zallard1 | Punch Out!! (Wii) - Disco Kid [0:27.42] (WR) @zallard1 | Uploaded September 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
I held off on doing this run for SO LONG just because I remember pretty much never being any good at the first phase of the fight back in 2009/2010 (I only ever got 1 single 2:50). I figured this fight would be a nightmare for me in particular due to that, and that I was really bad at countering Disco's hooks frame perfectly, but alas, over the last decade it seems I've apparently gotten slightly better at speedrunning Punch Out games.
After finally getting the tied record on Title Defense Disco Kid, I figured it made sense to go immediately back to this fight, since the timing of the 2nd punch in this fight is the exact same timing of several of the punches in the Title Defense Disco Kid fight. I somehow got this WR tie within 4 hours of effort collectively over the past 2 days, which is significantly faster than I thought this grind would take.
To get a 2:50 in phase 1, you need to hit 5 frame perfect inputs in a row without losing 2 frames in total. I got, no joke, 69 of these 2:50 phase 1's during this grind, and hit everything perfectly on the 69th attempt. I only ever got the following times during this brief grind...
27.90 - 1
27.72 - 1
27.66 - 1
27.54 - 5
27.42 - 1
That's right, I skipped 27.48. I've never seen a 27.48, and I never will.
As for the fight itself, phase 1 has a couple of things we need to go over. The first thing that happens is that Disco will attempt to taunt you, which has him going "YEAAAAHHHHHHH" and you hear a whooshing noise accompanying it. Start by throwing a jab just as that whooshing noise stops, and you should hopefully get the first star really quickly. As Disco reels to the side, throw a delayed gut punch on the opposite side of where you threw your jab in order to collect a second star.
Immediately after collecting star #2, you need to throw a very slightly delayed gut punch on the opposite side such that he doesn't block it (if he blocks it, you lose a bit of time). Then, Disco will try to throw a jab, to which you can counter with a delayed left jab of your own. Disco will reel to the right, which leaves him vulnerable for an instant knockdown if you time your triple star punch just right (too early and it doesn't knock him down at all). If you were frame perfect, or lost only 1 frame in total throughout the entirety of phase 1, you will get a 2:50 on the clock.
For phase 2, Disco will throw a hook, which is a pretty awkward timing to counter frame perfectly for a star, especially because he has 2 different voice clips that can play for the hooks he throws in this fight (a long grunt, or "here it comes!"). I tend to use a sound cue, and for the long grunt, I wait until the grunt fully finishes before I throw (I throw immediately after the word "comes" for the other sound cue).
Disco will then do the taunt he did at the start of the fight, except this time you have a star beforehand. If you throw a star into his taunt, it instantly knocks Disco down no matter how much HP he had. I time this punch around when he gets to the E in "YEEAAAAH" and that seems to hit the perfect frame really often for me.
For the final phase of the fight, it's very similar to phase 2, except this time his pattern is slightly different. This time, instead of him throwing 1 hook and taunting, he throws *2* hooks before taunting. The old strategy for this fight was to just counter both hooks and get an extra star from his reeling animation and throwing a 3 star punch to end the fight. The WR/TAS for that strategy results in a 28.80, which is very fast, but obviously we can do better.
This strategy adjustment that Mysteryman (aka Frame by Frame on youtube) ends up opting to do a move cancel on the 2nd hook, which is mandatorily frame perfect, and to star punch Disco's taunt just like phase 2. I ended up using the star animation in the middle of the screen as my cue for hitting this cancel (once the star shape fades fully, I throw the hook).
I'm so glad I got this done so quickly, because I know many other runners who struggled severely with matching this time, so it's quite a relief to have effectively skipped that struggle entirely.
Anyways, thanks for watching!
I held off on doing this run for SO LONG just because I remember pretty much never being any good at the first phase of the fight back in 2009/2010 (I only ever got 1 single 2:50). I figured this fight would be a nightmare for me in particular due to that, and that I was really bad at countering Disco's hooks frame perfectly, but alas, over the last decade it seems I've apparently gotten slightly better at speedrunning Punch Out games.
After finally getting the tied record on Title Defense Disco Kid, I figured it made sense to go immediately back to this fight, since the timing of the 2nd punch in this fight is the exact same timing of several of the punches in the Title Defense Disco Kid fight. I somehow got this WR tie within 4 hours of effort collectively over the past 2 days, which is significantly faster than I thought this grind would take.
To get a 2:50 in phase 1, you need to hit 5 frame perfect inputs in a row without losing 2 frames in total. I got, no joke, 69 of these 2:50 phase 1's during this grind, and hit everything perfectly on the 69th attempt. I only ever got the following times during this brief grind...
27.90 - 1
27.72 - 1
27.66 - 1
27.54 - 5
27.42 - 1
That's right, I skipped 27.48. I've never seen a 27.48, and I never will.
