zallard1 | Star Fox 2 - Normal Mode New Game+ Speedrun [11:09] @zallard1 | Uploaded October 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This run was done on a reproduction cartridge I made from a Stunt Race FX cartridge played on a 1chip Super Nintendo.
So, this is something I've been meaning to get around to for years, but I wanted the skills to make my own cartridge because some reproductions out there are of dubious quality to me. This run does beat my best run that was performed on a SNES Classic by about 5 seconds, but it's hard to tell how much of it is exactly due to platform differences or not.
From some basic tests and observations, the SNES Classic actually seems to be the slowest platform, while playing on a real Super Nintendo seems slightly faster (although some areas lag more).
This game is in a weird limbo state because it was only released on the SNES Classic, and so the leaderboards don't actually allow use of playing on a reproduction cartridge, or emulators, because it's faster than its first official release, which kind of sucks for accessibility reasons. There's also the epilepsy filter, which was exclusive to the SNES Classic and does affect lag frames somewhat.
Fast forward to today, and we actually have a new platform that's legal for Star Fox 2 since it's also an official release, which is the Nintendo Switch Online service. I did some testing a while back, and it showed that NSO ran the game way, waaaay faster than on SNES Classic. I theorize that it's due to transition screens being arbitrarily faster than they used to be.
Anyways, now my splits have a bunch of golds scattered between the SNES Classic, and real hardware. My theory is that when I start running on NSO, I should be able to get really big golds on every single split. If I can do that, then I feel like playing this on a real Super Nintendo (or an accurate emulator) should be valid, just by virtue of it being slower than the fastest official release of the game anyways. This would be nice because it would improve accessibility for speedrunning this game.
Anyways, this run was pretty similar to my old 11:14 run in 2018. I played decently, but still had Andross teleport on me once, and a mistake on the first core. I wanna say just about every event in both the 11:14 and this 11:09 played really similarly to each other, so I would wager a guess that a real Super Nintendo likely has a 5 second overall advantage over the SNES Classic, which is wild because Meteor definitely lags way more on a Super Nintendo than it does on the SNES Classic. The framerate of a real Super Nintendo is also marginally faster than a SNES Classic though, which also contributes to the time difference as well (60.0988fps vs 60.00fps). Throughout all these recent attempts, I could never come even remotely close to my SNES Classic Meteor gold split.
So that should be it! I think I'll be trying this category on the Nintendo Switch for subsequent runs, but I really wanted to upload this since it just looks much nicer captured through RGB and upscaled than it does on the SNES Classic or Switch, haha.
Thanks for watching!
This run was done on a reproduction cartridge I made from a Stunt Race FX cartridge played on a 1chip Super Nintendo.
So, this is something I've been meaning to get around to for years, but I wanted the skills to make my own cartridge because some reproductions out there are of dubious quality to me. This run does beat my best run that was performed on a SNES Classic by about 5 seconds, but it's hard to tell how much of it is exactly due to platform differences or not.
From some basic tests and observations, the SNES Classic actually seems to be the slowest platform, while playing on a real Super Nintendo seems slightly faster (although some areas lag more).
This game is in a weird limbo state because it was only released on the SNES Classic, and so the leaderboards don't actually allow use of playing on a reproduction cartridge, or emulators, because it's faster than its first official release, which kind of sucks for accessibility reasons. There's also the epilepsy filter, which was exclusive to the SNES Classic and does affect lag frames somewhat.
Fast forward to today, and we actually have a new platform that's legal for Star Fox 2 since it's also an official release, which is the Nintendo Switch Online service. I did some testing a while back, and it showed that NSO ran the game way, waaaay faster than on SNES Classic. I theorize that it's due to transition screens being arbitrarily faster than they used to be.
Anyways, now my splits have a bunch of golds scattered between the SNES Classic, and real hardware. My theory is that when I start running on NSO, I should be able to get really big golds on every single split. If I can do that, then I feel like playing this on a real Super Nintendo (or an accurate emulator) should be valid, just by virtue of it being slower than the fastest official release of the game anyways. This would be nice because it would improve accessibility for speedrunning this game.
