zallard1 | Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [14:57] @zallard1 | Uploaded July 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
So Mr K and I have been practicing this game for a Co-Op run through Parsec (although, we may also try fightcade, as we've heard good things about it for 2p runs). This gives me a bit of input lag to deal with, so things on my end are a little bit harder than usual.
Anyways, this was our 3rd attempt after routing and a bit of practice, so we're pretty happy that we've been able to simultaneously beat the preceding world record, as well as get our first co-op 1 credit clear of the game. Despite this, this is admittedly still a very sloppy run, but we're very much going to be improving this soon!
So Mr K and I have been practicing this game for a Co-Op run through Parsec (although, we may also try fightcade, as we've heard good things about it for 2p runs). This gives me a bit of input lag to deal with, so things on my end are a little bit harder than usual.
Anyways, this was our 3rd attempt after routing and a bit of practice, so we're pretty happy that we've been able to simultaneously beat the preceding world record, as well as get our first co-op 1 credit clear of the game. Despite this, this is admittedly still a very sloppy run, but we're very much going to be improving this soon!
![Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [14:57]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/klkRbV9v8Io/hqdefault.jpg "Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [14:57]
So Mr K and I have been practicing this game for a Co-Op run through Parsec (although, we may also try fightcade, as weve heard good things about it for 2p runs). This gives me a bit of input lag to deal with, so things on my end are a little bit harder than usual.
Anyways, this was our 3rd attempt after routing and a bit of practice, so were pretty happy that weve been able to simultaneously beat the preceding world record, as well as get our first co-op 1 credit clear of the game. Despite this, this is admittedly still a very sloppy run, but were very much going to be improving this soon!")
![Super Punch-Out!! - Rick Bruiser [1037] (NTSC-J WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lOs10WLt8ls/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch-Out!! - Rick Bruiser [1037] (NTSC-J WR)
So it was found out recently that despite the rare Japanese version of Super Punch Out being almost completely identical in terms of gameplay to the US version, the Rick Bruiser fight actually has a faster dizzy animation for some reason, making it actually faster than the US versions Rick fight!
The other Rick fight caps out at 1065, while this one can reach as low as 1037 with the same strategy! As far as I know, this seems to be the lowest possible time for this strategy. Because of the rarity of this cart, I did this run on my sd2SNES, which is possibly one of the best flash cartridges out there in terms of accuracy.
Anyways, enjoy!")
![Splatterhouse (Arcade) - *Former* High Score World Record [753,700 points] (TG/Aurcade ruleset)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l_hqaSlYXBU/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse (Arcade) - *Former* High Score World Record [753,700 points] (TG/Aurcade ruleset)
EDIT: I beat this by 57,700 points! Check out the new run here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8PPDkUaWsQ
This was played on an original Splatterhouse arcade PCB on the H.A.S. supergun. This run was also done on default difficulty settings shown at the end of the video, and was recorded through an S-Video connection because my setup cannot support RGB signals at the moment. Here is a picture of my boardset w/ its original romset & supergun setup: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dy6ucfvUwAA4AZC.jpg
Its worth noting that this run follows the Twin Galaxies & Aurcade ruleset for score in this game, which bans the use of the double KO tactic on the final boss, which is otherwise the most lucrative option to cash out your extra lives. If this were allowed, then you would have to set up guaranteed double KOs with the blue orb timer, which is something on the order of 14+ minutes per double KO. You could also die to rocks at the end, but if youre on a good pace, the guaranteed route is the best option for consistency. Without the restrictions in this category, scores in the 1.2 - 1.3 million point range are possible.
I also need to make a note that showing your physical DIP switch settings for this game is worthless. Switch 1 enables the settings menu, while switches 2-8 do absolutely nothing, so the only thing that showing the physical dip switches does is tell you whether or not the game is in test mode... which should be already obvious if thats the case or not by looking at the screen. Once the run was over, I flipped DIP switch #1 to show off the actual settings the board was set to during that run.
Because I am doing these attempts on a SuperGun, whenever I reset the board, I am pressing the Test button on the SuperGun. This actually resets the board without me having to power off the board and cause potential damage to it over time.