As for the fight itself, phase 1 has a couple of things we need to go over. The first thing that happens is that Disco will attempt to taunt you, which has him going "YEAAAAHHHHHHH" and you hear a whooshing noise accompanying it. Start by throwing a jab just as that whooshing noise stops, and you should hopefully get the first star really quickly. As Disco reels to the side, throw a delayed gut punch on the opposite side of where you threw your jab in order to collect a second star.
Immediately after collecting star #2, you need to throw a very slightly delayed gut punch on the opposite side such that he doesn't block it (if he blocks it, you lose a bit of time). Then, Disco will try to throw a jab, to which you can counter with a delayed left jab of your own. Disco will reel to the right, which leaves him vulnerable for an instant knockdown if you time your triple star punch just right (too early and it doesn't knock him down at all). If you were frame perfect, or lost only 1 frame in total throughout the entirety of phase 1, you will get a 2:50 on the clock.
For phase 2, Disco will throw a hook, which is a pretty awkward timing to counter frame perfectly for a star, especially because he has 2 different voice clips that can play for the hooks he throws in this fight (a long grunt, or "here it comes!"). I tend to use a sound cue, and for the long grunt, I wait until the grunt fully finishes before I throw (I throw immediately after the word "comes" for the other sound cue).
Disco will then do the taunt he did at the start of the fight, except this time you have a star beforehand. If you throw a star into his taunt, it instantly knocks Disco down no matter how much HP he had. I time this punch around when he gets to the E in "YEEAAAAH" and that seems to hit the perfect frame really often for me.
For the final phase of the fight, it's very similar to phase 2, except this time his pattern is slightly different. This time, instead of him throwing 1 hook and taunting, he throws *2* hooks before taunting. The old strategy for this fight was to just counter both hooks and get an extra star from his reeling animation and throwing a 3 star punch to end the fight. The WR/TAS for that strategy results in a 28.80, which is very fast, but obviously we can do better.
This strategy adjustment that Mysteryman (aka Frame by Frame on youtube) ends up opting to do a move cancel on the 2nd hook, which is mandatorily frame perfect, and to star punch Disco's taunt just like phase 2. I ended up using the star animation in the middle of the screen as my cue for hitting this cancel (once the star shape fades fully, I throw the hook).
I'm so glad I got this done so quickly, because I know many other runners who struggled severely with matching this time, so it's quite a relief to have effectively skipped that struggle entirely.
Anyways, thanks for watching!
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Disco Kid [0:27.42] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RaKV2LBvjTE/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Disco Kid [0:27.42] (WR)
I held off on doing this run for SO LONG just because I remember pretty much never being any good at the first phase of the fight back in 2009/2010 (I only ever got 1 single 2:50). I figured this fight would be a nightmare for me in particular due to that, and that I was really bad at countering Discos hooks frame perfectly, but alas, over the last decade it seems Ive apparently gotten slightly better at speedrunning Punch Out games.
After finally getting the tied record on Title Defense Disco Kid, I figured it made sense to go immediately back to this fight, since the timing of the 2nd punch in this fight is the exact same timing of several of the punches in the Title Defense Disco Kid fight. I somehow got this WR tie within 4 hours of effort collectively over the past 2 days, which is significantly faster than I thought this grind would take.
To get a 2:50 in phase 1, you need to hit 5 frame perfect inputs in a row without losing 2 frames in total. I got, no joke, 69 of these 2:50 phase 1s during this grind, and hit everything perfectly on the 69th attempt. I only ever got the following times during this brief grind...
27.90 - 1
27.72 - 1
27.66 - 1
27.54 - 5
27.42 - 1
Thats right, I skipped 27.48. Ive never seen a 27.48, and I never will.
As for the fight itself, phase 1 has a couple of things we need to go over. The first thing that happens is that Disco will attempt to taunt you, which has him going YEAAAAHHHHHHH and you hear a whooshing noise accompanying it. Start by throwing a jab just as that whooshing noise stops, and you should hopefully get the first star really quickly. As Disco reels to the side, throw a delayed gut punch on the opposite side of where you threw your jab in order to collect a second star.
Immediately after collecting star #2, you need to throw a very slightly delayed gut punch on the opposite side such that he doesnt block it (if he blocks it, you lose a bit of time). Then, Disco will try to throw a jab, to which you can counter with a delayed left jab of your own. Disco will reel to the right, which leaves him vulnerable for an instant knockdown if you time your triple star punch just right (too early and it doesnt knock him down at all). If you were frame perfect, or lost only 1 frame in total throughout the entirety of phase 1, you will get a 2:50 on the clock.
For phase 2, Disco will throw a hook, which is a pretty awkward timing to counter frame perfectly for a star, especially because he has 2 different voice clips that can play for the hooks he throws in this fight (a long grunt, or here it comes!). I tend to use a sound cue, and for the long grunt, I wait until the grunt fully finishes before I throw (I throw immediately after the word comes for the other sound cue).
Disco will then do the taunt he did at the start of the fight, except this time you have a star beforehand. If you throw a star into his taunt, it instantly knocks Disco down no matter how much HP he had. I time this punch around when he gets to the E in YEEAAAAH and that seems to hit the perfect frame really often for me.