Anyways, this run was pretty similar to my old 11:14 run in 2018. I played decently, but still had Andross teleport on me once, and a mistake on the first core. I wanna say just about every event in both the 11:14 and this 11:09 played really similarly to each other, so I would wager a guess that a real Super Nintendo likely has a 5 second overall advantage over the SNES Classic, which is wild because Meteor definitely lags way more on a Super Nintendo than it does on the SNES Classic. The framerate of a real Super Nintendo is also marginally faster than a SNES Classic though, which also contributes to the time difference as well (60.0988fps vs 60.00fps). Throughout all these recent attempts, I could never come even remotely close to my SNES Classic Meteor gold split.
So that should be it! I think I'll be trying this category on the Nintendo Switch for subsequent runs, but I really wanted to upload this since it just looks much nicer captured through RGB and upscaled than it does on the SNES Classic or Switch, haha.
Thanks for watching!
![Star Fox 2 - Normal Mode New Game+ Speedrun [11:09]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3twdgSA4R54/hqdefault.jpg "Star Fox 2 - Normal Mode New Game+ Speedrun [11:09]
This run was done on a reproduction cartridge I made from a Stunt Race FX cartridge played on a 1chip Super Nintendo.
So, this is something Ive been meaning to get around to for years, but I wanted the skills to make my own cartridge because some reproductions out there are of dubious quality to me. This run does beat my best run that was performed on a SNES Classic by about 5 seconds, but its hard to tell how much of it is exactly due to platform differences or not.
From some basic tests and observations, the SNES Classic actually seems to be the slowest platform, while playing on a real Super Nintendo seems slightly faster (although some areas lag more).
This game is in a weird limbo state because it was only released on the SNES Classic, and so the leaderboards dont actually allow use of playing on a reproduction cartridge, or emulators, because its faster than its first official release, which kind of sucks for accessibility reasons. Theres also the epilepsy filter, which was exclusive to the SNES Classic and does affect lag frames somewhat.
Fast forward to today, and we actually have a new platform thats legal for Star Fox 2 since its also an official release, which is the Nintendo Switch Online service. I did some testing a while back, and it showed that NSO ran the game way, waaaay faster than on SNES Classic. I theorize that its due to transition screens being arbitrarily faster than they used to be.
Anyways, now my splits have a bunch of golds scattered between the SNES Classic, and real hardware. My theory is that when I start running on NSO, I should be able to get really big golds on every single split. If I can do that, then I feel like playing this on a real Super Nintendo (or an accurate emulator) should be valid, just by virtue of it being slower than the fastest official release of the game anyways. This would be nice because it would improve accessibility for speedrunning this game.
Anyways, this run was pretty similar to my old 11:14 run in 2018. I played decently, but still had Andross teleport on me once, and a mistake on the first core. I wanna say just about every event in both the 11:14 and this 11:09 played really similarly to each other, so I would wager a guess that a real Super Nintendo likely has a 5 second overall advantage over the SNES Classic, which is wild because Meteor definitely lags way more on a Super Nintendo than it does on the SNES Classic. The framerate of a real Super Nintendo is also marginally faster than a SNES Classic though, which also contributes to the time difference as well (60.0988fps vs 60.00fps). Throughout all these recent attempts, I could never come even remotely close to my SNES Classic Meteor gold split.
So that should be it! I think Ill be trying this category on the Nintendo Switch for subsequent runs, but I really wanted to upload this since it just looks much nicer captured through RGB and upscaled than it does on the SNES Classic or Switch, haha.
Thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Bald Bull [0:32.15]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4Im8ZFWZU70/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Bald Bull [0:32.15]
Alright, so I did about 15 minutes of attempts at this fight again to take a break from Soda, since the luck has been abysmal for him lately, and literally already landed my goal of 32.1X this time, as well as a secondary goal, which Ill talk about shortly.
Pottoww had set the record a while back with an impressive 32.24, and had opted to use 2 buffers to help consistency, but at the cost of a tiny bit of time (0.08 seconds collectively).
I realized after my last fight with Bull, that a really cool goal would be to push Bull to where it would be impossible to match/beat unless you remove one or both of the safety buffers for the first and last punches of the fight. The TAS time for this fight if you were to use both buffers is 32.16, which I just barely beat by 0.01. This fight landed 13 of 15 possible inputs frame perfectly. I missed 1 frame somewhere in phase 1, and 1 frame during the bull charge. This fight is currently 0.07 seconds away from the TAS time of 32.08.
This is quite a difficult strategy to pull off. Several of the counters are mandatorily frame perfect, and the newest adjustment that Mysteryman found saves upwards of half a game second, but requires the addition of 3 precisely timed star punches to take full advantage of that time gain.
