get to play the game somewhat as intended. I think Master Sword NMG and Any% NMG strike a good balance here, whereas something like Any% Major Glitches is just less interesting to me as a run. Similarly when I was running Super Mario World, 96 Exit was easily my favourite category because it’s a nice balance of optimizing gameplay and cool glitches. The main reason behind running Master Sword at ASM was purely the length of the category – we’d run ahead in the middle of the Zelda block and needed a run to fill time, and Master Sword was the length we needed. It also happened that I’d raced it in the practice room earlier in the week, so it was front of mind at the time. I think overall randomizers probably help with speedrunning, as playing them generally increases your knowledge of the game, and your ability to adapt to different situations.

You made a comment several times in the run not to grab a chest because it wasn’t a randomizer. Do you feel doing randomizers frequently helps or harms speedrun practices and live performances, especially with its impact on muscle memory?

Sten: I learned NMG after having played rando for a while, and a lot of the skills translated over. It can be hard switching off the muscle memory to go to and open every chest though. This is also a problem even within rando – I’ve recently picked up crosskeys and going between entrance and non-entrance rando I have to stop myself from just entering every entrance I see.

Most people do Any% runs or something like All Dungeons, which sees most of the game or at least the end. What do you think the merit is behind categories that don’t reach the end of the game, sort of stopping part way through? Why do you think people commit to them over other categories?

Sten: I think the nice thing about partial game categories is their length – with Any% NMG being about an hour and a half, having something shorter to run when you’re low on time is quite nice. It’s also nice to optimise a small section of the game and to be able to take that to full-game runs.

A Link to the Past (Randomizer) by Sten and vichisuki

Summary and Reactions

Following the Master Sword run, Sten was joined by vichisuki for a head-to-head race of the A Link to the Past randomizer. This run brought more tense energy than the previous segment, with the runners completely locked in and unable to hear each other or commentators ins0mnia and Kenorah (with the exception of some technical issues with vichisuki’s audio setup). Donation incentives were run on both file names and player sprites, which are highly customizable in the randomizer, resulting in Sten playing under file name “Stephen” for $70 AUD and running around the map as B1, an anthropomorphic banana from the Australian children’s television series Bananas in Pyjamas, for an uncontested $40 AUD. Meanwhile, for $10 AUD, vichisuki played under the cleverly cast file name “WINNER POV,” and sped along as Ema Skye of Ace Attorney fame, beating out the sprite choice of Breath of the Wild’s Zelda by just one dollar at $51 AUD.

The nature of a randomizer race like this is that it can truly be anyone’s game with the right knowledge and resourcefulness. Each seed of the A Link to the Past randomizer shuffles up all the items in chests and quest lines, along with the Light World Pendants and required Dark World Crystals needed to defeat the game, in a different way. From the beginning, it felt difficult to tell who was in the lead, with vichisuki starting out in Link’s House, and Sten beginning in the Sanctuary.

Ins0mnia and Kenorah did a great job in this run of providing metacommentary and explaining the strategy required for success, such as allowed glitches, gathering certain items to pass crucial “checks” along the route, the importance of getting Dark World access early, and the time drain that happens the longer a player goes without finding the Pegasus Boots. While vichisuki focused on systematically clearing dungeons, making use of her sword found early on, Sten strategically nibbled at sections of the route, making incredible progress while holding out for his own sword until 41 minutes into the race.

It’s worth noting that this wasn’t the only race between Sten and vichisuki during the marathon, as three days earlier, they faced off during the Five Minute Games Showcase, starting things off with an ultra-fast run of A Link to the Past while engaging in out-of-bounds shenanigans to get to the end of the game in less than five minutes (including mashing through all that text at the beginning of the game!). Both players achieved this goal, with vichisuki ringing the finishing triangle at 2m 20s, and Sten doing the same well within the time constraint at 2m 55s.

This randomizer head-to-head speedrun ended in an incredibly close last few minutes as the runners raced each other in the final fight against Ganon. Ultimately, vichisuki took the victory at 1h 33m 02s, with Sten following just five seconds behind at 1h 33m 07s!

Interview with Sten and vichisuki

Moogle was able to contact Sten and vichisuki and got some responses about routing, glitches, and in what randomizers share common ground with speed running strats.

