[quote=The Game Request Rules]For your request, we require a video of a full-game run played by you. We strongly prefer such a run is not a segmented run, and may reject requests if they are segmented runs. If a game is heavily based on Individual Levels and does not really feature a full-game run, a playlist of an overwhelming majority of the IL's for the game is acceptable. Submissions which do not meet this criteria will be rejected without being considered.[/quote]

Yes it has to be a speedrun. Don't just "try to complete the game" as mentioned above, that is not good advice. Site staff will reject requests that don't show an attempt of being an actual speedrun. They want to see effort and, preferably, some semblance of strats and routing. If you just submit a playthrough that completes the game that might get rejected if it doesn't show an attempt at being a speedrun vs. a normal playthrough.

Edit: the post I referenced above me was deleted.

I always go back to Mario 1 for questions like this. The last-placed run is over 6 hours long. It features the player wasting copious amounts of time, spending minutes and minutes trying to achieve pointless glitches, dying most likely intentionally, game over'ing several times (why would you not reset your timer if you game over?), and just generally making absolutely no effort to go fast. If I were a moderator I would never accept a run like that. Just 13 places higher on the leaderboard is a 12-minute run. It's a terrible run (WR is under 5 minutes) but the runner is clearly at least trying to go fast. The difference is night-and-day. And I think the same logic can apply to game requests. Just try to go fast. It's pretty obvious when you do, even if the game isn't one every person on the planet has played like SMB1 :P