zallard1 | Super Punch Out!! - Mr. Sandman [0'13"13] (NTSC WR) @zallard1 | Uploaded February 2022 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
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: pastebin.com/TtXx1PQx
Additionally, I've decided to include a non-stretched version of this fight in an unlisted video. If you'd like to learn more about why I'm including this too, you can check out the description in the second video here: youtube.com/watch?v=8fDa4XbU_JQ
Mr. Sandman is a breath of fresh air in the Major Circuit, as he has a completely set pattern with no random elements, making him a completely skill based fight. Back when I initially was matching the TAS on these fights for the first time, this was the fight where I discovered a pretty critical quirk that would end up being put to good use for several other fighters, along with this one, but we'll get to that in a bit.
This fight starts with you not pressing anything for the first frame of the fight, then pressing "Up" and "Y" to throw a left jab for the second frame. This manipulates his gloves down, which allows you to freely punch Sandman in the face. Once you've landed your first left jab, follow it up by buffering 3 more, then buffer a left gut punch. From here, you need to do a very slightly delayed left gut punch to intercept his slow uppercut, but *don't* counter the uppercut itself. From there, just buffer one final left jab to get him dizzy!
Now here's that quirk I mentioned briefly before; you have the ability to delay your dizzy knockdown in order to make Sandman's next phase be a little faster! Fights in this game have what's called "move timers" which effectively boils down opponents having moves that are "scheduled" to come out after a set number of frames on the in-game timer. This seems like an idea that's simple and makes sense, but what if I told you that we could take complete advantage of this mechanic in certain scenarios to make execution more consistent on certain punches?
Let's take this fight for example! Sandman's first punch in the second phase begins to come out in 5 frames. In order to intercept that like the TAS does, you would need to manually delay for those 5 frames before you throw your uppercut. This is reasonable to pull off for people, but wouldn't it be better if it could land frame perfectly every time?
I found that you can burn frames off of an opponent's move timer *while* they are dizzy! What this means is that I could find a different buffer for the dizzy buffer to waste those 5 frames *there* instead of having to wait out those 5 frames in the next phase before throwing the uppercut.
Once you throw that final jab to get Sandman dizzy, you want to throw a left jab, into a right jab, into a left jab, into a low super to burn those extra frames I was talking about earlier. I opt to throw a low super for the phase 1 knockdown since knocking Sandman down with an uppercut is 42 frames slower. When Sandman gets up, you do NOT have to delay those 5 frames like the TAS does, because of the setup during the dizzy, you can just HOLD "Up" and "A" to buffer a super punch to hit him frame perfectly every time!
It's worth noting that Mr. Sandman is special, in that he is specifically hard coded to have a KO be completely impossible on him, even via methods of hacking. This means that despite how much you've dominated in phases 1 and 2, Sandman will get up on his 3rd knockdown with a *massive* health refill, which is unlike how this works for any other fight in the game.
For phase 3, you start by throwing an uppercut with a slight delay. I like to time this uppercut immediately after I hear the first note in the Major Circuit theme, which works really well for setups that are playing on an actual Super Nintendo on a CRT (or RetroTink with lagless monitor). From there, Sandman goes into his signature move, the Dreamland Express.
In this game, the Dreamland Express is pretty slow, so you just have to cut the final quick dodge as tightly as possible. Also, once you've dodged the 3rd uppercut, you need to stun him with your RIGHT hand, because this jab deals slightly extra damage that you NEED in order for this strategy to work, and then follow it with an uppercut. Finally, Sandman will throw another hook, similar to how the phase started, and you'll also need to land an uppercut into it. I don't have a great cue for this, but I try to time it very slightly after I see Sandman fully centered.
Once that uppercut lands, then Sandman should be down for the TKO! This fight is fairly challenging to match the TAS on just because you would need to land 5 frame perfect maneuvers throughout, but the lack of randomness makes this fight a great mix of challenge without being annoying. I would highly recommend giving this one a shot!
Anyways, thanks for watching!
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: pastebin.com/TtXx1PQx
Additionally, I've decided to include a non-stretched version of this fight in an unlisted video. If you'd like to learn more about why I'm including this too, you can check out the description in the second video here: youtube.com/watch?v=8fDa4XbU_JQ
Mr. Sandman is a breath of fresh air in the Major Circuit, as he has a completely set pattern with no random elements, making him a completely skill based fight. Back when I initially was matching the TAS on these fights for the first time, this was the fight where I discovered a pretty critical quirk that would end up being put to good use for several other fighters, along with this one, but we'll get to that in a bit.
This fight starts with you not pressing anything for the first frame of the fight, then pressing "Up" and "Y" to throw a left jab for the second frame. This manipulates his gloves down, which allows you to freely punch Sandman in the face. Once you've landed your first left jab, follow it up by buffering 3 more, then buffer a left gut punch. From here, you need to do a very slightly delayed left gut punch to intercept his slow uppercut, but *don't* counter the uppercut itself. From there, just buffer one final left jab to get him dizzy!