One of the fun things about A Link to the Past randos is creative combat, especially if you don’t get a sword, bombs, etc early. What are some of your favorite improvised weapons to make progress in nearly full-game randos like this? How does your lack of weapon influence routing?

Sten: One of my favorite improvised weapons is the Cane of Somaria to fight Blind. It just feels so silly that it can even damage him, and it makes for a pretty fun fight. More generally, just having the hookshot is quite nice. Even though it doesn’t kill most enemies, it can usually get them out of the way. I try not to let lack of weapons have too much of an effect on my route, other than avoiding things that can’t be checked without one. I will however try to avoid fighting certain bosses with low equipment where possible, because I’m just not confident in my ability to beat them. Ex: Vitreous with fighter’s sword & no Silver Arrows, Mothula with fighter’s sword and no Armor, Trinex with Master Sword & no Hammer.

I’d probably put Ice Breaker as the most fun glitch, both in the sense that I enjoy executing it, and I very much enjoy not having to play Ice Palace as intended.

vichisuki: My favorite improvised weapon is definitely the Hookshot to kill Mini-Moldorms and other enemies that die in one hit to it. Obviously it won’t kill everything, but its ability to stun (to then use Bombs) and also great use as a movement tool easily makes it my favorite item in the game. Otherwise, the Hammer is my favorite in the damage it does and versatility in killing enemies. Not having a weapon usually means that I prefer to prioritize dungeons that have either lots of items in them (such as Palace of Darkness or Swamp Palace) as well as meaning that I have to be careful about which dungeons have rooms that require enemy kills. I personally like to visit Thieves’ Town early, even when I have no weapon.

What do you think the most useful or fun speedrun glitch is in A Link to the Past randos?

Sten: For most useful, it’s probably a weird choice but potion camera unlock – every time I do it there seems to be a Bow on right side of the Palace of Darkness.

vichisuki: Hookspeed/Spinspeed is easily the most useful glitch in the game in my opinion, just in how much time it saves and how funny it looks as well. otherwise, my favorite glitch to perform is definitely Diver Down. It’s a super cool and interesting glitch that’s fun to master as well.

The beginning of the run was immediately interesting because each player chose a different place to start. Not seeing what the other person is doing definitely changes the scope of the rando. Have you competed in races before where you were completely unaware of your opponent’s progress, and does it change how you play?

Sten: The vast majority of races I’ve done I’ve not been aware of my opponent’s progress, so that’s really the default for how I play. Even if I’m on a call racing a friend we’ll be specifically avoiding talking about the seed, so as not to spoil each other. I just try not to think too much about what my opponent might be doing, and just play the seed as best I can.

vichisuki: Most of my races that I do are blind to the opponent’s view, but doing it in a voice call with other people is also very fun. it definitely makes it more nerve-wracking, as I don’t know what I can easily get away with without losing time, but for the most part I just stay confident in my ability and go for what I think is most comfortable in my eyes, and I usually end up doing well.

If you don’t have the right items, there could be times where you spend time in complete darkness or have to otherwise unintuitively navigate an area. How do you practice for or anticipate these circumstances when there are so many directions a rando can go?

Sten: I think the most I can do to prepare for those types of situations is just to play more rando, take note of anything that I get stuck on, and go and practice it more later. At this point I’ve done most dark rooms enough that I can navigate them with little to no issue, and that just comes from having encountered situations where doing the room dark would be benificial frequently enough.

vichisuki: Practice!! I usually spend about 15-30 minutes before a rando just fiddling about with whatever I struggled the most in the previous rando. Dark rooms are definitely daunting, but they aren’t logical for the most part and while they do save time they will rarely be required to save time.

What are your thoughts about the seed’s difficulty and how the show went?

Sten: I’d say the seed was certainly not the easiest, but it wasn’t too hard either. I had a friend make it so that we wouldn’t end up with anything too egregious that could send us over estimate. I’m extremely happy with how the segment went – to have completely different routes and go-mode items, yet still finish only five seconds apart is just amazing to me.

vichisuki: The seed difficulty was actually really good for me. I thought the item placements ended up being really fun and interesting while still being relatively intuitive, and I’m so happy that the race was that close, even with two required items in the Palace of Darkness. Overall, an incredibly fun experience that I’d love to do again, especially against someone as good a friend as Sten.

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Thanks for tuning into our AUS wrap-up! What did you think of these amazing runs this year? What was your favorite, and what were you most impressed by? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!