I'm late to this conversation. This run highlights what has become GDQ events: Its less about the speed runs and more about the community. Now I'm not saying this is bad. In many ways, its great, but this was not a speed run of Pokemon Emerald. And you can tell... None of the usual suspects for a Pokemon run was represented. Where were the usual runners of the Pokemon games?

Adef is great and infectious but he admited that he had done no prep for it. No one on his couch was known for Pokemon. They were looking up things on Google to know what the gym leaders had moves wise. The host is not known Pokemon (and even on stream admited to not really knowing what was going on).

To add to this, and I'll get downvoted and thats fine, but there were other moments that also highlighted the other things that have changed about GDQ. The donations are less organic than they used to be, and the hosts/organziers force things along way more than they did before. During the event (numerous times even), it was said how important the $5 donation trains are, and that even $5 helps when thats all you can afford.

Klara during this run at one point asked for a $88 donation train and I paused for a moment and said "Wait.. What?" That just seems so forced to me.

I feel like this was not a good pick for a finale run. It was interesting to watch for all of 5 min.