Lets get into the fight. I watch the entire cutscene because it sets Bulls first move to come out at the earliest possible time. The first punch I throw is a move cancel to remove the 1st of his 3 rolling jabs (there is a dodge buffer you can use here, but it costs 1 frame, so I opted against using it). I try to use the referee leaving the screen as a visual cue for this (this would be problematic if youre playing the game in a 4:3 aspect ratio).
After cancelling his rolling jab, I duck the second one and stun Bull to land 2 buffered jabs, then throw a slightly delayed jab in order to pick up a star. I do the same for his next rolling jab to pick up a second star, then I do a precise dodge in order to stun him in a specific way.
The amount of punches you get from Bull when you dodge an uppercut depends on exactly how fast you dodged it. You can get anywhere from 4 to 7 stunned punches depending on how quickly you dodged his uppercut. For this strategy to be optimal, you need that number to be 6, so you need to dodge fast, but not *too* fast. After landing 6 stunned punches, you need to throw 2 delayed punches in order too get your 3rd star.
For throwing the 3 star punch, the old strategy would just throw it immediately, but Mysteryman found that if you delay this star for about ~20 frames or so, then the timer will move at a slower pace than it usually does, which overall nets you a couple of frames if done perfectly every time. The cue I use for this is when Bulls head *just* centers itself after getting the star.
After that, buffering a dodge into a right jab into a left jab will counter his hook frame perfectly (this normally is frame perfect anyways). Countering his hook again with a jab wont deal enough damage, so for this second one, you need to counter his hook with a gut punch. The window is frame perfect, but since this punch will knock him down, his extended recoil animation doesnt lose you any time since the clock stops as soon as Bulls HP reaches 0.
When Bull gets up, youll need to throw another frame perfect counter to get a star from his hook, then throw a delayed triple star punch just like the star punch in phase 1. Then Bull will throw an uppercut, to which you will also have to counter for a star (this punch is also frame perfect). Throw that star punch with the same delay as the previous star punch, and he should go down at 2:30 on the clock if you were fast enough.
For the final phase, you can opt to use a buffer strategy thats only 0.02 seconds slower than a frame perfect bull charge by simply chaining dodge into 2 punches, however I decided against that because of my very specific goal in mind with this fight of getting sub 32.16. Instead, I decided to use a pseudo buffer to counter the bull charge manually, which is just throwing 2 punches at the correct starting time. I time this around the moment I first see steam come out of Bulls nose, which will roughly around the area where the counter will hit the earliest possible frame.
This is still very much beatable, but the path will be a little bit more narrow than before. In order to beat this, you need to get at least 14 of 15 possible movements frame perfectly, where the only possible place where you can lose more than 1 frame is if the bull charge counter is at least one of those frames. The only instance where you can beat this while still using one of the safety buffers is if you get the first 14 of 15 inputs frame perfectly, then opt use the bull charge buffer.
Ill probably come back to this fight eventually since its really fun to optimize despite its brutal difficulty, but I feel this is in a pretty good spot for now. Thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Soda Popinski [0:42.83]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4hwlL3f95oY/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Soda Popinski [0:42.83]
UPDATE: I improved the record to a 42.72! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj_XFT8ycCY
Its been over a decade since I held the Contender Soda record, so this was a pleasant surprise for me haha. The previous record was set by Kefkamaydie back in 2009 at a 42.84, which was only just recently tied by Nolan414. I barely edged this out by improving my PB by a frame.
So yeah, I was messing around with trying to find a new strategy for Title Defense Soda, but was roadblocked by the TKO recovery being seemingly impossible in the spot needed. I was tinkering with things in emulator, and ended up also messing with regular Soda to see if that would help understand things at all.
Unfortunately, it didnt, but I was still curious on the odds, so I figured I would try attempts in order to collect some stats on the recovery relative to how many times I tap up in the fight, which was one of the main things I noticed that influenced if a recovery would work or not. It was estimated that the odds are about 25%, but I had some interesting streaks where I would get like 12 failures in a row, so some pretty extraordinarily bad luck haha. I figure its not too worth posting the stats separated by number of up presses, but from this set of attempts, I got 15 recoveries out of 63 total attempts, which was slightly below the expected 25% by being ~23.8%.
