zallard1 | Punch Out!! (Wii) - Donkey Kong [0:53.19] @zallard1 | Uploaded September 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Original strategy credits go out to Mysteryman and Klar. Recently I found 3 new frame perfect buffer strategies for the moments that Donkey Kong goes to the back of the ring, which is huge for getting consistent frame perfect punches & never losing attempts to those (for the most part).
So, this strategy is miserable to execute. Several of the star punches are delayed slightly in order to skip several attacks of Donkey Kong's so we can get to more important parts of his pattern. I threw several hours of attempts at this guy and only completed the strategy 3 times. I got away with a 53.45, a 53.49, and finally, this 53.19, which I'm happy with for now. I may eventually come back to this fight, since the theoretical low appears to be 52.68 with this strategy, so a 52 second time is definitely within reason. This fight is also played in Champion's Mode, which will instantly knock down Mac with any of Donkey Kong's attacks.
Several of the punches in phase 1 have to be thrown as his taunt animation starts, meaning you don't really have a great cue for any of them. On top of that, the counter window for the really quick taunts all have a single frame at the start of the frame window where you do not get a star, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th frames will yield a star. This makes optimizing these punches miserable, because you're wanting to hit the earliest frame in each, but you'll be hitting this empty frame over, and over again in the process.
Anyways, lets go through the strategy one step at a time. Start with a dodge buffer (which appears to thankfully be frame perfect) into a punch to collect a star. Delay this star such that you start to see DK move back into position after he's frozen in place from reeling to the side. If done correctly, you'll get a quick taunt out of DK, which you can time by throwing a punch slightly after he's fully centered (this takes a ton of messing around to get right).
From here, buffering 3 dodges into 4 punches will always get you a punch on the first possible frame on his first roll in taunt. This is the only star punch in the phase where you *want* to throw it as early as possible, but you can't buffer it. You have to wait just a couple frames as soon as you get the 2nd star before throwing the double star punch so it doesn't completely whiff as DK's reeling to the side. You'll get a quick taunt just like the start of the fight, so the same timing applies here, but his roll in taunt is quicker now, so the frame perfect buffer to counter this is to do a same side punch, then 3 alternating punches after. For the same side punch, you *must* start holding punch as Mac's punch animation is in recovery (or as he's pulling back his fist), otherwise the next punch doesn't go off.
Now this double star punch you *want* to delay, with the exact same timing as the first star in the fight. If you've done it right, then once DK fully centers, you should be able to whiff a punch and he should retaliate immediately. Dodge and stun 4 times, then throw a punch into his taunt for the knockdown with 1 star in reserve. I do a pseudo buffer where I use the bananas touching DK's ear on the left as a cue to duck.
Finally onto phase 2, which is literally just 1 star punch into DK's lunge to send him immediately back to the mat for phase 3. I use another cue here where I duck as soon as I hear DK make noise. It works out pretty well!
Phase 3 involves immediately taking a knockdown in order to reset his pattern. DO NOT GET UP when the number 1 is completely faded from the screen! You have to get up slightly before or slightly after, because getting up in that exact moment will softlock the rest of the round and ruin your attempt (several attempts were ruined like this: youtube.com/watch?v=R6VhrXiyERs).
Once you're up, DK will *hopefully* walk towards you. Throw a punch as soon as he's in range and get a star (I use the ref leaving the screen as a cue for this). Follow up by doing yet another delayed star punch just like the start of phase 1, and it should skip you to DK's wink taunt. Punch him at the exact moment he winks (3 frame window) and you should be home free. From there, buffering 4 dodges into a quick dodge, 2 punches, and star punch will hit him on the first possible frame. For those last 2 punches before the star punch, starting with your right hand is a good idea, because it will increase the frame window in which you can start holding the star punch button to have it go off at the correct time. Quick dodges are technically a glitch in this game that you can perform by holding up + left, but it will ONLY work if your last buffered action is either a dodge, or a quick dodge. The reason for this is the quick dodge is basically cancelling part of the previous dodge's animation, making the buffer slightly shorter as a result.
Phew, what a complicated fight. Hopefully you enjoyed this fight and this writeup! Thanks for watching/reading!
Original strategy credits go out to Mysteryman and Klar. Recently I found 3 new frame perfect buffer strategies for the moments that Donkey Kong goes to the back of the ring, which is huge for getting consistent frame perfect punches & never losing attempts to those (for the most part).
So, this strategy is miserable to execute. Several of the star punches are delayed slightly in order to skip several attacks of Donkey Kong's so we can get to more important parts of his pattern. I threw several hours of attempts at this guy and only completed the strategy 3 times. I got away with a 53.45, a 53.49, and finally, this 53.19, which I'm happy with for now. I may eventually come back to this fight, since the theoretical low appears to be 52.68 with this strategy, so a 52 second time is definitely within reason. This fight is also played in Champion's Mode, which will instantly knock down Mac with any of Donkey Kong's attacks.
