10 Speedruns from Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 You Need to Watch
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There were days when, two weeks out of every year, I would stay in my room, glued to my laptop screen nearly all week, consuming speedrun after speedrun of the Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) marathons. Alas, I am now a working man, with the only speedrun I experience being the feeling of youth speeding away from me (I am 23).
That’s all to say that I didn’t get to catch as many speedruns at Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 as I have in years past, but I still researched which the best ones were and did my best to watch those. In no particular order, here are the 10* speedruns from the event I think are most worth your time.
Before getting to that, it’s important to note the reason behind all of these incredible runs: charity for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, with $2.52 million raised. This is also the first in-person AGDQ marathon since 2020, since the venue was changed from Orlando, Florida to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the safety of those in attendance.
*much more than 10
The Marios
Games Done Quick events always have tons of Mario games, but this one had eleven!! I did the math, and that’s roughly 13 hours of speedy Mario goodness. There’s everything from the traditional platformers in the form of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, the racing games Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Wii, the RPGs Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and fan-made levels through Super Mario Maker 2 and the traditional run of a “Kaizo” (incredibly difficult fan-made) Mario game, this time being Luminescent.
Of the batch, my favorite two are Super Mario Bros. Wonder due to getting to see the game broken open for the first time on the Awesome Games Done Quick stage by JankPickle and the hype of getting to see him achieve his personal best time, and Super Mario 64 because runner CZR beats the game on a freaking drum set!
The Zeldas
The quantity of Zelda games may not have been as high as previous GDQ events, but the quality was definitely still there. The four games run were The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, totaling about eight hours largely thanks to a massive 100%, four-player relay run of Majora’s Mask with no major glitches.
That run was nearly five hours, which I did not have time to watch, but the two I did catch were the oldest and newest entries in the series. The run of The Legend of Zelda by Cantaloupeme, another 100% glitchless run, was a nice, calm walk through the game compared to its any% category, which gave me more time to appreciate the beauty of this classic game and the people who get really, really good at beating it. Despite being a few minutes longer, the any% run of Tears of the Kingdom by gymnast86 was significantly less chill, showing off tons of insane glitches, one of which straight-up gives Link a buzz cut.
The Pokémons
We got almost exactly three hours of Pokémon split into two runs at AGDQ 2024. The first was a co-op randomizer run of Pokémon Crystal, where runners Shenanagans and 360Chrism worked together to determine the fastest route through the game. Their teamwork really came into play because pretty much anything that can be randomized in the game was randomized, but since both runners were working with the same “seed,” everything was in the same place between their games. This led to tons of interesting strategies between the two dividing and conquering the game, letting each other know where vital items were along the way.
The other Pokémon run of the event, Pokémon Diamond, seems like a pretty normal, glitchless run of the best Pokémon game (you know it to be true) until, just about an hour in, runner Etchy pulls of a glitch so devastating it literally takes him to the end of the game.
The Final Fantasies
Just like Pokémon, Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 featured two great Final Fantasy runs: Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition and Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster, together totalling four hours.
This is definitely untrue, but for the sake of describing this any% run of Final Fantasy XV by kyoslilmonster, I’ll say there are two types of speedruns: Those that go through the game more-or-less as intended but very fast, and those that seem to be doing some bizarre ritual to the speedrun gods until credits magically roll. This is definitely the latter, with the runner breaking out of bounds and going all over the place for an hour until they’re suddenly at the final boss.
I haven’t watched the three-hour any% cutscene remover run of Final Fantasy V by Zic3, but as the final run of the marathon, everyone who has seen it says it’s worth a watch.
The Soulslikes
OK, I’ll admit I haven’t actually seen any of these runs, but I felt it would still be wrong to leave out the Soulslikes, games by or inspired by From Software. Known for being incredibly difficult but also rewarding, simply beating them normally is a feat of gaming, making these runners truly amazing to witness. The games in the genre on offer were Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Lies of P, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon and Steelrising, totaling around four hours.
Gyromite
If you only watch one run of AGDQ 2024, make it this one. That’s because no mere human is running the NES title Gyromite, nor is the R.O.B. robot that you’re supposed to use with the game. No, this game is the first at any GDQ event to be run by a dog, specifically the shiba inu, Peanut Butter.
His owner, JSR_, deserves some credit too for training Peanut Butter to hit three large buttons, granting him a treat whenever he succeeds. Now, if you’re expecting this dog to pull off major glitches and hit wild button combos, I’m sorry to inform you life isn’t like Air Bud and not even the goodest boy could do that. It’s pretty simple button presses and holds, but it’s still very impressive and adorable to see how proud JSR_ is of his little buddy.
Baldur’s Gate 3
All you Baldur’s Gate 3 freaks better rejoice, because thanks to many generous donors meeting all of the incentives for this game, you got not just one, but two runs and a developer’s room showcase, all in just an hour.
It goes by incredibly fast, with runner maeeeeee first doing a run of all three acts in just over half an hour and then achieving a bad ending in just over seven minutes. So much happens in both runs that it’s hard to believe that’s all the time that passed, however, with my favorite part being a trick where the runner turns Shadowheart into a giant bear and crushes a boss to death.
Granny
Definitely the silliest run of the event I saw, runner Maxylobes performed runs of the trilogy — or, excuse me the “Nanthology” — of Granny games, in which the player is stuck in the house of a demented grandmother and has to collect randomly placed items to escape.
At first I thought these were going to be terrible games, but the runner and commentators were emphatic that they loved them all and the random elements kept each run fresh. It’s still hilarious though, with everyone cracking jokes while the games try to be scary.
Cocoon
One of my favorite games of 2023, Cocoon is a pretty short game when played casually, so I was a little surprised and even disappointed when I saw the speedrun by Sunnymuffin was about an hour and a half. That disappointment soon became that the run wasn’t longer, however, because the runner and commentators are all clearly so passionate about this game and there are plenty of amazing tricks and routes throughout.
The Last of Us Remastered
I love The Last of Us, and as it turns out, I also love watching speedruns of it! I’ve been wanting to see a run of The Last of Us Part II at a GDQ event since it came out, but I’m still more than happy with another run of the original, this time in the form of an any% run of The Last of Us Remastered by Yoranto.
Apparently this Awesome Games Done Quick run was inspired by the 2023 HBO adaptation, because as Yoranto explained it, soon after the show came out, skips were discovered that skip parts of the game the show also skips. My favorite part wasn’t a skip, though. It was the runner looking out at Pittsburgh in the game and saying he planned to go in real life to where that view was. I just think that’s beautiful.
Joseph Stanichar is a freelance writer who specializes in videogames and pop culture. He’s written for publications such as Game Informer, Twinfinite and Looper. He’s on Twitter @JosephStanichar.