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 instantly get knocked down and skip his rage uppercuts whenever he gets up from a knockdown. 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 will likely be a short lived record, since there are quite a few active Wii Punch Out runners. Despite this brief run from me, Im still not in a place where Im too keen on going at it relentlessly or anything like that.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Disco Kid [0:22.64]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4jegaFsZS9Y/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Disco Kid [0:22.64]
This fight requires motion controls to gain access to Macs left handed uppercut, which provokes TD Disco into doing a slightly faster pattern. This improvement also happens to tie the WR set by lee_a1x and subsequently tied by PartyAtNolans, and now me. This fight is 1 frame from the TAS, which means its inevitable that someone will pull it off. I dont feel like Ill be the first one to do it considering my infrequent attempts on him, but keep an eye out on the other 2 players I mentioned!
UPDATE: PartyAtNolans (now named Nolan414) just improved this record to 22.58, matching the TAS time. You can check that video out here if youre curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYFHtSCQAjw
So far there are 2 WR strategies in this game that have the odd privilege of needing access to Little Macs lesser known Left Handed Star Punch to provoke specific patterns from the opponents. So far these two fights include TD Von Kaiser, and TD Disco Kid.
Thankfully, TD Disco is a very short fight, however that just means that theres more of a reason to optimize the time even harder than his TD Kaiser counterpart. Ill keep at this fight to attempt to match the TAS time, but due to the nature of doing attempts on him, I will not be consistently doing attempts on him.
Anyways, lets talk about the fight itself. Start by countering his taunt, and doing a delayed gut punch to gather two stars. Throw a right handed star punch by pressing A and moving the Wii Remote forward, then allow him to go naturally into his next attack. Dodge and do a delayed gut punch into a delayed opposite gut punch to gather 2 more stars. This time, throw a *left* handed uppercut by pressing C on the nunchuk and moving the nunchuk forward.
This will provoke Disco to go into his 2 jab pattern afterwards, which you can gather 1 star from by intercepting the first jab before he even gets a chance to throw it out with a gut punch and subsequent delayed gut punch. From there, you can knock him down after blocking his next jab and stunning him with alternating body blow punches; you should have 1 star in reserve.
In phase 2, all you need to do is counter his taunt, do a delayed gut punch, then do a delayed triple star punch into his disco flurry windup and you should get an instant KO!
So yeah, I think Ill throw attempts at this fight extremely occasionally as opposed to grinding just this fight out due to the nature of motion controlled attempts being somewhat taxing to do for extended periods of time.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Super Punch Out!! - Piston Hurricane [00549] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/56mkj9oIPs0/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Piston Hurricane [00549] (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=jp6gWjFjX94
Piston Hurricane is notoriously the quickest fight not only in this game, but in the entire Punch-Out franchise (excluding PAL Super Punch Out anyways)! Normally, this is a fight that is designed to teach you the importance of blocking high and low for when he attempts to hit you with his Hurricane rush attack consisting of alternating jabs and hooks, however for the speedrun, he gets to show off none of this.
I remember casually getting this guy down in the 7 second range before I knew anything about what other people had done on this fight, just because Piston does not do a great job guarding or dodging repeated low super punches. You dont need to guard manipulate him, or even space these out; hell just take the full damage from all of them lol.
There are two main strategies that you can do to get in the mid 5 second range. Ill start with the easier one that anyone reading this can do, then Ill cover the strategy that you see in this video.
The easy way to do this fight for anyone here whos reading this is to start by manipulating Pistons guard up by holding Up until the first frame of the fight elapses (or 00001 on the timer occurs). If you do this correctly, you will be able to land a left handed gut punch for free. From here, you can follow that up with 2 more buffered gut punches, 3 buffered jabs, and one final buffered gut punch which will easily get Piston dizzy. If you throw a left jab and buffer a dodge, then IMMEDIATELY press the super button as your dodge starts, hell be instantly knocked down! At this point, just holding down the super punch button will instantly knock Piston down a second time for a KO! This strategy when done frame perfectly will get you a 550 on the clock.
However, the strategy in this video is slightly different, and a bit harder to pull off than the previous one. For this one, start by not pressing anything for the first frame of the fight, then for the second frame, hold the input for a left jab. Follow that up with 2 more buffered jabs, then youll need to *delay* a left body blow here. For this strategy to actually get Piston dizzy, you need this delayed punch to either be the earliest frame where he doesnt block, or one frame later than that. If you punch later than that 2 frame window, then this strategy will *not* work at all. After the delayed hit, just buffer another left jab, followed by a left gut punch, and another left jab to get him dizzy. The same jab into quick dodge buffer I mentioned above works just as well here. From here, youre home free to just hold the super punch button and itll just land instantly and KO him lol.