Im also posting an archive of the entire attempt session, which includes the boot sequence of the board from powering it on initially, up to the successful attempt:
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbL3g6kS2xc
Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/396273038
And for convenience, heres the Twitch highlight of the run itself, complete with live commentary: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/396236370
Ok, now that we got all the fine details out of the way, lets talk about the run itself. The first loop of stage 6 was awful. I actually was about to reset it was so bad, but then decided if I got to see 2 blue orbs in a row, I would continue to see where it goes. Im glad I did, because I had tons of strong stage 6 loops in this run that handily made up for the awful start.
Something I need to elaborate on; the blue orb is a counter-measure so that players do not stay in one spot for an infinite amount of time. This is so theres something to kick idle players off of the game so any new players who walk up to the cabinet dont get any free games, as well as just make sure that players cant stall in one spot to prevent others from playing. This orb is great for score, since it puts a finite limit on how long you can point press any given spot.
Definitely think I want to push this to 800k+ since Ive been improving so fast in such a short amount of time. Im certain 850k+ is feasible given my current skill level, but would require a lot more effort than 800k+ would, so I might just save that goal for whenever I feel like pushing the score even further.
I gotta give huge shoutouts to both Anthony Paparo and Caitlin Oliver for driving up this score over the years! Their efforts to optimize this score ultimately inspired me to do attempts of this once I finally got access to arcade hardware.")
![Super Punch Out!! - Bear Hugger [01233] (PAL WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ldw2xicm-us/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Bear Hugger [01233] (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.
Bear Huggers 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 and give you . 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.
This fight deviates from the NTSC Bear Hugger fight that has a perfect time of 01292, since PAL Bear can just barely be dizzied earlier than his NTSC counterpart with a completely different strategy for phase 1 found by lixunis. If youd like to see the NTSC counterpart for this fight, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi2yAWfFbTE
For the start of this fight, you do not want to do a guard manipulated jab, since they dont work here. Instead, youll start the fight out with a buffered left jab to provoke Bear to do his signature hug attack. From here, you can actually do a double quick duck buffer by tapping down and up 2 times consecutively, and end it with another left jab to stun Bear on the first possible frame.
You’ll then throw 5 stunned left jabs to build up your super arrows and keep Bear’s stun meter up. Bear will then become idle, and his feet will move in and out. When his feet go out, I throw a gut punch that should intercept when Bear points to his stomach on the earliest frame when timed correctly. From there, throw 2 more left jabs for more arrows on the super meter, and to get Bear closer to dizzy status.
Repeat that for his next taunt, which will fully fill the super meter and get you ready to finish off that stun with an uppercut instead of a 2nd left jab. From there, buffer a quick dodge into an uppercut to intercept his next taunt on the first possible frame. Bear can randomly dodge super punches when he’s idle, so you’ll need to win 1 in 4 odds for it to land.
The dizzy meter has ZERO room for error in that if you are late on a single punch by 1 frame, you will NOT dizzy Bear with this strategy! With the way this works out, you only have to time the 2 gut punches, so effectively this means that your 2nd gut punch is mandatorily frame perfect if you want this dizzy to work. I tried to do a buffer strategy for the dizzy knockdown, but I messed it up and just hit it manually. Thankfully, it wasted no frames.
Once Bear gets up for phase 2, he’s going to immediately go to the back of the ring and rush towards you. You want to buffer a left jab, left body blow, and left jab, and similar to the unstunned super that you land near the end of the last phase, you also have to get 1 in 4 odds *again* for this uppercut to land as well, making the total odds in the fight 1 in 16. This fight also requires 2 frame perfect inputs to match the TAS time (both of the gut punches). I got this time on my 2nd attempt that got a frame perfect dizzy, so my leaderboard is pretty empty except for this time lol.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Contra 4 - Hard Mode any% Speedrun [24:39]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n4wYNwN6tIU/hqdefault.jpg "Contra 4 - Hard Mode any% Speedrun [24:39]
This run was done on an original cartridge of Contra 4, and an original model Nintendo DS that has been modified for direct feed video output.
I did this run a while ago, but didnt get around to uploading it until I got a decent chance to mess around with avisynth scripts to make sure that the final video was in decently high quality, would play back properly at 60fps on youtube, and had the correct pixel gap between the two screens.