Several of the punches in phase 1 have to be thrown as his taunt animation starts, meaning you don't really have a great cue for any of them. On top of that, the counter window for the really quick taunts all have a single frame at the start of the frame window where you do not get a star, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th frames will yield a star. This makes optimizing these punches miserable, because you're wanting to hit the earliest frame in each, but you'll be hitting this empty frame over, and over again in the process.
Anyways, lets go through the strategy one step at a time. Start with a dodge buffer (which appears to thankfully be frame perfect) into a punch to collect a star. Delay this star such that you start to see DK move back into position after he's frozen in place from reeling to the side. If done correctly, you'll get a quick taunt out of DK, which you can time by throwing a punch slightly after he's fully centered (this takes a ton of messing around to get right).
From here, buffering 3 dodges into 4 punches will always get you a punch on the first possible frame on his first roll in taunt. This is the only star punch in the phase where you *want* to throw it as early as possible, but you can't buffer it. You have to wait just a couple frames as soon as you get the 2nd star before throwing the double star punch so it doesn't completely whiff as DK's reeling to the side. You'll get a quick taunt just like the start of the fight, so the same timing applies here, but his roll in taunt is quicker now, so the frame perfect buffer to counter this is to do a same side punch, then 3 alternating punches after. For the same side punch, you *must* start holding punch as Mac's punch animation is in recovery (or as he's pulling back his fist), otherwise the next punch doesn't go off.
Now this double star punch you *want* to delay, with the exact same timing as the first star in the fight. If you've done it right, then once DK fully centers, you should be able to whiff a punch and he should retaliate immediately. Dodge and stun 4 times, then throw a punch into his taunt for the knockdown with 1 star in reserve. I do a pseudo buffer where I use the bananas touching DK's ear on the left as a cue to duck.
Finally onto phase 2, which is literally just 1 star punch into DK's lunge to send him immediately back to the mat for phase 3. I use another cue here where I duck as soon as I hear DK make noise. It works out pretty well!
Phase 3 involves immediately taking a knockdown in order to reset his pattern. DO NOT GET UP when the number 1 is completely faded from the screen! You have to get up slightly before or slightly after, because getting up in that exact moment will softlock the rest of the round and ruin your attempt (several attempts were ruined like this: youtube.com/watch?v=R6VhrXiyERs).
Once you're up, DK will *hopefully* walk towards you. Throw a punch as soon as he's in range and get a star (I use the ref leaving the screen as a cue for this). Follow up by doing yet another delayed star punch just like the start of phase 1, and it should skip you to DK's wink taunt. Punch him at the exact moment he winks (3 frame window) and you should be home free. From there, buffering 4 dodges into a quick dodge, 2 punches, and star punch will hit him on the first possible frame. For those last 2 punches before the star punch, starting with your right hand is a good idea, because it will increase the frame window in which you can start holding the star punch button to have it go off at the correct time. Quick dodges are technically a glitch in this game that you can perform by holding up + left, but it will ONLY work if your last buffered action is either a dodge, or a quick dodge. The reason for this is the quick dodge is basically cancelling part of the previous dodge's animation, making the buffer slightly shorter as a result.
Phew, what a complicated fight. Hopefully you enjoyed this fight and this writeup! Thanks for watching/reading!
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Donkey Kong [0:53.19]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_Tuv27k2pzY/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Donkey Kong [0:53.19]
Original strategy credits go out to Mysteryman and Klar. Recently I found 3 new frame perfect buffer strategies for the moments that Donkey Kong goes to the back of the ring, which is huge for getting consistent frame perfect punches & never losing attempts to those (for the most part).
So, this strategy is miserable to execute. Several of the star punches are delayed slightly in order to skip several attacks of Donkey Kongs so we can get to more important parts of his pattern. I threw several hours of attempts at this guy and only completed the strategy 3 times. I got away with a 53.45, a 53.49, and finally, this 53.19, which Im happy with for now. I may eventually come back to this fight, since the theoretical low appears to be 52.68 with this strategy, so a 52 second time is definitely within reason. This fight is also played in Champions Mode, which will instantly knock down Mac with any of Donkey Kongs attacks.
Several of the punches in phase 1 have to be thrown as his taunt animation starts, meaning you dont really have a great cue for any of them. On top of that, the counter window for the really quick taunts all have a single frame at the start of the frame window where you do not get a star, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th frames will yield a star. This makes optimizing these punches miserable, because youre wanting to hit the earliest frame in each, but youll be hitting this empty frame over, and over again in the process.
