zallard1 | Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:37] @zallard1 | Uploaded October 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This was played on an original Splatterhouse arcade PCB on the H.A.S. supergun. My Splatterhouse PCB also now has the EVERTEN stereo expansion board, so the audio is more clear now with separate stereo channels! This run was done on the hardest difficulty, which starts you at 2HP instead of the default 4HP.
This was also recorded through the Datapath E1 capture card via RGB and upscaled to 4k, so this quality is about as crisp as you can possibly get on real hardware. For comparison, you can check out my slower 13:37 run from a while back which was recorded via S-Video to see how much better the recording quality has gotten: youtube.com/watch?v=Uvgl8DadM6M
It is also worth noting that the game is running at a slightly higher framerate than the home release ports out there (JP Wii VC at 59.94 fps, and the Namco Museum version runs at ~60 fps). This board appears to run at about 60.60 frames a second, so this benefits from small time gains compared to those versions.
So stormcrow56k picked this game up for speedrunning recently, and found a couple of new strategies in a few spots. The main optimization he found was for the stage 2 boss, where he found an approach to kill the chair with one punch and one slidekick, however it's extremely difficult and inconsistent, so he also found a backup strategy that minimizes time loss if you don't get it, which helps justify going for it.
Beyond the chair kill, there's a really hard strategy that requires good luck on knives such that they cross in the center of the room, as well as a really difficult jump-punch strategy to take out the 2 airborne knives, which requires pressing jump and punch on the same frame to get Rick to carry his "punch state" into the air and punch twice in the air. 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).
The other find that stormcrow found was for the Jennifer boss fight in stage 5. Effectively, you can exchange one of the punches early in the the fight with a very late slide kick for the last attack, which saves you one attack and nets you a tiny bit of time.
As far as the overall run, I didn't get a great stage 3 boss kill just because I missed the jump kick as he jumped forward, which allows him to jump after every couple of shots (he won't jump if his HP is at an odd value, and shotgun blasts deal 2HP of damage).
I also missed the optimal knife kills on the stage 2 boss due to the difficulty of them, but kept the run going just because it still had a small chance of getting a new record. The exact time of this run is a 13:37.357, which beats the old run by almost exactly half a second (old record was an 13:37.856).
Should hopefully be able to beat this soon. The record probably won't stay at a 13:37 for long, so this will likely be the last one this game sees!
Anyways, thanks for watching!
This was played on an original Splatterhouse arcade PCB on the H.A.S. supergun. My Splatterhouse PCB also now has the EVERTEN stereo expansion board, so the audio is more clear now with separate stereo channels! This run was done on the hardest difficulty, which starts you at 2HP instead of the default 4HP.
This was also recorded through the Datapath E1 capture card via RGB and upscaled to 4k, so this quality is about as crisp as you can possibly get on real hardware. For comparison, you can check out my slower 13:37 run from a while back which was recorded via S-Video to see how much better the recording quality has gotten: youtube.com/watch?v=Uvgl8DadM6M
It is also worth noting that the game is running at a slightly higher framerate than the home release ports out there (JP Wii VC at 59.94 fps, and the Namco Museum version runs at ~60 fps). This board appears to run at about 60.60 frames a second, so this benefits from small time gains compared to those versions.
So stormcrow56k picked this game up for speedrunning recently, and found a couple of new strategies in a few spots. The main optimization he found was for the stage 2 boss, where he found an approach to kill the chair with one punch and one slidekick, however it's extremely difficult and inconsistent, so he also found a backup strategy that minimizes time loss if you don't get it, which helps justify going for it.
Beyond the chair kill, there's a really hard strategy that requires good luck on knives such that they cross in the center of the room, as well as a really difficult jump-punch strategy to take out the 2 airborne knives, which requires pressing jump and punch on the same frame to get Rick to carry his "punch state" into the air and punch twice in the air. 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).
The other find that stormcrow found was for the Jennifer boss fight in stage 5. Effectively, you can exchange one of the punches early in the the fight with a very late slide kick for the last attack, which saves you one attack and nets you a tiny bit of time.
As far as the overall run, I didn't get a great stage 3 boss kill just because I missed the jump kick as he jumped forward, which allows him to jump after every couple of shots (he won't jump if his HP is at an odd value, and shotgun blasts deal 2HP of damage).
