zallard1 | Punch Out!! (Wii) - Mr. Sandman [0:31.98] (WR) @zallard1 | Uploaded February 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This has been an ongoing fight that I've been grinding on the down-low for the past week+ or so. I've had a tendency to stop short on tying the TAS for some fights in the past, and this is one that I really wanted to see happen, no matter how difficult it was to optimize. So I realized an incentive that would get me to finish the job on this fight, which was to not upload *any* PB's of this fight until I literally hit the best possible time, which is a 31.98. Granted, the only time people missed out on seeing was when I initially hit 32.04, because once I hit that, I was stuck there for quite a bit, haha.

This is also partly due to the very bizarre and difficult method that I had to use in order to tune my timing to the exact rhythms needed for the 4 frame perfect move cancels in phase 2. I literally had to TAS the Sandman fight in Dolphin, and take relevant pictures in order for me to identify what frames Mac needs to start punching on. This was problematic, because the Wii U's video quality for this game is a bit spotty, while Dolphin's is perfect, so the cues look a bit different, but I had a rough idea on where the punches need to be, so I started there. Any time something went wrong in phase 2, I would stop recording, look at my video, diagnose which punch was incorrect, find new visual cues to use, do more attempts, diagnose punches, ect ect. It was very tedious, but it was necessary for this fight due to the ambiguous nature of the 4 cancels in phase 2.

I quickly got a 32.04 with a 2:35 knockdown, which was great, but leaves things a little ambiguous on where the frame was lost. All I knew was that phase 3's punch was frame perfect, and exactly 1 frame was lost somewhere in phases 1 and 2. It gave me some new pictures to use as a way to diagnose punches more accurately, so it was slow but steady progress in cutting the final frame off this fight.

youtube.com/watch?v=-v7x1fFXExE

Let's get into the fight itself. First off, this fight is played in Champion's Mode, which is a toggle-able option that you can earn from 10 consecutive wins in Mac's Last stand to make every punch from the opponent knock you down in a single hit. This is used to take a knockdown immediately at the start of phase 1 to advance a bit in his move script. You also need to do *2* blocked punches in order to make him attack immediately as you get up from your knockdown.

Once you get up from the knockdown, you cancel the first punch Sandman attempts to throw (you can buffer this punch for some reason?!?) and then counter his quick overhead punch for a star. Then comes the extremely important part; you need to cancel his "Stand Still" overhead punch with a slightly delayed blocked punch as he's coming to the center, then do ANOTHER very slightly delayed punch. This 2nd punch is mandatorily frame perfect, and is timed in such a way that his normal "Boo" taunt is actually AN INSTANT KNOCKDOWN when you buffer a star punch off of it!

The next phase is the scary part of optimizing this fight, because in order to match the TAS, you need to hit his first counter on the first frame, then cancel his two "Night Night!" punches on the first frame, his "Stand Still!" punch on the first frame, and finally, throw a mandatory frame perfect punch in order to set up the glitch on Sandman for the second instant knockdown. The 4 cancels are really hard because they are 4 inputs that all happen within about 2 seconds of real time.

Additionally, the tempo of these punches are very slightly misaligned, making the timing a bit harder than if they were equally spaced. For the first cancel, Mac's punch needs to come out about 35 frames after you've collected the star, then the next cancel is 32 frames later, then 32 frames later for the 3rd cancel, and *31* frames later for the final cancel. This last one is so tricky, because you need to hit the previous two at an identical timing. My timing cue that I used for all of these is that I'll throw the first punch as soon as I see Sandman's "sprite" freeze from the previous counter, then the next 3 I end up timing when Sandman's head crosses the middle of the "X" on his knockdown counter.

In order to get a 2:36 instead of a 2:35, you need to do everything before phase 3 frame perfectly. I got five 2:36's before I landed the 31.98, four of which were today, which is ridiculous, but also reasonable, since I've only just recently dialed in the correct timings. Before that, I got one 2:36 a few days prior, and absolutely nothing before that. It is just *that* specific to get it all right.

In the last phase, you just need to jab his taunt, buffer a gut punch, and finally the star for the instant knockdown off his dreamland express. I ditched the old pseudo buffer because timing it out manually seemed better for the precision needed.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one! This was a huge struggle to get done properly from scratch, but I'm really happy that this one is over and done with!