Anyways, lets go through the strategy one step at a time. Start with a dodge buffer (which appears to thankfully be frame perfect) into a punch to collect a star. Delay this star such that you start to see DK move back into position after hes frozen in place from reeling to the side. If done correctly, youll get a quick taunt out of DK, which you can time by throwing a punch slightly after hes fully centered (this takes a ton of messing around to get right).
From here, buffering 3 dodges into 4 punches will always get you a punch on the first possible frame on his first roll in taunt. This is the only star punch in the phase where you *want* to throw it as early as possible, but you cant buffer it. You have to wait just a couple frames as soon as you get the 2nd star before throwing the double star punch so it doesnt completely whiff as DKs reeling to the side. Youll get a quick taunt just like the start of the fight, so the same timing applies here, but his roll in taunt is quicker now, so the frame perfect buffer to counter this is to do a same side punch, then 3 alternating punches after. For the same side punch, you *must* start holding punch as Macs punch animation is in recovery (or as hes pulling back his fist), otherwise the next punch doesnt go off.
Now this double star punch you *want* to delay, with the exact same timing as the first star in the fight. If youve done it right, then once DK fully centers, you should be able to whiff a punch and he should retaliate immediately. Dodge and stun 4 times, then throw a punch into his taunt for the knockdown with 1 star in reserve. I do a pseudo buffer where I use the bananas touching DKs ear on the left as a cue to duck.
Finally onto phase 2, which is literally just 1 star punch into DKs lunge to send him immediately back to the mat for phase 3. I use another cue here where I duck as soon as I hear DK make noise. It works out pretty well!
Phase 3 involves immediately taking a knockdown in order to reset his pattern. DO NOT GET UP when the number 1 is completely faded from the screen! You have to get up slightly before or slightly after, because getting up in that exact moment will softlock the rest of the round and ruin your attempt (several attempts were ruined like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6VhrXiyERs).
Once youre up, DK will *hopefully* walk towards you. Throw a punch as soon as hes in range and get a star (I use the ref leaving the screen as a cue for this). Follow up by doing yet another delayed star punch just like the start of phase 1, and it should skip you to DKs wink taunt. Punch him at the exact moment he winks (3 frame window) and you should be home free. From there, buffering 4 dodges into a quick dodge, 2 punches, and star punch will hit him on the first possible frame. For those last 2 punches before the star punch, starting with your right hand is a good idea, because it will increase the frame window in which you can start holding the star punch button to have it go off at the correct time. Quick dodges are technically a glitch in this game that you can perform by holding up + left, but it will ONLY work if your last buffered action is either a dodge, or a quick dodge. The reason for this is the quick dodge is basically cancelling part of the previous dodges animation, making the buffer slightly shorter as a result.
Phew, what a complicated fight. Hopefully you enjoyed this fight and this writeup! Thanks for watching/reading!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Aran Ryan [0:53.40] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a0HtBm9GFRw/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Aran Ryan [0:53.40] (WR)
This is a really cool strategy found by McHazard in 2014 or so, back when the only other strategy for Contender Aran was the 54.66 WR that I set a decade+ ago. This one, however, involves Champions Mode, which is an unlockable mode from surviving 10 matches in Macs Last Stand. With this enabled, every punch will send you to the mat in one hit. This will be used in one of the coolest ways imaginable for a Punch Out speedrun, so lets get into the fight.
This strategy involves dodging Arans 1st attack, hitting him once in the gut, then dodging his subsequent counter-attack. If you dodge the 2nd attack fast enough and punch immediately, youll get a star! You want to make sure that your punch here is a left hook, because the direction you hit Aran will greatly impact the time it takes for him to do his next attack, since he dances around the ring and has to get to a specific side for certain parts of his pattern to continue.
Next, Aran will knock his head twice and attempt to punch you from the right side. Once you hear the 2nd knock noise, you can throw a punch and stun him off of it. Youll want to land only 4 punches here, because you need him at a very specific health value later, and you want him to break out of the stun naturally, since his next scripted move is a taunt from the center of the ring, which hell already be at if the stun ends on its own.
For this taunt star, Ive modified the buffer strategy that Nolan and Awosomeandy use in their WR runs. They immediately buffer 2 dodges, one punch, and do a delayed punch to collect the star. I ended up doing those same movements, but I instead delay my first dodge relative to when Mac fully pulls his fist back from punching Aran. I tried their buffer for a bit, but it refused to click with me at all for whatever inexplicable reason, but once I changed it, I was getting 2:33 phase 1s left and right.
Immediately as Macs punch hits Aran when countering his taunt, I start another pseudo buffer for the next dodge by using the exact same cue of Mac pulling his punch back, then throwing another punch into a dodge to evade his counter-attack frame perfectly. From there, I buffer a gut punch, then the fireworks begin, because this is the only time in the entire Punch Out series where a frame perfect double hit is ever used in an optimal speedrun.