I also missed the optimal knife kills on the stage 2 boss due to the difficulty of them, but kept the run going just because it still had a small chance of getting a new record. The exact time of this run is a 13:37.357, which beats the old run by almost exactly half a second (old record was an 13:37.856).
Should hopefully be able to beat this soon. The record probably won't stay at a 13:37 for long, so this will likely be the last one this game sees!
Anyways, thanks for watching!
![Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:37]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uC3B_PTHt_g/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:37]
This was played on an original Splatterhouse arcade PCB on the H.A.S. supergun. My Splatterhouse PCB also now has the EVERTEN stereo expansion board, so the audio is more clear now with separate stereo channels! This run was done on the hardest difficulty, which starts you at 2HP instead of the default 4HP.
This was also recorded through the Datapath E1 capture card via RGB and upscaled to 4k, so this quality is about as crisp as you can possibly get on real hardware. For comparison, you can check out my slower 13:37 run from a while back which was recorded via S-Video to see how much better the recording quality has gotten: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvgl8DadM6M
It is also worth noting that the game is running at a slightly higher framerate than the home release ports out there (JP Wii VC at 59.94 fps, and the Namco Museum version runs at ~60 fps). This board appears to run at about 60.60 frames a second, so this benefits from small time gains compared to those versions.
So stormcrow56k picked this game up for speedrunning recently, and found a couple of new strategies in a few spots. The main optimization he found was for the stage 2 boss, where he found an approach to kill the chair with one punch and one slidekick, however its extremely difficult and inconsistent, so he also found a backup strategy that minimizes time loss if you dont get it, which helps justify going for it.
Beyond the chair kill, theres a really hard strategy that requires good luck on knives such that they cross in the center of the room, as well as a really difficult jump-punch strategy to take out the 2 airborne knives, which requires pressing jump and punch on the same frame to get Rick to carry his punch state into the air and punch twice in the air. 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).
The other find that stormcrow found was for the Jennifer boss fight in stage 5. Effectively, you can exchange one of the punches early in the the fight with a very late slide kick for the last attack, which saves you one attack and nets you a tiny bit of time.
As far as the overall run, I didnt get a great stage 3 boss kill just because I missed the jump kick as he jumped forward, which allows him to jump after every couple of shots (he wont jump if his HP is at an odd value, and shotgun blasts deal 2HP of damage).
I also missed the optimal knife kills on the stage 2 boss due to the difficulty of them, but kept the run going just because it still had a small chance of getting a new record. The exact time of this run is a 13:37.357, which beats the old run by almost exactly half a second (old record was an 13:37.856).
Should hopefully be able to beat this soon. The record probably wont stay at a 13:37 for long, so this will likely be the last one this game sees!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Narcis Prince [00826]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uXrU6xjn8us/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Narcis Prince [00826]
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=RWRlCMDAGys
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. This fight is the entire reason Ive redone my ILs in RGB quality, to motivate me to improve my time and inch closer to, and eventually match, the record of 820. My PB on this fight was an 828 set in 2014, until I improved it recently to the 826 you see right here.
Ive been grinding mostly just this fight 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 end your attempt on the 1st frame of the fight if he dances or walks to the side, before you even get to do anything. 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.
After landing the 3 gut punches, Narcis will throw a hook on your left, which youll need to counter with a low left gut punch. Once you land 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 once a blue moon. 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 your boxer goes through his dodge animation. As soon as your character is about to center himself, then 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 in his angry phase, 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.
As soon as the delayed jab lands that makes Narcis angry, you need to buffer a left gut, into a quick duck, then cancel that with another left gut, into right jab, then left jab. Once the left jab lands, you NEED to pause the game to let the super meter catch up; if you dont, then Narcis cant get dizzy. Then you need to buffer rapid jabs, which has a 6 frame window to repress the A button, otherwise youll be too slow and Narcis cant get dizzy. With the good pattern, Narcis can still dodge the initial jab, as well as your 1st and 4th rapid jabs. Once 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. I do a pseudo buffer where I tap duck, into a quick duck, but I time that 2nd duck exactly when I see my boxer fully centered. Once your rapid jab lands, buffer a quick dodge, into a right jab, low jab, and uppercut. This uppercut is so awful and rare, but if it lands, then youve finished the fight! To put it in perspective, back in 2014, I got this uppercut to land 1 time out of 30+ attempts, which is abysmal luck.