This was actually a pretty alright run for me, up until the final stage where I got crushed pretty hard haha. I had made some bad decisions that lead to several deaths, part of which had to do with not having a good way to practice the final stage on a DS console. Id like to get back into this run at some point eventually, but for now this is a decent PB for the time being to upload I think.")
![Super Punch Out!! - Dragon Chan [00733] (PAL WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n51gYbNAj60/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Dragon Chan [00733] (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.
Dragon Chan is a fight that also tends to cause headaches when it comes to full game runs, because if he wants to, he can take nearly 5 seconds away from you compared to an optimal fight. If youre going for an individual level record on this fight, hes not too bad thankfully. His first phase requires a decent bit of execution, but thankfully that part has no luck requirements.
The fight starts out by holding Up for the first frame of the fight, then for the next frame, you want to throw a left gut punch, followed by buffering a second gut punch. For these next 2 right gut punches, you need to do very small delays for both of them so that he gets far enough in his punch animation to where he doesnt block them.
Then, you want to do a delayed left gut punch to counter the hook hes about to throw, then buffer a right gut punch as hes stunned, then press left and IMMEDIATELY press B to buffer a right gut punch while simultaneously cancelling your dodge into a quick dodge. This will end his stun early, while getting you everything you need in order to set up phase 2 for the KO.
For the super knockdown, you can easily buffer a right gut into a low super, which also happens to get you a faster knockdown animation just like for NTSC, and the buffer is much easier too, so its a win-win.
When Dragon gets up, hes going to do one of 3 patterns, which will either be him doing 3 kicks on random sides (this is the worst pattern) which is 50% likely, a heal with a slow delay which is 25% likely, or a heal with a fast delay, which is the one that we need. Thankfully, the buffer is just to do a tap duck (basically tap down but dont hold it), into a quick duck (tap down, then up), into an uppercut, and your super will hit Dragon on the first possible frame that hes vulnerable when he does the fast heal!
This fight ends up slightly slower than its NTSC counterpart, which is an uncommon outcome for PAL, but it happens sometimes. If youd like to compare this fight to my NTSC one, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mjjf6hyTHA
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Piston Hondo [0:33.88]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nefYQGGl7yc/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Piston Hondo [0:33.88]
UPDATE: I was able to improve this enough to match the current TAS/WR! The new run for this fight can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9TeA4fKSRY
This doesnt match the current WR/TAS, but I figured there was still some value in uploading this due to the strategy changes in phase 1 that Ill be going for, plus its nice to have my progress documented. Piston Hondo requires 9 inputs to be frame perfect to match Pottoww/Nolans WR, but 1 of my inputs in phase 1 was a frame too slow, and I didnt watch the full cutscene, which in this fight, wouldve make one of his attacks in phase 1 come out one frame faster.
Phase 1 in this video is a bit different compared to the phase 1 in my 33.94 video a year ago (can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH_8NML8OpE). Mysteryman discovered that if you reorder the punches in phase 1, you open up a new opportunity to setup a buffer strategy! The pattern for Hondos phase 1 is that he throws a jab, a hook, another jab, then bows. The old strategy was to cancel the 1st jab and the hook, counter the 2nd jab, then star punch the bow. However, if you counter the *1st* jab, then the timing is different such that you can buffer a punch on the same side you countered, dodge, and buffer a punch to get a free frame perfect move cancel!
This is great and all, however the caveat is that you can only get this free frame perfect move cancel if you skip the cutscene at the start of the fight early (i.e. lose 1 frame in the fight). Since this reordering is so different, I decided to use this buffer as a training wheel of sorts to get me used to the very different timings on this phase 1. Once I got a PB with this buffer, I would drop it in order to be in the running to match the WR/TAS again.
Anyways, 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 with moderate success while still being frame perfect often. I follow this up with the new buffer that Mystery found to cancel his hook, then 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 I opted to go for the free buffer, the best time I couldve gotten here was a 2:47 that rolls over into a 2:46 exactly as the star punch landed, but I was behind that by 1 frame here.
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 an *extremely* 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.