As soon as Aran gets into his stance to throw a punch, I delay slightly after I see the stance visually, then throw my double star punch such that Aran knocks me down due to Champions Mode, while he receives the full damage of the double star punch. I have to stress that every single Punch Out game in the series has a double hit, and yet theyve never *ever* been useful for strategies until this Aran strategy from McHazard, and I just think its so cool. Getting a 2:33 means your time up to that point is frame perfect.
Once you get up, dodge his overhead to punch him in the gut, then dodge his counter-attack quickly like usual to punch him with a left gut punch so hes sent to the right and gather a star. Throw a punch as soon as you hear the 2nd knock noise, then throw only 6 stunned punches and let the stun end naturally. He will immediately go into a taunt, so I opted to do my pseudo buffer of starting my dodge right as Mac pulls his fist back, then do a follow up dodge, left gut punch into right gut punch to send him to the left side of the ring.
At this point, he is one hit away from being knocked down, which is actually a good point to bring up the new strategy change. McHazards original strategy called for knocking Aran Ryan down with a gut punch, and he probably figured the punch type didnt matter here, because the internal game timer is the same value when Aran is down, so 53.52 was considered the best possible time.
However, EpicJake72 discovered that while the time is the same when the knockdown happens, it is *not* the same when it comes to the 2nd phase, since Aran will take 2 extra frames to get to the back of the ring if he was knocked down with a gut punch due to the different position he falls down in! This makes a lot of sense in retrospect, because when I set the 54.66 record back in 2009 or so, a lot of people had a hard time matching it, but no one knew why. I liked knocking Aran down with a face punch when I stunned him back then because I thought that animation was funnier; little did I know it was also faster lmao.
So, for the last punch of phase 1, you want to jab counter him. When phase 2 begins, Aran goes to the back of the ring, and you have to actively block his headbutt within an 11 frame window iirc. From there, buffering your 3 star punch is an instant KO!
This fight was really fun for me to do actually; thoroughly enjoyed this grind. Despite needing 11 frame perfect inputs to match the WR/TAS, I got this much faster than I thought I would. Here are my stats:
2:33s - 22
53.70 - 5
53.64 - 11
53.58 - 4
53.52 - 3
53.46 - 2
53.40 - 1
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Bald Bull [00824] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a8afkrb9mT4/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Bald Bull [00824] (NTSC WR)
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=dV91OODVQcA
This is easily the most complicated and difficult fight that the Minor Circuit has to offer, especially when it comes to achieving an optimal fight. This was incidentally, one of the earliest records I tied the TAS on like a decade ago, despite its relatively high difficulty among the TAS tie records in Super Punch Out. I wanted to aim for optimizing real-time too, so I opted to use an alternate buffer strategy to finish phase 1 with a low super, which is how McHazards current TAS handles the first super knockdown in this fight.
However... as I was typing out that last sentence, I decided to double check how much faster the phase 1 low super knockdown was compared to the uppercut... and I found that the low super was 28 frames SLOWER than the uppercut. So, because I am a stickler for quality and feel like I should optimize these redone fights for real-time as well as game time, I decided to re-match the TAS time on Bald Bull *again* before uploading it. Ended up being busy for a while since my last upload too, which is why there was such a large gap between my last SPO upload and this one. If you want to see a comparison video I made with the other Bull video, you can check it out here to see how much faster an uppercut is for the end of phase 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plXKjgc61uI
The TAS strategy for this fight requires you to do a couple of strict things in phase 1. You must start the fight by holding Up for the first frame of the fight, and throwing two consecutive right gut punches. Once youve landed the first punch of the fight, you need to maintain a very strict pace in order for Bull to get dizzy with this strategy.
Theres a mechanic called the Dizzy Meter that determines when an opponent gets dizzy. The meter fills up every time you land a punch, which will add a weighted number to it depending on how strong it was, and then theyll go dizzy when a certain threshold is reached, which is different for every character. This meter will also go down by 1 point for every single frame that elapses in the fight, which means you need these punches to land *fast* in a short period of time to get them dizzy.
By the time youve landed the first punch in this fight, you cannot lose more than 2 frames collectively on EVERY punch up until you throw the low super that gets Bull dizzy, otherwise the dizzy meter just barely doesnt reach Bulls dizzy threshold.
After the first 2 right gut punches, you need to counter Bulls hook with a delayed right gut punch. From here, you need to perform a frame perfect delayed punch so that Bulls recoil animation is very slightly faster, and your punch gains you a couple of extra arrows. If youre too early, Bulls recoil will be a normal speed, but if youre too late, Bull ends up blocking you. I time this punch right around when I see Bulls mouth make a circle the 2nd time while hes stunned.