Ill still try to improve this closer to the record periodically, but its a brutal grind. Hoping Ill get some nice improvements sooner rather than later!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Nick Bruiser [00749] (PAL WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/u_AJnZir_GE/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Nick Bruiser [00749] (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.
Here’s the final fight of PAL Super Punch Out, and I’d by lying if I said it was anything other than anticlimactic, lol.
The NTSC version of Nick Bruiser is almost identical to this fight, aside from one small difference in execution. If you’d like to compare that fight to this one, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR1kxwZutr8
NTSC Nick requires you to hit one mandatory frame perfect counter, as well as a couple of buffered inputs to match the 7’52” TAS time. However, would you believe me if I said that the PAL version is even easier?
That’s right, you just have to memorize a couple of buffer strategies and keep rolling the dice until you win, ultimately requiring very little skill to pull off.
The strategy begins just like the NTSC version does, where you simply buffer 2 left jabs. This is the only fight in the entire game where you can simply punch an opponent in the face without needing to worry about guard manipulation, so it makes the inputs for the first attack trivial.
Once you land the 2 jabs, you need to buffer a quick duck into a right jab to perfectly counter Nick’s jab to where his recoil animation is faster than usual (Nick may throw a hook here, which ruins attempts 50% of the time). For the NTSC version, this has to be hit manually, but for this version, that buffer makes it automatically free for the player.
Once you land the jab, you need to buffer a left jab, then do a tap duck which involves holding Down on the dpad until the instant you see your character start to duck, then immediately let go. Once your character is almost centered, buffer B to hit Nick on the final frame of his stun. From this point forward, you need several more luck events to align. From there, just buffer 2 left jabs and he should go dizzy assuming he doesnt block at all. With Nick going into his dizzy animation, just buffer 2 right gut punches into 2 low supers for the knockdown at 5”28.
Phase 2 is trivial, as you just need to buffer 2 consecutive uppercuts. If you get all of the luck, then the 2nd uppercut will land, and Nick will be down for the KO.
It’s extremely easy to execute this strategy in full, but the real deterrent for doing something like this in full game runs is the luck, so let’s take a look at the luck real quick…
Phase 1:
-Nick throws a jab (1/2)
-Nick’s delay for his 2nd attack is 80 frames* (1/4)
-Total Phase 1 odds: (1/2)*(1/4) = (1/8) = 12.5%
*You won’t see if you got the correct delay until the first uppercut of phase 2 lands.
Phase 2:
-Nick throws a jab (1/2)
-Landing an unstunned uppercut (5/8)
-Nick doesn’t get the 24 frame delay for next attack [prevents him blocking 2nd uppercut] (7/8)
-Total Phase 2 odds: (1/2)*(5/8)*(7/8) = 35 / 128 = ~1 / 3.6571 (or ~27.34%)
Total fight odds: (1/8)*(35/128) = 35 / 1,024 = ~1 / 29.2571 (or ~3.4%)
The luck ends up being the 2nd worst odds to complete a strategy in the entire game, with only Narcis being rarer.
The good thing is that the execution is so trivial that it handily makes up for the unfavorable luck requirements to make this one of the easiest records in the entire game.
Phew, and that’s it for the PAL version of Super Punch Out! That was a pretty fun diversion and I’m glad I finally got around to tying these records.
Right now I’m having arm issues (cubital tunnel), so I’ll be taking a break from speedrun attempts for a while, but once it’s better, I’d like to match the Narcis Prince TAS time on the NTSC version to round out my TAS ties in this game in all regions.
After that, I’d probably be more inclined to improve my full game run, as my PB is 6 years old at this point and a lot of new things have been found since I ran it last.
In the meantime while I heal, I’m probably going to start uploading the couple of marathon runs that I’ve done over the years that I haven’t gotten around to yet.