For the final phase of the fight, its very similar to phase 2, except this time his pattern is slightly different. This time, instead of him throwing 1 hook and taunting, he throws *2* hooks before taunting. The old strategy for this fight was to just counter both hooks and get an extra star from his reeling animation and throwing a 3 star punch to end the fight. The WR/TAS for that strategy results in a 28.80, which is very fast, but obviously we can do better.
This strategy adjustment that Mysteryman (aka Frame by Frame on youtube) ends up opting to do a move cancel on the 2nd hook, which is mandatorily frame perfect, and to star punch Discos taunt just like phase 2. I ended up using the star animation in the middle of the screen as my cue for hitting this cancel (once the star shape fades fully, I throw the hook).
Im so glad I got this done so quickly, because I know many other runners who struggled severely with matching this time, so its quite a relief to have effectively skipped that struggle entirely.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Mad Clown [00905]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rs6AEtl-HMs/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Mad Clown [00905]
This run was done on an original Super Nintendo cartridge of Super Punch-Out, as well as an original Super Nintendo 1chip console that was recapped and modded with the Voultar RGB amp to restore the correct color intensity. For some more in depth information about my general RGB setup, you can check out this pastebin here: https://pastebin.com/TtXx1PQx
Additionally, Ive decided to include a non-stretched version of this fight in an unlisted video. If youd like to learn more about why Im including this too, you can check out the description in the second video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4F8hCpIILY
Mad Clowns record strategy is a fairly easy fight to execute, but the fight is absolutely riddled with randomness throughout the first and second phases, and any little thing he does during a punch youve committed to throw, will instantly dumpster your attempt. Also similar to Bear Hugger, if you attempt to throw a punch at Mad Clowns gut, he will not take any damage and itll play a silly animation instead. This isnt important for speedruns, but its still possible to punch Clown in the gut when he taunts like Bear, but you have to wait until he points to his stomach the 2nd time for it to land.
This fight starts with you pressing nothing for the first frame, and then pressing Up and Y to throw a left jab on the next frame. Follow up from that left jab with a buffered right jab, with Mad Clown hopefully standing still without random retaliations and not randomly blocking for both of these punches. From there, Clown will throw a jab on your left side, and youll need to do a delayed left jab to counter it.
Once the jab is countered, just buffer 2 left jabs during Clowns stun, and then buffer 2 more right jabs once his stun ends and hope they both land without him randomly blocking, or doing random retaliations during the last jab. Once they both land, Clown will instantly go into a dizzy state, and youll need to land the strictest dizzy knockdown in the game, which sits at a 5 frame window. Thankfully, there exist buffer strategies that make this part trivial, but also were going to do something sneaky here.
Similar to Mr. Sandman and Aran Ryan, I found a strategy involving Clowns move timer that involves burning extra frames during the dizzy knockdown in order to setup an easier start to phase 2. For this, we need to do a very specific dizzy knockdown so that instead of getting an optimal 5.24 knockdown, we need to knock him down at precisely 5.28 on the clock, which happens to be the final frame of the instant knockdown window.
The start of phase 2 will consist of Mad Clown either opening by doing a taunt where hes pointing to his stomach, which means hell retaliate when you attempt to throw a punch, or hell start to throw a hook. If he taunts, then your attempt is dead, but if he attempts to throw a hook, then youre past the final piece of luck in the fight.
Due to the setup we did at the end of phase 1, weve got Clowns move timer in a perfect position such that a quick duck into a right jab will frame perfectly counter Clowns hook every time! Once you counter that hook, then immediately buffer an uppercut during Clowns stun, then once Clowns animation of getting hit ends, hes going to attempt to hit you with a backhand attack. You want to land an uppercut directly into this attack in order to take him down for the second time. I time this uppercut roughly around the first frame I see him start to throw out the attack.
Once youve landed that uppercut, then congratulations, because youve effectively finished the fight! For phase 3, Mad Clown will always open with his signature move, Show Time, which involves him throwing really fast jabs that people will usually block. However, we know that Clown will always open with jabs on your right side, which can easily be countered by buffering a right jab as soon as the phase begins! Because of how fast phase 2 was, hell also come back with so little health that hell instantly go right back down when the jab lands.
Overall, this strategy is super annoying because of how much randomness the first phase has, but once you finally get attempts past the luck walls, this is a pretty straightforward fight, with only 3 things that you need to manually time in order to match this record.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Soda Popinski [0:45.61]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/S2aetuPXS2k/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Soda Popinski [0:45.61]
This run was done on an original cartridge of Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! on an NES that was modded with the Tim Worthington NESRGB kit. For some more in depth information about my RGB setup, you can check out this pastebin here: https://pastebin.com/m7tzR5Cq
Ive also decided to include a non-stretched version of this fight in an unlisted video. If youd like to learn more about why Im including this too, you can check out the description in the second video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvVAOkRYjNQ
Ive also got my full attempt session from power-on to the successful attempt right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTujaOUPizs
The Soda improvement train continues to chug along, this time getting faster by, you guessed it, yet another single timer increment lol. This PB doesnt change my ranking/placement, since Im still 3rd place, behind jefemans 45.48, and lucandors 45.00, but I think the execution here is decent enough to where I have a much higher chance of getting improvements to my PB by finally incorporating the misdirected uppercut cancel for future attempts.