There really isnt anything else to this fight as far as speedrunning goes. I would highly recommend that people who want to try speedrunning this game should start with this fight, because the easy approach I mentioned above is probably just as easy, if not easier than the Gabby Jay strategy Ive posted before. Literally everyone reading this could get an incredibly fast time on Hurricane really quickly, I promise!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense King Hippo [1:08.09]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5DHRWWwvy5g/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense King Hippo [1:08.09]
Ok so, Mysteryman95 (aka Frame by Frame Animation on yt) TASed this new strategy to see what the theoretical low was, which was 1:08.21 if you did everything frame perfectly... and... I just beat that by 2 frames somehow...
LeeA1 took back the TD Hippo record with a 1:08.33, which I tied shortly after. Later on, I decided to do more attempts, but I needed to rethink a few of my problem spots, namely the taunt star and the star punch that ends the fight. I realized I could use the pineapples as a timing cue to start a different buffer sequence that ends up being way easier for me to time than how I was doing it in the old video!
I also forgot to mention the buffer strategies in the last video description, so Ill do that here! There are 2 buffer strategies that set up 2 frame perfect punches in the fight. Youre able to throw attacks and dodges during the cutscenes where Hippos manhole cover is coming off, and since the sounds are very quiet by comparison to other Punch Out games, its kind of difficult to determine the buffer from watching.
The buffer for the 2nd phase of the manhole cover section is to buffer 5 more alternating gut punches after the punch that takes his tape off, then duck and jab for a free frame perfect counter.
The buffer for the cancel/provoke for the immediate self knockdown after the last bit of tape is punched off is to buffer a SAME SIDE punch as the one that took the tape off (you need to hit punch as Macs arm is coming back, otherwise he will not throw the punch), then do 7 more alternating gut punches from there (8 total at this point), then duck and jab.
The same side punch wastes 4 extra frames compared to usual, which is super useful because unlike the other Punch Out games, all punches are equal to each other in speed, as well as all dodge types are the same with each other, so having ANY variation from that norm opens up so many possibilities for buffers in this game.
Anyways, Ill post part of the previous videos description here to clarify stuff about the strategy itself. The fight is played in Champions Mode, which is an option you can unlock from lasting 10 fights in Macs Last Stand. This mode removes red flashing tells from opponents, and makes any attack that they throw instantly knock you down. This is utilized to minimize game time by manipulating more favorable patterns from opponents in some fights.
Typically, you skip ahead in TD Hippos pattern by 2 attacks with a self knock down in Champions Mode, but if you delay your knockdown by a tiny bit, you can have him skip *3* attacks. Not only that, but inexplicably, TD Hippo will loop back through his pattern *again* without any delay at the end, meaning you can get a comparable amount of hits that the old strategy gets, but with the advantage of cancelling the taunt after the manhole cover even faster than usual.
Im probably going to go back to Bear Hugger and cut the last frame on him (my PB is a 26.76 atm, with the record at 26.70). After that, Ill probably mess with Piston Hondo. My PB on him is currently a 33.94, and Id like to at least get 33.8X before posting anything for him on youtube (that record is 33.76).
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out + Super Punch-Out - 2 games 1 controller performed at Calithon 2017 [26:43]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5Pk4rKvqvCc/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out + Super Punch-Out - 2 games 1 controller performed at Calithon 2017 [26:43]
So Calithon was a smaller scale in-person marathon that was primarily based in southern California, but for a couple of years, was hosted in northern California. I was able to make it to the northern California events, and this was the first of them, which was held at the same place that AOD 2017 was held. This time, the event had its own separate room, so the event itself didnt have to deal with distractions from other adjacent areas at the convention compared to AOD 2016.
I was strongly encouraged by a couple of other speedrunners to submit this peculiar experiment to this marathon, and I was completely out of practice on everything since at this point, I was in the middle of a massive break from speedrunning as a whole for a year+, but the one exception is that I went to AGDQ 2017 primarily for fun and to visit friends, but I had a silly idea to attempt just for fun in AGDQs casual room, which was recorded by fellow speedrunner and good friend, Mr. K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0xyQuivmsU
This was meant as a lighthearted silly kind of gag, especially due to the experimental nature of the the setup, where Ive opted to use a Gamecube Wavebird controller with two Wiis, and the receivers both set to the same channel, which sends inputs to both consoles at the same time. Strangely enough, Ive found that the Animal Crossing version of NES Punch-Out has the least amount of input lag compared to *every* other port of this game ever, even including Wiis Virtual Console played on a CRT Television! I decided to opt for that, also because personally, I only have one Wii and one Gamecube, and this would allow me to use Wii Virtual Consoles release of Super Punch-Out, and Animal Crossings version of NES Punch-Out for minimal input lag with this setup.