I stopped uploading them at the Calithon run of Double Punch Out in 2017, and there’s still a couple more between that and the 2019 Wii Punch Out run that I haven’t uploaded yet. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and perhaps this is the best time to get that taken care of.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Mr. Sandman [0:38.73] (Non-Headgear WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ulu1jvluVgo/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Mr. Sandman [0:38.73] (Non-Headgear WR)
EDIT: Ive beaten this time with a 34.64 using headgear if you wanna check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spMeNqEKjdk
This is a weird case, because I intentionally did an obsolete strategy on this fight, but theres a decent reason for it. The best known strategy for Title Defense Sandman currently requires the use of the 100 loss headgear, which is used to tank a ton of provoked hits since the timer slows down significantly during these hits. You also cannot use the headgear in exhibition, so you *need* to have a separate 100 loss file and be at TD Sandman in career mode to get *one* shot at completing the fight.
That all just seemed like a pain and it feels weird using a tool thats in the game for players who have trouble progressing in the game for a speedrun. Also, my current new file Ive started since Ive come back to Punch Out Wii has a terrible TD Sandman time and I hate it, so I did the next best strategy that Mysteryman found so the time looks nice in my menu, which is possibly the weakest reason to grind this ever lol.
Given all of that, this strategy was overall really fun to pull off! The challenge is quite high, with a lot of interesting quirks that you need to keep in mind throughout the fight. I gave this strategy literally a single night of learning/attempts to throw down some kind of time on this, and I dont regret a second of it, hahaha.
This fight begins by buffering a hook to make Sandmans first attack come out faster. Then, instead of countering his eye for a star, I punch him in the gut to make him reel to the side. If you do a delayed jab at just the right timing, Sandman will sidestep it and do a hook. If you get him to throw a MY TURN hook, this slows down the timer SUBSTANTIALLY! The side that Mac throws his jab will determine what type of hook Sandman throws, and it alternates every punch that Mac throws with a left right right order usually.
Anyways, with the first gut punch that intercepts his first wink, a delayed left jab is needed to get the first correct hook out of Sandman. For his second wink, throw another delayed gut punch, followed by a delayed *right* jab this time for the My Turn hook. This part here is tricky, and I didnt pull out TAS tools to explore this further, but you need to press up in a specific way so that Mac can throw a blocked punch faster than normal after Sandman hits him the 2nd time. My very janky solution to this was to mash up and punch rapidly to get it to work sometimes. Whenever I do the headgear strategy, Ill definitely have a better explanation for this one!
Once that blocked punch is thrown, throw yet another delayed left jab, take the hook to the face, then counter his quick overhead punch (this window is much tighter than the first fight). Youll have to throw a blocked punch to cancel his Night Night hook, then throw the star after a slight hesitation to cancel his Stand still! attack. This will force him into throwing his quiet hook from the left, which is right before his first Dreamland Express. Counter this for a star, then throw a delayed right hook to force him into one more My turn hook, then duck it, throw a punch to make him reel, then throw a star punch late enough to where the timer doesnt speed up, yet still scores an instant knockdown. A 2:43 is pretty tight, but doable here.
For phase 2, you need to counter his eye this time since your heart count is shot. This eye counter is random, with a 50% chance of being in your favor, so just guess which one you get, and commit fully to it being on your side. Once you get the star, throw it asap to skip his 2nd wink, then counter the 3rd wink, which will 100% be on the first side he started with. Hell immediately go into a second Dreamland Express, oddly enough. Once he start to back up, provoke him with a right hook, then duck the final My turn hook, throw a punch, and do another delayed star punch to hopefully take him down for the second time. I was really close to a 2:31 here, which is a shame I missed it, but I dont feel like grinding this fight super hard to get it.
For phase 3, theres a glitch you can do to punch Sandman as the cutscene starts, which is frame perfect (EDIT: it appears to actually be 2 frames after Mystery double checked it). Its kind of hilarious and serves no purpose, so its just funny frame perfect swag. This phase is just countering 2 winks that always start on the left, and buffer the double star for the TKO.
So, I decided to do this fight because Im taking a detour away from Wii Punch Out for a little bit. Ive promised sinister1 that I would grind Mike Tyson for the fabled phase 3 uppercut, which Ive never attempted before. This was off of an ill timed bet/promise I made, but is kind of funny how it unfolded. Check out sinisters perfectly executed Tyson PB here, along with the lore that goes along with this silly promise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVeE7SdCjiA
Anyways, thank you for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out - 2 player 1 controller blindfolded speedrun w/ sinister1 @ AGDQ 2020 [23:39]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v4HnZ4-_HzI/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out - 2 player 1 controller blindfolded speedrun w/ sinister1 @ AGDQ 2020 [23:39]
This was absolutely ridiculous, and the first time we ever beat the game in this fashion without passwords, let alone a flawless 14-0 with zero knockdowns. I am utterly speechless and I cant thank sinister1 enough for agreeing to attempt this with me.")