Ive practiced it a bit with savestates, and I can get it rarely, but the challenging part is getting the luck and execution for it, in addition to a tightly executed phase 2 and 3 to tie lucandor. Its technically possible to beat luc with the same strategy, as a 44.97 is barely possible if you are frame perfect on every punch on the fight, but its just not realistic.
The fight starts off with Soda attempting to throw 2 hooks at you, and they need to be cancelled immediately with 2 blocked hooks from Mac. Its more consistent to throw 2 right gut punches, but you can opt to instead buffer a left gut punch as your 2nd. It will save a couple of frames, since left gut punches are faster, but it will also whiff about 25% of the time, which would instantly end your attempt. I opt for the faster 2nd cancel.
After the cancels, Soda can take one of 2 different routes; throw 2 uppercuts, or throw 2 more hooks. Hell throw the uppercuts about 75% of the time, which is part of the luck we need to continue the strategy, but we also need something else that Ill go into next.
Off of the 2nd cancel, a right dodge is buffered, which is a perfect setup to land a gut punch into Sodas ducking uppercut stance, assuming that he does the fastest delay anyways. Soda can do one of 4 different delays, each 25% likely. When Mac is about centered, you need to buffer a left gut punch, then immediately press Down as the punch goes off. This technique is called the Screwdriver, and it was discovered by Jack Wedge days before I set my last PB in this fight.
A somewhat newer discovery is that by holding Right for the entire duration of when youre doing the Screwdrivers dodge, you will effectively eliminate 2 of the 4 possible delays for Sodas uppercut, making it ~50% likely instead of ~25% each time its used.
Once the gut punch lands, you just need to do a delayed gut punch to cancel his 2nd uppercut, and buffer a star punch out of it. No matter what Soda does after that, the star will land, and since you landed a gut punch while he attempted to throw an uppercut, it enables Soda to be knocked down instantly from a star punch!
Phases 2 and 3 are the same, and they can be handled in a couple of different ways. The traditional way is to counter his first hook with a right jab, then buffer a right gut punch, then perform the Screwdriver just like in phase. I opt for a harder variation that theoretically should save frames over the standard approach though.
I instead cancel the first hook with a right gut punch, then throw a jab into his 2nd hook. You are supposed to buffer a jab and let go of Up on the first possible frame, which allows the jab to be bufferable and land, but Ive opted to let go of all inputs as soon as I land my gut punch, then quickly press Up+A in isolation, which theoretically should be possible to land on the same frame as the buffered one, but doesnt kill an attempt outright if I let go of Up a frame late like the other approach. I may switch to the fully buffered method later when saving those frames become more necessary.
Like I said before, Im definitely going to be attempting the misdirect strategy for future Soda attempts. Ill probably just be aiming to tie lucandors record as opposed to beating it, because the execution to beat it is very very unlikely when coupled with the current luck needed to complete the fight. The luck is about 1 in 114 for the misdirect strategy, so for MTPO standards its not the worst ever, but its not exactly fantastic when coupled with hitting every punch possible frame perfectly. Adding another misdirected punch in phase 2 would give us more time save, but it will make the odds roughly 4 times worse, and to me, the execution of phase 2s misdirect is harder than in phase 1, so Im not exactly jumping at the thought of attempting that :P
Thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Narcis Prince [00824]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SmH06SRrkcY/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Narcis Prince [00824]
This run was done on an original Super Nintendo cartridge of Super Punch-Out, as well as an original Super Nintendo 1chip console that was recapped and modded with the Voultar RGB amp to restore the correct color intensity. For some more in depth information about my general RGB setup, you can check out this pastebin here: https://pastebin.com/TtXx1PQx
Additionally, Ive decided to include a non-stretched version of this fight in an unlisted video. If youd like to learn more about why Im including this too, you can check out the description in the second video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyI4BFUxskU
Narcis Prince is the most random fight in the game, and is the only one that doesnt have dozens of people tying the TAS because of it. A few people have been able to match it recently during the pandemic, but its a huge range from being a quick one to get, to taking close to a year of consistent effort to get. My PB on this fight was an 828 set in 2014, until I improved it recently to the 826, and now the 824 that you see here.
Ive been grinding mostly this on my Twitch channel, with several stats Ive been tracking, and a running timer during attempts. Ive also been exporting streams of this grind to my alt account on YouTube. You can check out the playlist for that (with more comments) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXiI-lPUXEQ&list=PLt0miTqQ0e4i4dz-YRuBp4TJw-2DfmPiI
Narcis can literally end your attempt on the 1st frame of the fight if he dances or walks to the side. Start the fight starts by holding Up for the 1st frame, then letting go and buffering a left gut for the 2nd frame. After that 1st gut punch, follow it up with 2 more left gut punches. You have a 2 frame window to do that guard manipulation, otherwise Narcis will block your 3rd gut punch due to him starting his scheduled hook.