My run was scheduled for March 18th 2017, and I showed up to practice for it that day. The practice venue didnt have a ton of TVs to practice on, but I did end up with a very special one that you can see here: https://twitter.com/zallard1/status/843215342558044160
My practice went well, but I wanted to make it to the stream room well ahead of time so that I dont cause any delays, so I end up turning everything off and packing everything up to transfer it over to the stream room and get right on setting everything up so tech staff can do everything quickly and efficiently.
IRONICALLY, HOWEVER, ONE CRITICAL THING WAS OVERLOOKED... I FORGOT TO SAVE AND QUIT IN ANIMAL CROSSING. For those of you who dont know why this matters, Animal Crossing is a game that heavily punishes you if you forget to save and quit, because the idea is that you cant redo things IRL, so you shouldnt be able to get away with such a thing in this game. The games countermeasure to that is a character by the name of Mr. Resetti.
If this character is summoned by you forgetting to save, then you better strap in, because this mole can get MAD, and this time, he was the most furious I had ever seen him. I was in the most unique marathon situation I had ever been in, which was everyone in the crowd dying laughing watching me panic and try to get past this mole as quickly as possible for the marathon. He had me typing long sentences with VERY SPECIFIC capitalization, and exact number of exclamation points needed for him to get unmad, AND I KEPT MESSING UP AND EVERYONE WAS DYING LAUGHING, INCLUDING ME.
It is an absolute tragedy that this part of the setup was not streamed or captured in any way, because it very well may be the funniest marathon experience of my entire experience as a speedrunner, and Im deeply saddened I only got to share it with the people who happened to be in that room at that time.
ANYWAYS, so the run itself was really fun, with a plethora of extremely silly mistakes that I could never foresee, because I only practiced this a very limited amount due to my speedrunning break. This ended up in new and hilarious situations, such as accidentally selecting the world circuit a second time while fighting Super Macho Man in NES Punch-Out, which then sent me into a frenzy that almost deleted my save file and/or created a new file.
This run did, however, mark the very first time that the final fight of NES Punch-Out was ever beaten in a live in-person marathon setting in the first round, which involved several frame perfect punches. Its kind of silly that this feat was done specifically with the Gamecube controllers dpad during a run that involved me juggling 2 separate games at the same time, but here we are, haha.
This run was a fairly important one for me, because it kind of re-sparked my interest in speedrunning again, and ended up being one of the primary reasons why I returned to continue doing speedruns as a whole, because it reminded me of how much fun this really is, and how so many of my friends really truly missed me in this space.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this run, thanks for watching!")
![Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:32]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5TypFsZi9bc/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse (Arcade) - Speed Run [13:32]
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 first 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 big 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.
I actually beat the 13:33 *twice* in the same stream! First with a very high 13:32, and now with a very low 13:32 (5 frames from a 13:31 in fact). As far as the overall run here, I got the good stage 2 kill again, as well as better stage 5 and 6 boss kills, but gradually lose time across several stages due to very small errors that gradually add up.
The exact time of this run is a 13:32.077, which beats the old run by 1.32 seconds (old record posted here was a 13:33.397). I found some options to color correct my captures too, so these colors are actually way closer to what they are in MAME now (they used to have a red/yellow tinge to them which is now gone).
I also realized that because Im totally practiced up with this run, that I should try to keep pushing it closer to my sum of best (currently a 13:26). I think if I can hit a sub 13:30, that should be a solid time for me to move back on to other projects.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense King Hippo [1:08.03]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5fkdYEyrdvk/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense King Hippo [1:08.03]
Finally giving this irritating fight a shot again. The new TAS/WR time for this fight is a 1:07.97 and my previous PB sat at a 1:08.09, which at that time beat the then TAS time of 1:08.21 (which was later found to be due to the getup timing being more nuanced than was used in that TAS). I ended up finding this strategy completely randomly when I was looking for buffers for Pottoww since he was on a grind to get this to match the TAS time. I found that you can take an extra knockdown off of his counter-attack jab while simultaneously canceling his overhead punch that we would skip anyways.