Once you land the frame perfect delayed punch, then you need to counter Bulls jab with a left jab of your own, then buffer another left jab and immediately throw a low super to get Bull dizzy. As he gets dizzy, you have a variety of buffer strategies that work, but the simplest and fastest way is the one I used here, which is left jab, right jab, uppercut.
For phase 2, you pretty much start the exact same way you start the fight, by holding Up for the first frame of the phase, then buffering a right gut punch. However, this time you want to just do one gut punch, and immediately buffer an uppercut out of it. If you do the gut punch within the first 2 possible frames, then Bull will still be idle when the uppercut tries to hit him, which means he has can randomly dodge the uppercut, and it feels like this is the case roughly 50% of the time.
Phase 3 is just the bull charge, which is totally free because theres a buffer that counters both delays he can do, which is throwing a right jab into a quick duck, and then 2 left body blows, which will counter both delays. However, because Im opting for real-time optimizations too, I decided to commit to Bull doing the faster delay, which means I might as well go for the low super bull charge counter for the TKO, which thankfully has a nice buffer that I used in my 2014 blindfolded run. This just involves throwing a left hook into a low super, which gets you the TKO!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Bald Bull [00819] (PAL WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aS4GFtDt5P4/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Bald Bull [00819] (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.
PAL Bald Bull has a pretty different phase 1 compared to his NTSC counterpart, which results in a very slightly lower time by comparison (if you did the NTSC strategy here, you would get an 8.23). This is another adjustment found by lixunis, and it only works in the PAL version, since you just barely cannot dizzy Bull with this strategy on NTSC by 1 frame, and with an adjustment to a gut punch to add extra points to the dizzy meter, the dizzy is slower than the other NTSC strategy by 3 frames.
You must start the fight by holding Up for the first frame of the fight, and throwing two consecutive right gut punches. Unlike the NTSC version of Bull, you thankfully do not need to keep a super strict pace in order to get Bull dizzy. If youd like to look at the NTSC version of this record for comparison, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8afkrb9mT4
To add context, theres a mechanic called the Dizzy Meter that determines when an opponent gets dizzy. The meter fills up every time you land a punch, which will add a weighted number to it depending on how strong it was, and then theyll go dizzy when a certain threshold is reached, which is different for every character. This meter will also go down by 1 point for every single frame that elapses in the fight, which means you need these punches to land *fast* in a short period of time to get them dizzy.
By the time youve landed the first punch in this fight, you cannot lose more than 5 frames collectively on every punch up until you throw the low super that gets Bull dizzy, otherwise the dizzy meter just barely doesnt reach Bulls dizzy threshold. For the NTSC version, you couldnt lose more than 2 frames, making this strategy far easier to complete.
After the first 2 right gut punches, you need to counter Bulls hook with a delayed right gut punch. From here, you start the deviation from the NTSC strategy and buffer a left jab, then you need to perform a frame perfect delayed punch so that Bulls recoil animation is very slightly faster, and your punch gains you a couple of extra arrows. If youre too early, Bulls recoil will be a normal speed, but if youre too late, Bull ends up blocking you. I buffer a left dodge and punch right around when my character fully centers himself.
Once you land the frame perfect delayed punch, then you need to counter Bulls jab with a delayed left jab of your own, and then youll actually need to *pause* the fight here to let your super meter arrows catch up with the 7 you just gained from that single punch. Once its filled, unpause the fight and immediately throw a low super to get Bull dizzy. As he gets dizzy, you have a variety of buffer strategies that work, but the simplest and fastest way is the one I used here, which is left jab, right jab, uppercut.
For phase 2, you pretty much start the exact same way you start the fight, by holding Up for the first frame of the phase, then buffering a right gut punch. However, this time you want to just do one gut punch, and immediately buffer an uppercut out of it. If you do the gut punch within the first 2 possible frames, then Bull will still be idle when the uppercut tries to hit him, which means he can randomly dodge the uppercut 3/8s of the time.
Phase 3 is just the bull charge, which apparently theres a buffer that counters both delays he can do for the PAL version of Bull, but I never learned it because Im opting for real-time optimizations too. I decided to commit to Bull doing the faster delay, which means I might as well go for the low super bull charge counter for the TKO, which thankfully has a nice buffer that I used in my 2014 blindfolded run. This just involves throwing a left hook into a low super, which gets you the TKO!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Great Tiger [0:47.48] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b41XjStxZ9s/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Great Tiger [0:47.48] (NTSC WR)
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/4vZM3wA7
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=udzmrMXHCq4
The TAS strategy for Great Tiger is thankfully very very simple. There are absolutely no luck elements in this fight whatsoever, even in terms of getting the lowest Mario counts and fake rises, since the strategy forces 1 counts from Tiger all the way until TKOing him!