Landing those 3 gut punches is an absolute ordeal. In addition to the dances I mentioned before, he can also end your attempt before *every* gut punch by: twirling left or right, side stepping left or right and sliding away side to side. He can ALSO end your attempts during the punches themselves, by randomly block them outright, or doing a random retaliation in response.
If you land the 3 gut punches, Narcis will throw a hook that youll need to counter with a low left gut punch. After landing it, you need to hit Narcis on the final frame of his stun animation from the counterpunch, which thankfully has a buffer that works every time, although its just finicky enough to where you could lose attempts on it sometimes. To do it, tap and hold left or right until you see your character start to dodge, then IMMEDIATELY let go of dodge so that you go through your dodge animation. As soon as youre about to center yourself, press Up plus Y to throw a jab, which should hit Narcis to where his recoil animation is faster and he instantly becomes angry.
When Narcis is angry, hell go to the back of the ring (which resets the dizzy meter entirely) and comes back to throw one of 3 main patterns at you. The first (and most common) pattern is the one where he throws 2 jabs on your right side, which is an immediate reset if it happens, because hell block it. The next pattern is 2 jabs on your left side, which will also be a reset. The final pattern is the one where he can throw a hook on your left side, then right side, which is the one we *need* to have a chance.
When the delayed jab lands, you need to buffer the following: left gut, quick duck, left gut, right jab, then finally left jab. You NEED to pause the game mid-punch to let the super meter catch up; if you dont, then Narcis cant dizzy. Then you need to buffer rapid jabs, which has a 6 frame window to repress the A button, otherwise youll be too slow Narcis wont get dizzy off of the 4th rapid. With the good pattern, Narcis can still dodge the initial jab, as well as your 1st and 4th rapid jabs, but if all rapid jabs land, just do a quick duck into low super for a knockdown!
Phase 2 just has you throwing a rapid jab into his jab that he attempts to throw. Ive changed over to a buffer thats been known about for a long time, but was one I always thought was too hard to do consistently. Murakuma ended up convincing me that the buffer is worth going for, since I had subconsciously assumed that this game would ruin quick dodges from hitting diagonals, similar to Mike Tysons Punch-Out, but this game doesnt do that at all! Sliding from down on the dpad, to hitting up, left, up, left gets you in position for the buffered rapid punch on the perfect frame.
From there, youll need to do a buffer for the final uppercut (I went with right gut, quick duck, right jab, into uppercut this time). This final uppercut is really awful too, and can easily kill your run at the very end. I lost 2 frames vs the TAS (1 from the counter in phase 1, and one from not starting my quick dodge out of my duck in phase 2 fast enough).
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Sunset Riders (Switch; Caravan Mode) - High Score [56,230 points]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TSDZf0WY-UE/hqdefault.jpg "Sunset Riders (Switch; Caravan Mode) - High Score [56,230 points]
Finally got a score for this that Im satisfied with. My route almost completely forgoes all point pressing in exchange for some of the points in the score tally from the bonus stage. It cuts you off mid-tally, which means the reward that you actually receive is very granular (every 2 frames, the tally rewards you with 100 points).
Every run 2nd place and below is forgoing any hopes of getting points in the bonus stage in order to get all the bonus items in stage 1 and kill respawning enemies until they have to move on to collect the score bonus from the bosses.
This run has so much luck that needs to go your way, and you need two super fast kills for your run to even offset just scoring regularly, making it very difficult by comparison.
I also got this run while streaming to my Twitch channel, so if you wanna check out live reactions and stuff, along with Twitch chat, feel free to check it out here! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/649271562
Anyways, hope you enjoy!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Don Flamenco [0:17.74] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Te3b436PSjA/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Don Flamenco [0:17.74] (WR)
This has been a tied record ever since a couple months after the game came out back in 2009, but this record always eluded me whenever I would try it. Its always been a really daunting fight to match the TAS on, just based on the sheer amount of punches that you need to have frame perfect in order to match the best possible time...
...except surprisingly, thats not the case at all.
Lets start from the beginning of fight. Buffer a punch to get Don to throw his first attack. From there, I use a different cue for when I counter his punch since the timing is a bit tricky to do frame perfectly. I press duck as soon as I see Don completely still, then buffer a punch out of it. This is just personal preference, as you can totally counter this without the duck.
Now heres the meat of the fight, and easily the most daunting part... the dreaded Don Flamenco infinite. Keeping this infinite going is easy... if thats your only goal. The problem is if you dont punch Don on the first 2 frames hes vulnerable on each of these, then the in-game clock speeds up DRAMATICALLY. You will lose about a second for every one of these windows that youre late on; its *that* bad.