This fight is going to be pretty challenging for me to get down to the WR time, just because Im insistent on learning this new phase 1 so all this practice transfers over well to when I eventually start doing full game runs again (this wont be for a very long time). My consistency in phase 1 is still kind of low, even with the hook cancel buffer. I think Ill be dropping it after this 33.88 regardless though, because the odds of me PBing are extremely slim now without the 1 frame save from the cutscene. I need to look into a couple of things before I start up attempts on this fight again, so this should be a decent upload for the time being.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Don Flamenco 1 [0:14.97] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nn3IIxeXU1M/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Don Flamenco 1 [0:14.97] (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=aAJ2oZIaxw8
Don Flamenco 1 is very definitely the 2nd easiest record to get in the game, with none other than Glass Joe being the absolute easiest. With Glass Joe, you need to hit a 2 frame window in order to land the infamous 42.00 world record, but with this fight, you needed to land 2... that is, until I started applying buffering techniques to this game and found one of the most critical buffer strategies in possibly all of Punch-Out history.
If you hold the inputs left and B at the same time when the fight starts, then Mac will automatically throw a punch and dodge Dons retaliation punch. From here, if let go of everything while Mac is dodging, then repress left and then quickly press up and a punch button while Mac is starting his second dodge, then you will effectively get a frame perfect star for free, without actually having to time anything at all! This means the consistency of getting this is effectively 100%, which drastically changed the dynamic of speedrunning this game from start to finish. To get a peek into exactly how huge this find was, check out this highlight of me revealing this strategy to sinister1 over 9 years ago to see his reaction to it: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/48632279
Anyways, once you get that frame perfect star, then just hold start and Mac will throw the star punch immediately, and since Don 1 is critically weak to any and all star punches, his health bar will completely drain and hell be sent to the mat. Hell get back up with a puny amount of health, since you floored him before the minute mark, and because you still have a completely full health bar.
For phase 2, he will immediately start with an uppercut, with which you need to answer with a delayed quick dodge. The reason why it needs to be delayed is because you need Mac to immediately go into rapid jabs, which is impossible if you do the fastest possible dodge to Dons attack. Rapid jabs in general can only happen on Glass Joe, both Don Flamencos, Soda Popinski, and Super Macho Man. I tend to time this some time after I visually can see Dons sprite go back to black after flashing red, and it works pretty much every time. One quirk about Don is that if you care about optimizing your RTA time on Don, you want to end each phase with a right punch, since his knockdown animation is substantially slower with a left handed knockdown.
Similar to my goal with my Glass Joe reupload, I wanted to also make sure that I optimized the real time of this fight, which means I needed Don to get up on a 2 count, and then he needs to NOT do a fake get up on Marios 5 and 9 counts for the second knockdown. This was actually really time consuming and tedious, mostly because it really feels like 2 counts are the rarest count that he can get up on, compounded with the fake 9 get up being very very common. You also only have a 1 frame window on that quick dodge where a 14.97 is possible, otherwise youll get a 14.99 if you were 1 frame slow, and 15.00+ if you were even slower than that.
This upload technically doesnt improve on anything Ive done in the past, as Ive been able to get a 14.97 on Don 1 literally thousands of times, and Ive even gotten one in the past where Ive gotten the optimal RTA luck. This upload is really just here solely to update the video quality of the fight to be consistent with the new fights Ill be gradually uploading for this game, and I wanted to make sure that it matched the old RTA optimized one I uploaded several years ago as a bare minimum.
The only other TAS tie times in this game that I already recorded in the past with my old capture setup were King Hippo and Von Kaiser, and those will be quite a bit more complicated to get redone. I think I want to get King Hippo to be perfect for real time at the very least, but I might give up on that depending on how annoying it ends up, since its extremely luck dependent, even more so if I want to avoid fake rises. For Kaiser, I dont think Ill care enough to match the real time TAS for him due to how complicated the fight is, but I guess well see later on down the road.