The fight happens to be the 3rd one in the Major Circuit, meaning that for this fight to count as a record, you need to get there legitimately, which means you need to put in the Major Circuit password, and get there from that. I was intending to rematch Tiger if I messed up on him, since you get a couple of rematches per reset, but I happened to land it on my first try when I got there. Here is the proof video of me landing this fight from a reset to the title screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jo4UpS6b3Y
For the fight itself, Great Tigers pattern is pretty simple. After a couple of seconds of Tiger being idle, his gem will flash, and hell throw out a jab. This gem is also a very critical tell on when Tiger is vulnerable during his attack, since any jab that hits him when his gem flashes will give you a star. Star punches in this fight will deal 22 damage out of Tigers 96 HP health bar, because Tiger will keep his gloves up when the star hits him, which actually reduces the damage he takes! However, if you throw a star at just the right time when hes busy with his gem flash, then hell be too busy to raise his gloves, and a star will actually deal 27 damage instead of the expected 22!
You are also able to throw a jab at any point during the first in-game minute of the fight to force Tiger to throw out a jab of his own! If you hit him with a gut punch, youll get a star if its timed right. The gut punch thankfully has a pretty forgiving window, so thats typically whats done in full game runs, however, it is technically faster to do a delayed punch to the face instead. The caveat for this very meager time gain for punching Tiger in the face is that every single delayed jab is mandatory frame perfect if you want it to reward a star, making the fight substantially harder than the gut punch strategy.
The fight starts with provoking 3 of these jabs and doing delayed frame perfect jabs for each one. Once you have 3, then unload two of them in quick succession, then do one more frame perfect jab to get your star count back to 2.
Now, back in April of 2014 when I first matched Matt Turks time for Great Tiger, I had found 2 buffer strategies to take care of these last two punches for free. This includes a left quick dodge into a jab, which will hit Tiger when his gem starts to flash on its own, and then a right slow dodge, into a right quick dodge, into a star punch, which will ensure that Macs star will hit Tiger on the first possible frame when his gem flashes, and deal the needed 27 damage to send Tiger to the mat. From that point forward, Tiger will be forced to get up on two 1 counts from Mario, which means buffering 2 stars will send Tiger down instantly two times for the TKO!
Now the one thing thats worth mentioning is that the left quick dodge into a jab does *not* hit Great Tiger on the first possible frame, but instead hits him on the second possible frame! The reason why the in-game time is the same as the TAS time is just because the 47.48 actually has a frame window of several frames, and the time loss on the buffer is still well within that range.
To justify this upload a bit more than just the quality upgrade, I opted to manually hit the jab without the safety buffer, and double checked the recording to verify that I did indeed hit the first possible frame of that jab window, which effectively means this is a new PB for this fight for me in terms of real-time frames.
This also very well might be the first publicly verifiable time that the *true* TAS time for Tiger has been hit in an official capacity, since every single WR tie video on SRC has the safety buffer near the end of phase 1 that loses 1 frame. Also due to the properly done recording here with zero frames decimated in the video, anyone watching can easily self verify this fight to the current TAS on TASVideos and see that the jab exactly matches up cue for cue.
Anyways, thanks for watching! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and Happy Holidays!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Piston Hondo [0:33.76] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b9TeA4fKSRY/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Piston Hondo [0:33.76] (WR)
Been stonewalled by TD Hippo, so I started doing Hondo again, and just like Contender Disco Kid, Ive somehow managed to completely skip over 33.82 and landed a 33.76 instead, which finally matches the WR/TAS for this fight. Ive also managed to do this with a completely different phase 1 compared to Pottoww & Nolans run of this fight, just because I felt that practicing this new phase 1 would be best for me in the long run for full game runs (read the description in my 33.88 for more info on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nefYQGGl7yc).
Landing this fight was tough, especially since the other night I had lost a run that I was certain was on frame perfect pace at the final counter in phase 3. It was on the 3rd 2:47 I had gotten since I started these attempts, so it sucked that I couldve ended it really early again like Disco, but missed the final piece.
I didnt feel deterred by this though, just that I needed to do literally what I just did again, except hit that last counter along with the rest. If anything, it just confirmed that my progress was paying off. Today, I had this fight completely dialed in, because I was getting 2:47s left and right, and all the practice from getting the 33.88 was paying off too, because I was getting to the 2 counters at the end of phase 2 with regularity now. When I landed this fight, I knew with 100% accuracy that I hit that counter in phase 3 frame perfectly, and since phase 1 was perfect due to being a 2:47, meant that if I had gotten a frame perfect phase 2 like in the 33.88, this would be it, and thankfully it was!