This loop always confused me when I tried to get good at it, for two reasons. For one, multiple people had tied this record despite the high number of punches that would presumably need to be frame perfect. Secondly, the timing of the loop always felt inconsistent in terms of spacing to me, and I couldnt put my finger on why. For years it was like this... so I decided to look into it now that I have that ability.
Heres the big takeaway from what Ive found: Don Flamencos loop will *ALWAYS* get you the same exact time whether or not you hit the first or second frame of the window for EVERY PUNCH in the loop!
You can literally hit the 2nd frame of all 14 of his loop punches and get the exact same time as if you hit the first frame of all 14 of the loop punches. Not only that, but the frame window doesnt shift around to accommodate the differences from when you hit any previous punchs window. Its honestly one of the weirdest things Ive seen this game do so far, and this game has some *weird* things it does lol.
So anyways, the loop finally made sense to me, but that still doesnt make it that much easier; its still really difficult to hit 14 2-frame punches in a row, as well as the 3 other frame perfect punches in order to get the TAS/WR time. My best advice is to time the punches to the same tempo as Dons footsteps landing on the floor. This part is all about rhythm; theres really no way around it.
Once you get his health low enough, you can buffer the star for a knockdown. Because Don was stuck in the loop for at least 7 punches on the previous knockdown (as well as Mac being at full health), the game will make any subsequent star punch that hits Don just completely KO him and end the fight.
For phase 2, you need to counter the first attack he throws out and throw a star punch to KO him... except you have to delay your star punch ever so slightly. If you buffer the star punch, then the clock will go at full speed instead of the slow loop speed.
My, admittedly, weird solution to this (as well as the counter punch which Im normally bad at) is to completely have different visual cues for phase 2. I dont even look at Don once in the entire phase; Im only looking at the health bar & Dons portrait. I buffer right punch & left punch as soon as his health level reaches the right side of U in the word ROUND, and throw the star punch as soon as Dons portrait is done shaking (which happens any time hes punched). This works really well for me, so if you have trouble with doing those two inputs frame perfectly, this might be an approach to try!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:37]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Uvgl8DadM6M/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:37]
This was played on an original Splatterhouse arcade PCB on the H.A.S. supergun. This run was done on the hardest difficulty, which starts you at 2HP instead of the default 4HP. This was recorded through an S-Video connection because my setup cannot support RGB signals at the moment.
It is also worth noting that since I am running this game on an original arcade board now, that the game is running at a slightly higher framerate than the previous version that I ran (JP Wii VC at 59.94 fps). This board appears to run at about 60.60 frames a second, so this run benefits from small time gains gradually throughout the run vs my old run on Wii JP VC.
So I started going for a really hard strategy that requires good luck on the stage 2 boss, as well as a really difficult jump-punch strategy to take out the 2 airborne knives. So, normally when you do a jump, your first attack will always be a jump kick, and any subsequent attack will be a jump punch (unless you hold down for more jump kicks). However, if you press jump and attack at the same time, Rick carries the punch state into the air! This is really hard to do precisely, but it saves 2 seconds, which is huge for where this run is now.
I made huge mistakes on stage 3, which ate up that entire lead, but it let me get an attempt going on pace, so I carried on with it. I lost a bit more time on the final stage due to not slide kicking the final cycle faster, but otherwise, pretty decent run!
Gotta love the leet final time ;)")
![Super Punch Out!! - Heike Kagero [00985] (PAL WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V_7B4Q3mUoo/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Heike Kagero [00985] (PAL WR)
This run was done on an original Spanish Super Nintendo cartridge of Super Punch-Out, as well as an original PAL Super Nintendo 1chip console that was recapped and modded with the Borti RGB amp.
Just like in the NTSC version of Heike, it is indeed possible to score a KO on him as opposed to a TKO, which was widely thought to be the only way to win this fight for a very long time, at least until McHazard released his NTSC TAS in 2014. The strategy is basically a carbon copy of the NTSC fight, but yields a lower in-game time due to differences between the two clocks in each version. If youd like to compare the two fights, you can check out my NTSC fight here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_7B4Q3mUoo
So the idea here for enabling the KO is to get Heikes HP lower in phase 1 than the TKO strategy. The KO has 3 components to it, which involves a unique base refill value that every boxer has, a timer penalty (this has to do with how fast the knockdowns are, with most phase 2s needing to be within 4 in-game seconds to get the best value), and 25% of the amount of HP the opponent has right before their knockdown.
The equation for refills goes something like [Timer Penalty + 25% Opponents HP Before Knockdown - Boxers Base Refill Value], and if this ever ends up being negative or zero, the opponent gets a refill of 0 (i.e. the boxer is KOd). Fellow Super Punch Out speedrunner Akiteru made a fantastic calculator tool that you can mess with to determine subsequent health refills (and KOs) based on specific criteria. You can check it out here if youd like: https://akiterusda.github.io/Spoko/
This fight starts with you holding Up for the first frame of the fight, and then letting go of Up and throwing a right gut punch for the next frame. Follow that up with buffering another right gut punch, a left jab, and two more right gut punches; they should all land without issue as long as the first punch of the fight landed.