Once I get through those ones, then the rest of the uploads for this game should hopefully all be new time improvements. Im currently working on Tyson/Dream and started mixing in Honda 2 on my Twitch stream. Feel free to stop by and check it out! http://www.twitch.tv/zallard1/
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Speed Run [15:16.94]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nuLss02561o/hqdefault.jpg "Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! - Speed Run [15:16.94]
Now this is the kind of improvement Ive been looking for. Overall a really solid run with pretty decent luck with only minor mistakes at the end of the run. I also finally got a really decent Tyson fight at the end of my PB again!
This run uses the new RNG manipulation tactics to get favorable patterns from Piston Honda 1 and King Hippo (which is why you see me waiting on the fight screens). I also used the new Soda Popinski strategy that requires a knockdown in order to get a consistently fast phase 2, which overall helps with how rough the luck is in this run. These strategies are designed to optimize in-game time, which is summing of each of the individual fight times seen on the blue screens at the end of each fight.
Anyways, hope you enjoy!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Disco Kid [0:22.58]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o9UiSWVcG_M/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Disco Kid [0:22.58]
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 current TAS/WR which is held by a handful of people by this point.
I actually didnt feel comfortable grinding this for quite some time because of my ongoing health issues after the pneumonia, but ended up trying out (and getting used to using) the Wii remote and nunchuck like drumsticks instead of physically punching, since thats the method that Universe used for his run of the WR. I quickly realized that with this, despite the difficult stuff Ive been going through, this allowed me to do more attempts than I ever could before, even pre-pneumonia while punching with the controllers, so thanks for that!
Thankfully, TD Disco is a very short fight, however, matching this TAS is still pretty annoying and difficult entirely because of the control scheme. Despite using the controller as drumsticks, it still doesnt solve the inherent inconsistencies of the control scheme itself, especially when it comes to star punches not working randomly, or random punches going off at incorrect times. I kind of feel like this mandatory motion control scheme for left handed star punches highlights some of the worst qualities of this game to me due to the issues it poses for accessibility, and wish it had some button mappable equivalent. I thankfully do not ever have to revisit this fight after finishing this run (unless the strategy ends up being improved anyways).
Anyways, lets talk about the fight itself. In order to match the WR/TAS, you will need to land 9 frame perfect motion controlled inputs throughout the fight. 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. The first gut punch here NEEDS to be a left handed gut punch, or else hell block the punch every time. From there, you can knock him down after blocking his next jab and stunning him with alternating punches, knocking him down with a star in reserve.
In phase 2, all you need to do is counter his taunt, do a delayed gut punch, then do a very slightly delayed triple star punch into his disco flurry windup and you should get an instant KO! The delay you have to do is so slight that it barely exists, haha. I try to time it as Mac is pulling back his fist from the 2nd to last punch.
I ended up getting roughly 10 TD Disco fights that were 22.64s in total before I ended up with this 22.58. Plenty of runs were lost beyond those 10 runs from being early one one input deep into the fight too, but either way, Im glad to put this fight behind me.
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Mr. Sandman [0:32.22]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oDMszvZaPXE/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Mr. Sandman [0:32.22]
EDIT: Ive improved this record to match the TAS! Its now a 31.98, and can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itQv-OGtNs4
Improved the record by 4 frames, most of which probably came from having way cleaner cancels right before the 2nd knockdown. Mysteryman also let me know that the whiffed punch at the start of the final phase isnt necessary, so I decided to just use it to make a pseudo buffer so the Boo counter is easier. I basically just wait until Sandman is done saying Afraid? before doing my duck. Im also going to include the description from the previous Sandman video for posterity.
This is a fairly new strategy, courtesy of Mysteryman (aka Frame by Frame Animation on yt). It is a pain to even complete the strategy once, because there is a ton going on here with every punch Mac throws.
First off, this fight is played in Champions Mode, which is a toggle-able option 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 (I have no idea why its like this lol).
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, 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!
In the next phase, the idea is the same, but a bit more hectic, because now you have to counter his first punch for a star, then do *4* slightly delayed move cancels, with the last one needing to be frame perfect to get the same instant knockdown punch.
In the final phase, you need to have gotten there fast enough in order for this strategy to work, since he decides his attacks based on the game timer. You need to whiff a punch, then counter his Boo for a star, and then buffer a gut punch into a star. If you got there fast enough, it will land. Otherwise, his uppercut will have a slightly faster delay and hit you first.")