Lets get to the fight itself. I looked into the optimal time to skip the cutscene by doing a sort of binary search with when I skip the cutscene, then TASing phase 1 until I got 2:47. In pinpointing that location, I now know that skipping the cutscene roughly where I did in this video will enable you to still get 2:47s. I try to counter the jabs in this fight by throwing a jab as soon as I hear his eyebrows, although I react too fast for this to be super consistent for me, so I try to hesitate ever so slightly to compensate for this, and it works decently while still being frame perfect often. Instead of using the buffer that Mystery found, I do a pseudo buffer thats really similar, where instead of a same sided punch after the jab counter, I do an *opposite* side punch, which is 3 frames faster.
I have to intentionally waste 1 frame somewhere for this buffer to work, so I wait until Mac is fully centered before I throw the punch. If Hondo blocks the punch and doesnt throw the hook, the punch landed correctly, but if he winds up to throw the hook, then you were too late. Likewise, if Hondo blocks the punch but still throws the hook, then youve thrown the punch too early. This cancel is frame perfect, so its quite difficult to land consistently. After the cancel, I use pseudo buffers to hit the next cancel, and the star punch for the instant knockdown. The cues I use for when to start these ducks are from me looking at his gloves.
As soon as I see Hondos gloves fully raised, I hesitate very slightly, then duck into a punch to cancel his 2nd jab. When I see his gloves *begin* to move after that cancel, I duck again and buffer that into a star punch. Because everything in phase 1 was landed frame perfectly, this ends up being a 2:47.
Phase 2 requires getting a star with a delayed jab off of Hondos uppercut, and I throw that star as soon as Hondos EH? noise finishes. Then you have to do a *very* delayed star punch in order to make his next attack come out faster. For this, I use a pseudo buffer and time a duck as soon as I see Hondo start to move after my jab landed. This delayed star also works to make the in-game timer tick down at a slower speed (10% speed) than if you were to throw the punch immediately (30% speed).
He follows this up with 2 jabs that come out immediately if the star was timed correctly. These 2 jabs are probably my least favorite punches in the fight, as Ive lost some really good runs to at least one of these jabs due to how awkward it is for me to be consistent at them. Once you gather your 2 stars, you can just throw them immediately for knockdown #2.
For phase 3, Hondo is forced to do the Hondo rush pattern since hes been knocked down twice before a minute, which only requires you to do a single counter to finish the fight. I time this punch immediately after he stops talking, and it usually ends up being frame perfect more often than not.
The stats that I have for this fight dont really tell the whole picture, since I spent a decent chunk of time drilling the new phase 1 with the hook cancel buffer that wastes a frame, but heres all the details that I deemed worth tallying for this fight:
Completed sub-34 Hondo fights:
33.94 - 3
33.88 - 3
33.76 - 1
Total rollover phase 1s (2:47 barely becoming 2:46 as star lands): 46
Total frame perfect phase 1s landed (2:47s): 16
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Don Flamenco 2 [1:19.82]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bCdVQX7FJVk/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Don Flamenco 2 [1:19.82]
Mixing in some Don Flamenco 2 attempts with my Bull 1 attempts, and got my first sub 1:20 fight! This fight is super random. I had to get a random star within the first 2 opportunities in phase 1 (each random star in this fight is 1/16 each).
Then for phase 2, I needed the first punch to reward me a random star, then I needed a good refill for phase 2 (which is 3/8 for mid refill and 1/8 for best refill; I got best). Finally, I needed a 1/8 refill in phase 3 to finish the fight. This final refill ONLY happens if you dont have full health for the fight, which is why I pressed select before the fight (select on the first round reduces your HP by half).")
![Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Deathless Cormano Speedrun [14:34] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bVFjSHsaiVE/hqdefault.jpg "Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Deathless Cormano Speedrun [14:34] (WR)
This was played on an original Sunset Riders arcade PCB on the H.A.S. SuperGun. I did my run on default difficulty settings which I show at the end of the video (I may consider hardest in the future). This was also recorded through an S-Video connection because my setup cannot support RGB signals at the moment.
So the board that I have is the US version, which differs from the EAC version that I used in MAME in a few different ways. First off, the game gives you no extra lives at 20,000 and 200,000 points, which makes getting a 1 credit clear (1cc) quite a bit more difficult by comparison.
Secondly, the game removed the 1UP items completely from stage 6, which got swapped with a gold pickup instead.
It is also worth noting that MAME runs this game at an even 60 frames a second, whereas this board appears to run at about 59.1866 or so (this was captured at 29.5933 interlaced). Because of this difference, runs on arcade hardware will be at an artificial time disadvantage when compared directly to emulator runs.