![Splatterhouse 2 - Speed Run [15:33]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vYE3vVS0rEU/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse 2 - Speed Run [15:33]
Yet again beat my record, this time by about 1.6 seconds, which is close, but not quite enough to get to a 15:32, since my last run was a high 15:34. Anyways, this run had most of the big stuff hit correctly, with only a handful of minor errors here and there, so were getting real close to a run that Im satisfied with!
Also, this was captured off of an S-Video modded model 1 Sega Genesis with an original cartridge of Splatterhouse 2.")
![Super Punch Out!! - Aran Ryan [00845] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vrDmWhUVyOk/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Aran Ryan [00845] (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=LaLv-oY5f5E
Aran Ryan in this game has a couple of unique qualities to him. Aran takes barely any damage from all of your normal punches, so hes hyper resistant to everything aside from Supers. To illustrate this, all of your normals (left/right jab and left/right body blow) all do only a measly 2 damage each, with Arans full health bar being 80HP total. Compare that to Gabby Jay, where left jab deals 4 damage, right jab deals 5 damage, left gut does 3 damage, and right gut deals 4 damage. Effectively, your damage output on average is cut *in half* compared to Gabby.
However, if you throw a low super at Gabby, it deals 10 damage, and an uppercut landed on Gabby deals 17 damage, which is pretty solid damage. If you land a low super on Aran, it deals *20* damage, and an uppercut deals *23* damage, which is a *massive* increase in damage output, even compared to the weakest boxer in the game!
This fight is designed this way in order to make sure that youre skillful enough to maintain and effectively use your super meter to the fullest. If you are having trouble doing that in general, then youre going to be stuck on this fight until you pass that skill check and are reasonably capable of putting up a good offense with those supers.
Despite Arans ridiculous defense against normal punches, he ends up being a really simple and straightforward fight to get the record on, with barely any randomness, and only really 2 things that you need to time perfectly in order to master this strategy.
Start the fight by holding Up for the first frame of the fight, and then letting go and pressing Y to do a left handed gut punch. From here, buffer another left gut punch, then buffer a right jab into a left jab. Aran will then leap to the left side of the ring, and youll need to time a left jab as quickly as you possibly can. I try to time this jab around when I see the start of Arans leap animation. The dizzy meter is somewhat tight, with you needing to hit this jab within a 4 frame window in order for Aran to successfully go into dizzy status.
Once you land that timed jab, then buffer 2 more left gut punches to send Aran reeling to the side. If youre wanting to do this for a full game run, then I would recommend buffering quick duck into a left gut punch, into a left jab, into a low super. This wastes 1 frame compared to the optimal knockdown, which uses that same technique I mentioned on Mr. Sandman to burn frames in the previous phase. This is because Aran has a similar thing as the Bald Bull IL where he can randomly dodge supers if a one is thrown while hes idle.
Burning that single frame during the dizzy prevents him from dodging your low super at the start of phase 2 when its buffered. If you are specifically going for the world record though and need that single frame, then the buffer strategy you want to do would be a left gut punch, into a right gut punch, into a low super to knock him down. I also use low supers for the knockdowns, since low super happens to be a whopping 84 frames faster than knocking Aran down with an uppercut.
Once Aran gets up, just hold A to buffer a low super to come out on the first frame. If you did the safe buffer in phase 1, youll still have lost that frame, but the super will land 100% of the time. If you went for the buffer thats 1 frame faster, Aran can dodge this roughly 50% of the time. Once the super lands, you can do one of two buffers here depending on what your goals are, because Aran will reel backward and attempt to grab you, but can do 2 different delays before actually committing to it.
If you want to just finish a fight for a full game run, then just do 2 tap ducks (press Down and then let go immediately as soon as you see your character start to duck), then do a quick duck by pressing Down and immediately cancelling it by throwing a low super with the A button. This will net you a time in the 8.7X range typically, and accounts for all types of delays Aran can throw out with his grab.