From here, Heike is going to attempt to hit you with a jab on your left side, which you will need to counter with a very slightly delayed left jab of your own. As soon as the punch connects and as long as the punch was delayed enough to be a counter punch, you need to pause the game to allow the super meter to fill up completely. Once its filled, just unpause and buffer a low super for Heike to go dizzy! For the dizzy, you can buffer a right gut punch into a quick dodge thats cancelled with a low super to hit the instant knockdown window.
For the start of phase 2, Heike is going to attempt an attack on your left, and youre going to need to intercept that with rapid punches within the first 2 frames that rapid punches can come out. The input for rapid punches is to double tap the A button pretty fast. You need to make sure that youve tapped the button the 2nd time within 8 frames for your rapid punches to come out as fast as they possibly can. Once they start hitting Heike, then one of two things will happen.
Either Heike will block you, and youll have to buffer a low super to get the KO. Keep in mind that the KO with this pattern will only work if you score the 2nd knockdown at 10.01 or earlier. If you get the 1 in 8 luck where Heike dodges, then you will have a chance at pulling off the slightly faster KO, which involves throwing a low super right around when Heike is just about centered from the dodge, but not quite there yet.
Its also worth noting that when throwing this punch, Heike has a random chance of dodging your low super 3/8s of the time even if its timed correctly, making this the final luck event needed, which makes the total luck of the fight (1/8)*(5/8) = 5/64, or about 1 in 12.8 (~7.8%). The only situation where youve actually mistimed your punch ends up being when Heike is able to block your super when its thrown too early. Once it lands, depending on the time, you should be good for a KO as long as your final time ends up being a 1001 or lower!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Piston Honda 2 [0:40.25]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VuuHMPGCDc8/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Piston Honda 2 [0:40.25]
I recently learned how the guard manipulation in the TAS works at the end of phase 1 to set up phase 2 thanks to Summoningsalt explaining it to me, so I decided to try to improve my personal best time for this fight. I think I can match Salts new record of 40.00 with a little bit more effort, but I thought this was nice progress for now to upload something.
Might be able to try for 39.9X too if I get to 40.00, but that would be way more difficult, since thats approaching the TAS time.")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Bear Hugger [1:32.79]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WBmHQeoVJdo/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Bear Hugger [1:32.79]
Shoutouts to Mysteryman for this adjustment. This run bests his WR by a frame, which also happens to make this fight match the TAS time! This is a very peculiar fight to optimize. With the way this fight works, it technically only requires *one* frame perfect input, but there are a few catches that go along with that.
Firstly, none of the inputs in this fight matter until the 1:35 mark on the fight timer (youtube timestamp is 1:00). You want to get to a specific spot in Bears attack script at that *exact* frame, because Bear will decide what type of attacks he does depending on what whole second the in-game timer is. In this run, if I were to get to that spot 1 frame earlier, Bear would throw a delayed hook with the squirrel on his head and ruin the fight.
My approach to this problem was to buffer as many things as possible up until that point. Every buffer in phase 1 is frame perfect to make sure my pace is sufficiently good. First buffer is 1 dodge, 2 quick dodges, and jab. Second buffer is simply 4 full dodges into jab. Third buffer is 2 dodges, 1 punch, dodge, quick dodge, jab, and triple star punch.
My phase 2 buffers are intentionally *lazy* so Im wasting an amount of time such that my average counter timing makes it really likely for me to get to the correct frame I need to be at. This just so happens to be compliant with literally all left dodges for everything in phase 2 lmao.
Phase 3 is the important part. You need to counter the first hug, then cancel the 2nd one, counter the Catch & Release hug, then do a centering hook. This centering hook dictates your entire pace, because the very next attack is going to be the pivotal attack at 1:35. You can elect to do this centering hook sooner if you feel your manual counters up until this point have been bad, or you can do the hook later if you feel all your manual counters have been really tight. This is hard to really judge accurately in the moment sometimes, so this really comes down to judgement calls to increase your odds of success.
After that centering hook, Ive found a frame perfect buffer to always counter his next hook (2 dodges, then right jab, left jab). And right here is the only *mandatory* frame perfect punch aside from the weird centering hook if youre going for a 1:32.79, which is dodging his hook, stunning him, and throwing the final triple star punch. My pseudo buffer for this final attack is that Ill wait until I hear Bears footsteps hit the ground, then do 2 dodges. It works really really well in my opinion.
Anyways, thats it for this fight! I got this ridiculously fast after finding the buffers and testing stuff in emulator, which was something like an hour of actual attempts. Im thinking about improving my Sandman time a little bit before moving onto a different fight, since I feel I can do a least a little better on those cancels for now. Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Masked Muscle [00632] (PAL WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WNF2ldKOweQ/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Masked Muscle [00632] (PAL WR)
This run was done on an original Spanish Super Nintendo cartridge of Super Punch-Out, as well as an original PAL Super Nintendo 1chip console that was recapped and modded with the Borti RGB amp.