With all that being said, this run is a huge improvement over my previous runs. Despite the artificial time disadvantage, this run handily beats the 14:35 I set on MAME a while back!
This run pulls off a new quick kill on the first boss that saves upwards of 4+ seconds since the last run Ive gotten. The rest of this run was just pretty solid, outside of a silly mistake on stage 6 where I didnt take care of some enemies that got to shoot arrows at me, which made me have to stop for a moment.
Also, shoutouts to Scoop for the adjustment on the 2nd half of the final stage! That really simplifies the difficulty of that part significantly!
Anyways, enjoy the run!")
![Splatterhouse 2 - Speed Run [15:34]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bZwiYBx2nBQ/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse 2 - Speed Run [15:34]
I rerouted a good chunk of this game recently, which gives me several possible seconds of time save compared to what we were doing before! Improved my PB/WR by nearly 2 seconds, ending up with a high 15:34! I still want to push this closer to 15:30, but its gonna be tough to get it all together in one clean run. That being said, I think I can do better before I put the game back down for other projects again!
Also, this was captured off of an S-Video modded model 1 Sega Genesis with an original cartridge of Splatterhouse 2.")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Soda Popinski [0:42.72] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bj_XFT8ycCY/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Soda Popinski [0:42.72] (WR)
Wasnt planning on doing a lot of attempts on this fight tonight, but within 30 minutes of attempts, I tied the previous record of 42.78, with the one mistake being obviously the phase 3 star punch before the TKO recovery. I was crushed by this, but I knew my execution was on point, because the part after the TKO recovery was frame perfect... so I kept doing attempts.
A mere 13 minutes later, I finally did it; I matched the TAS time for contender Soda Popinski! This requires hitting all 9 frame perfect inputs in order to match this time, as well as win a random event.
Speaking of which, this is one of two fights in this game that requires a technique called the TKO Recovery which, as the name suggests, is when Mac resists being TKOd and gets back on his feet instead of going down for the expected TKO. This happens completely randomly, estimated to be anywhere from 15-25% on average. This makes optimizing this fight far more difficult than it would otherwise be, considering 75%+ of your attempts wont make it past this point. Champions mode is used for this fight to skip his rage uppercuts whenever he gets up from a knockdown (this mode gives Mac 1HP, and can only be unlocked by getting at lest 10 victories in Last Stand). It also has Soda throw a jab whenever you get up from a knockdown, which can be countered for a star!
Lets get into the fight. The first thing thats done is a delayed gut punch off of Sodas first jab, which if done correctly, yields a star. If you follow that up with a delayed jab, then throw a star as hes reeling, Soda will be instantly knocked down!
Phase 2 involves taking a knockdown to skip Sodas rage uppercuts, then getting up and countering Sodas jab for a star. Off of this counter, I buffer 2 ducks into alternating punches to hit Soda on the first possible frame as he finishes drinking his soda and walks back in, which weirdly enough, rewards a star. The instant knockdown done in phase 1 works in subsequent phases... but will require an additional star each time its done (this time requires 2). This particular attack also lets me do a delayed jab to get him into position for the instant knockdown too, since countering his bottle would just make Soda mad and rush in for a sequence of rage uppercuts.
Phase 3 has Mac take his 2nd knockdown, to which Mac gets up and counters Sodas scripted jab. Now, this delayed star punch needs to be timed in a very specific way such that Sodas next attacks gets skipped. If you throw the star punch too early, then Soda will do slow hooks after Macs next knockdown, which instantly ends the attempt. The visual cue that youve thrown it correctly is if Soda just barely gets completely centered as the star punch lands.
After the star punch, Soda reels to the back of the ring and runs back to Mac to throw more rage uppercuts, which Mac takes. This is where luck comes into play, because thats Macs 3rd knockdown, meaning we need the lucky TKO recovery. Thankfully in this run I get it!
Once Mac is back up on his feet, counter Sodas scripted jab, and counter Sodas bottle. This will make Soda mad and hell approach you to do rage uppercuts, however a delayed star punch will hit him if you time it just right, and a double star punch here is just enough to take him out for good.
This record has finally reached its peak for this strategy after 11+ years of it existing. Im so glad to have been able to take it down after so many years of playing this game. The final tally of statistics for attempts that got to the TKO recovery opportunity chance, vs actual successful recoveries, is 41 to 167, which gives an approximate probability of 24.55% for TKO recoveries for me.
Here are some additional stats on this grind:
Mac knockdown time on failed attempts:
33.99 - 20
33.93 - 6
Completed Soda fights:
42.96 - 3
42.90 - 2
42.89 - 2
42.83 - 1
42.78 - 2
42.72 - 1
Not sure whats next on the list, possibly either Title Defense Soda, or Title Defense King Hippo since I ended up finding the optimal strategies for both of those.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