I improved my PB by a single frame, but I have a bad feeling that Im going to be stuck with this time for a while, as this fight is very drawn out, similar to TD Joe, which makes it very time consuming and tedious to do attempts on. Because of this, I figured it would be best to upload this PB time just incase this ends up being a struggle to match.
Lets get into the fight itself. The fight is played in Champions Mode, which is an option you can unlock from lasting 10 fights in Macs Last Stand. This mode removes red flashing tells from opponents, and makes any attack that they throw instantly knock you down. This is used to minimize game time by manipulating more favorable patterns from opponents in some fights.
In this fight, Hippo throws a lot of overhead punches that need to be countered extremely fast in order to get enough stunned punches in for this strategy to work. Hippo opens the fight with one of these punches, and I always time my first jab right around when the rumbling noise is ending.
In order to take off the manhole cover optimally, you want to buffer punches on the same side, which can be tricky if you arent familiar with how it works. Basically, you want to be re-pressing the punch button during the brief window where Mac is pulling his punch back from the previous punch. If you mistime this, then Mac wont do anything. After the first jab of the fight, do 3 same sided punches to knock off the first layer of tape.
You want to start a buffer for the attack he does when he comes back to the center of the ring. There are 2 buffer strategies that set up 2 frame perfect punches in the fight. Youre able to throw attacks and dodges during the cutscenes where Hippos manhole cover is coming off, and since the sounds are very quiet by comparison to other Punch Out games, its kind of difficult to determine the buffer from watching.
The buffer for the 2nd phase of the manhole cover is to buffer 5 more alternating punches after the punch that takes his tape off, then duck and jab. From here, buffer a jab on the opposite side, then do 3 more same sided punches to knock off layer #2 of tape. When Hippo returns, he will do a kind of hug attack, along with a double axe handle attack. Ducking and dodging respectively will let you evade both, and punching him just as he looks up is how you know youve hit this optimally. From this jab, remove the final bit of tape with 3 more same sided punches, and youll finally be done with the manhole cover section.
You want to immediately go into a buffer for the cancel/provoke for the immediate self knockdown after the last bit of tape is punched off, which is a same sided punch compared to the jab, then do 7 more alternating gut punches from there (8 total at this point), then duck and jab.
When getting up, you *need* to start to get up as 1 completely disappears from the screen from the ref count, because you want Hippo to be either in the middle of the screen, or slightly beyond the middle during his dance so he attacks as soon as possible. Immediately counter his overhead, and throw 9 stunned punches. Then throw a jab as soon as his stun ends naturally (I use the left pineapple being vertical as a cue to throw).
Start getting up when 1 disappears, and counter Hippos overhead for 9 more stunned punches. For the counter to gather a star from his next overhead punch, I use a pseudo duck buffer when the right pineapple just barely touches Hippos shoulder. Then counter his next overhead for 9 more stunned punches and let the stun end naturally. For the final overhead that Hippo does, hes going to delay it extra long, and it kind of sounds like theres 2 rumbling sounds as opposed to the usual 1, so I try to throw as the 2nd rumble ends. From here, land 3 stunned punches, and Hippo will be at the HP level where he changes pattern and does his hug/axehandle like before. I use a pseudo buffer to start ducks/dodges when the pineapple just passes the left side of his eye, and if timed right, will be an instant KO!
Im going to be jumping around fights a lot at this point and wont be hesitating to upload even small 1 frame improvements now, since thatll serve as a good incentive for me to want to improve them to WR quality. This is currently 1 frame from Nolan414s record, so Ill likely be stuck on this PB for a while.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Soda Popinski [0:42.90]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5iOlvhSzz9M/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Soda Popinski [0:42.90]
As of right now, this is the fastest Soda fight to have video proof, but the commonly accepted WR is currently held by Kefkamaydie at 42.84, set back in 2009. This time is 1 frame behind that. My old personal best was a 42.96, which was also set back in 2009... making this my first PB on this fight in over 11 years.
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. 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 was actually a fight I streamed on my Twitch page, so you can hear my reactions there if youd like!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/740660120
Ill be doing more ILs streams there too, so if you like these fights, check out my progress live! I wont be doing *all* my ILs on stream, but Ill certainly do some amount of them for sure! Ill definitely be trying to improve my Soda time on stream at the very least.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