Masked Muscle is a fairly innocuous fight in the full game speedrun. He doesnt dish out luck that can outright kill your entire lead due to a couple of backup strategies, but despite this, he has a fair bit of randomness that can make getting the perfect fight on him mildly annoying.
The fight starts off with the usual guard manipulation that youve been seeing in other fights where you hold up for the first frame of the fight, then let go and hold punch for the second frame, however this fight introduces something new into the mix: random blocking from the opponent.
This happens to be a very similar strategy as the newer NTSC one that McHazard found in his 2014 TAS (I know its weird to call that new but it still feels new to me lol). If youd like to directly compare this fight to its NTSC counterpart, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDuMYzQo9A
With this strategy, Muscle can block the first two punches, and the final punch that sends Masked Muscle into dizzy status. These are the only luck events in the fight, and the first blockable punch has a 3/4 chance of going through, while the second and third blockable punches have a (3/4)^2 chance of going through since theyre buffered punches. This means the odds of the strategy working are:
(3/4) * (9/16) * (9/16) = 243 / 1024, or about 1 in 4.214 (~23.7%)
Once you’ve landed your first left gut punch of the fight, then immediately buffer a second one and pray he doesn’t block either of those. Thankfully, the next 2 left gut punches you’re about to buffer here will land 100% of the time, since Muscle is attempting to throw hooks here, and while he commits to throwing an attack, he cannot commit to randomly dodging during that time. Its also worth noting that this is technically different than the NTSC version of the fight, as you cannot buffer left jabs here since Muscle blocks them in the PAL version. You can technically do left jabs and get the same time, but you would have to delay them, which is silly to do when you can just do gut punches.
After the 2nd jab, you need to do a slight delay and counter an uppercut that Muscle is about to throw on your right side, to which, you counter with a right gut punch. From here, you need to hit a frame perfect delayed punch such that when the punch lands, you get 2 extra arrows, as well as speed up Muscles recoil animation.
You can either time this delayed punch manually, or do a buffer that involves you to do 2 quick ducks which are actually pretty tricky, because this means you have to tap Down and Up extremely quickly one after the other.
Several years ago, Hootey had actually found that if you do not have your super meter completely filled up, that holding the A button will actually automatically cancel your dodges for you, which effectively eliminates the Up portions of the quick duck inputs, meaning now your only obstacle is to quickly press the Down inputs at the correct rhythm. Its still fairly tricky to get it down just right because of how fast the ducks come out now.
If you hold Down too long, then you end up getting a quick duck that isnt actually the fastest, which makes the punch get blocked. If you over compensate for that by going too fast, then youll only have one duck actually come out.
Once you get the double quick duck, buffer a right gut punch into a left gut punch, which should hopefully get Muscle dizzy (remember he can block the final punch if he wants), and just hold Left until you start to see your character start to dodge, then immediately let go of Left and throw a low super as your character centers himself for an instant knockdown!
For phase 2, the NTSC version has you throw a low super exactly *1* frame after the fight starts back up again, otherwise hell dodge your punch outright, however, inexplicably the PAL version doesnt have this issue at all. You can simply hold the super punch button and just automatically hit Muscle on the first frame possible with a low super. From there, Muscle will not be able to get up, which nets you a KO if you followed this strategy perfectly!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch-Out!! - Blindfolded Race w/ Hootey performed at GDQx 2019 [18:57]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WSMsErZOqB8/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch-Out!! - Blindfolded Race w/ Hootey performed at GDQx 2019 [18:57]
Both myself and fellow Super Punch Out speedrunner Hootey both got the opportunity to race each other in Super Punch Out blindfolded at a GDQ! The time listed was my finish time from pressing start until the TKO appears at the end of the Nick fight (this time accounts for the accidental quick start by adding a second to the time).
This game is ridiculously inconsistent and difficult to beat blindfolded at all, let alone in a marathon setting. When I beat this game blindfolded in AGDQ 2014, it had tons of lucky breaks in it, so a repeat performance would require an intense reroute to heighten the chances of success before another marathon showing would be worth attempting.
Both Hootey and myself have been hard at work finding extremely fast setups and ways to make many of these fights as consistent as they could possibly be. That being said, Super Punch Out is wildly random in terms of getting extremely fast times, even to the point where most of our setups are either mostly consistent but cant be completely or we just literally have to options for some fights in terms of consistency.
Despite everything, both of us were extremely close the entire race with tons of huge lead changes. I am also ecstatic that both of us were able to handily beat the AGDQ 2014 time that I got for blind SPO, which really shows how far this game and the community surrounding it has come!
This also happens to be the second time Ive ever completed a blindfolded Punch Out run at a Games Done Quick event to where I never lost a single bout with any opposing boxer! The first time I pulled this off was actually the most recent Wii Punch Out run at SGDQ!
I am super proud of how far Hootey has come in learning this game to the point to where we were both handily capable of sharing our hard work and practice with the GDQ audience this year!
Anyways, I hope you all enjoy our run!")