If you are specifically going for the record on Aran, then the buffer you want to do here is a left jab into a quick duck thats cancelled with a low super. This will ensure that you hit Aran with your low super on the first possible frame if he throws out the fastest delay. If he doesnt, then the fight ends up being a reset.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Bear Hugger [01292] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wi2yAWfFbTE/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Bear Hugger [01292] (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=NM0EpkBqIoE
For being the second fight in this game, Bear Hugger is a surprisingly complicated and challenging character to do an optimized fight on. His main mechanic that he forces players to learn is that ducking may be necessary for victory. This is because unlike Gabby, you cannot damage Bear Hugger with punches to the gut. If you try to punch his gut, the fight just freezes as Bear Hugger just does a raspberry at you and receives zero damage. This leaves you to try punching him the face, to which hell retaliate with a bear hug that you cannot dodge from the left or right, but you can duck it.
However, Bear will also taunt at you periodically, and during this very brief taunt, you can actually punch him in the stomach! It will deal zero damage, but it will still add to your dizzy meter. If you dont know what that is, the dizzy meter is a mechanic that exists for every fight in this game. It is basically a hidden value in the games memory that will get a weighted value added to it for every punch you successfully land; the stronger the punch, the higher the number is that gets added to the meter.
When the meter reaches a certain high number, then the opponent will be forced into a dizzy state where a well timed punch will instantly knock them down! However, the challenging part of this mechanic is that this value will go down by 1 point per frame, which means in order for you to get them dizzy, you need to have a lot of punches dealt in a very short amount of time.
There exists an easier strategy to build up arrows fast by provoking a bear hug from him at the start of the fight, but for this fight, theres an even faster, far more difficult way to achieve a dizzy, and thats with the TAS strategy.
For the start of this fight, you do not want to do a guard manipulated jab, since they dont work here. Instead, youll be waiting for Bear to do his first taunt. When hes idle, his feet will be shuffling in and out, and if youre playing on a CRT with original hardware, you want to throw a left gut punch very slightly after you see his feet go out (if you are playing on anything with input lag, punch as SOON as you see his feet go out).
From here, buffer a left jab, and immediately hold Down until you see your character start to duck, then let go of Down and wait until he centers himself naturally. From here, buffer *another* down input, but this time as soon as you see him start to duck, IMMEDIATELY hold up and right jab. This is a buffer for a frame perfect punch that Akiteru found that will hit Bear on the very last frame of his stun animation. In this game, if you punch anyone on the final frame of their stun animation, then for whatever reason, the game will reward you with a couple of extra arrows in your super meter, as well as make their recoil animation way faster than normal.
From here, you just wait for his next taunt, throw the punch as early as you can to where it still stuns Bear, then buffer 2 left jabs. Then wait for his next taunt, and buffer one jab and one uppercut since you should have a full super meter by this point. Finally, do the exact same thing for the final taunt, and assuming you were fast enough on the gut punches, he *should* be dizzy at this point.
This dizzy is extremely strict, because for the last 2 gut punches, you have collectively only 2 frames of error between those two that you are allowed to have while still getting the dizzy, meaning you can either be frame perfect on both, lose 1-2 frames on the last punch with the one before it being frame perfect, lose 1-2 frames on the 2nd to the last punch with the one after it being frame perfect, or losing one frame on each of the last two punches. If you are any slower than any of those situations, the dizzy will NOT work with this strategy.
Once Bear is dizzy, just buffer Down to duck, then immediately buffer left gut punch to cancel the duck into a quick duck, throw an additional left gut, and buffer an uppercut for an optimal dizzy knockdown.
In phase 2, you just have to buffer left gut, left jab, left gut and hope that Bear gives you the luck to get knocked down by this. We dont have any hard numbers on this, but the odds are estimated to be about 20% likely that hell allow this uppercut to knock him down.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Piston Honda 2 [0:40.00]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wpgsn7Pgbas/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Piston Honda 2 [0:40.00]
Finally matched the record time that Summoningsalt set! I think Im going to try for 39.9X, but its going to be really tough at this point due to the difficulty of cutting more frames off of this fight. The TAS time is 39.97 for reference, so there is effectively next to no wiggle room on how perfect you have to play to get that low.")
