True greatness can only be achieved when you push yourself beyond your limits to do the unthinkable, like a marathon runner breaking through the wall at mile 20, a pianist playing a piece by Chopin at double tempo, or a guy sitting on his butt playing video games for days at a time without sleep. That last one might sound less impressive and more just dumb, but luckily it’s also the one we have the chance to witness today thanks to an insane man on the internet.
Twitch user Highspirits started his journey roughly 24 hours ago with a streaming play-through of the original Dragon Quest (which was known as Dragon Warrior in the U.S. until 2005), and his goal is to complete the first nine games in the series in one sitting. Of course, Dragon Quest X came out last year, but seeing as it’s a massively multiplayer online game, it wouldn’t quite fit the flow of this stream. For those who didn’t grow up with the game, Dragon Quest is a classic role-playing game complete with turn-based combat, random monster encounters, and endless text menus. But the series has persisted for 30 years, over multiple console generations, with increasingly advanced art design and game play. Now you can watch that evolution in gaming play out in real, Gatorade-fueled time.
If you glance at his Twitter account, you’ll see that Highspirits has been preparing and training for this epic run for awhile.
But with an average of six hours per game and less than half of the series behind him, this is going to be a test of endurance more than anything else. That’s just the kind of strength and determination it takes to achieve true greatness, or, like, play video games or whatever.