Now here's that quirk I mentioned briefly before; you have the ability to delay your dizzy knockdown in order to make Sandman's next phase be a little faster! Fights in this game have what's called "move timers" which effectively boils down opponents having moves that are "scheduled" to come out after a set number of frames on the in-game timer. This seems like an idea that's simple and makes sense, but what if I told you that we could take complete advantage of this mechanic in certain scenarios to make execution more consistent on certain punches?
Let's take this fight for example! Sandman's first punch in the second phase begins to come out in 5 frames. In order to intercept that like the TAS does, you would need to manually delay for those 5 frames before you throw your uppercut. This is reasonable to pull off for people, but wouldn't it be better if it could land frame perfectly every time?
I found that you can burn frames off of an opponent's move timer *while* they are dizzy! What this means is that I could find a different buffer for the dizzy buffer to waste those 5 frames *there* instead of having to wait out those 5 frames in the next phase before throwing the uppercut.
Once you throw that final jab to get Sandman dizzy, you want to throw a left jab, into a right jab, into a left jab, into a low super to burn those extra frames I was talking about earlier. I opt to throw a low super for the phase 1 knockdown since knocking Sandman down with an uppercut is 42 frames slower. When Sandman gets up, you do NOT have to delay those 5 frames like the TAS does, because of the setup during the dizzy, you can just HOLD "Up" and "A" to buffer a super punch to hit him frame perfectly every time!
It's worth noting that Mr. Sandman is special, in that he is specifically hard coded to have a KO be completely impossible on him, even via methods of hacking. This means that despite how much you've dominated in phases 1 and 2, Sandman will get up on his 3rd knockdown with a *massive* health refill, which is unlike how this works for any other fight in the game.
For phase 3, you start by throwing an uppercut with a slight delay. I like to time this uppercut immediately after I hear the first note in the Major Circuit theme, which works really well for setups that are playing on an actual Super Nintendo on a CRT (or RetroTink with lagless monitor). From there, Sandman goes into his signature move, the Dreamland Express.
In this game, the Dreamland Express is pretty slow, so you just have to cut the final quick dodge as tightly as possible. Also, once you've dodged the 3rd uppercut, you need to stun him with your RIGHT hand, because this jab deals slightly extra damage that you NEED in order for this strategy to work, and then follow it with an uppercut. Finally, Sandman will throw another hook, similar to how the phase started, and you'll also need to land an uppercut into it. I don't have a great cue for this, but I try to time it very slightly after I see Sandman fully centered.
Once that uppercut lands, then Sandman should be down for the TKO! This fight is fairly challenging to match the TAS on just because you would need to land 5 frame perfect maneuvers throughout, but the lack of randomness makes this fight a great mix of challenge without being annoying. I would highly recommend giving this one a shot!
Anyways, thanks for watching!
![Super Punch Out!! - Mr. Sandman [01313] (NTSC WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EIYq3sQ2QOE/hqdefault.jpg "Super Punch Out!! - Mr. Sandman [01313] (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=8fDa4XbU_JQ
Mr. Sandman is a breath of fresh air in the Major Circuit, as he has a completely set pattern with no random elements, making him a completely skill based fight. Back when I initially was matching the TAS on these fights for the first time, this was the fight where I discovered a pretty critical quirk that would end up being put to good use for several other fighters, along with this one, but well get to that in a bit.
This fight starts with you not pressing anything for the first frame of the fight, then pressing Up and Y to throw a left jab for the second frame. This manipulates his gloves down, which allows you to freely punch Sandman in the face. Once youve landed your first left jab, follow it up by buffering 3 more, then buffer a left gut punch. From here, you need to do a very slightly delayed left gut punch to intercept his slow uppercut, but *dont* counter the uppercut itself. From there, just buffer one final left jab to get him dizzy!
Now heres that quirk I mentioned briefly before; you have the ability to delay your dizzy knockdown in order to make Sandmans next phase be a little faster! Fights in this game have whats called move timers which effectively boils down opponents having moves that are scheduled to come out after a set number of frames on the in-game timer. This seems like an idea thats simple and makes sense, but what if I told you that we could take complete advantage of this mechanic in certain scenarios to make execution more consistent on certain punches?
Lets take this fight for example! Sandmans first punch in the second phase begins to come out in 5 frames. In order to intercept that like the TAS does, you would need to manually delay for those 5 frames before you throw your uppercut. This is reasonable to pull off for people, but wouldnt it be better if it could land frame perfectly every time?
I found that you can burn frames off of an opponents move timer *while* they are dizzy! What this means is that I could find a different buffer for the dizzy buffer to waste those 5 frames *there* instead of having to wait out those 5 frames in the next phase before throwing the uppercut.
Once you throw that final jab to get Sandman dizzy, you want to throw a left jab, into a right jab, into a left jab, into a low super to burn those extra frames I was talking about earlier. I opt to throw a low super for the phase 1 knockdown since knocking Sandman down with an uppercut is 42 frames slower. When Sandman gets up, you do NOT have to delay those 5 frames like the TAS does, because of the setup during the dizzy, you can just HOLD Up and A to buffer a super punch to hit him frame perfectly every time!
Its worth noting that Mr. Sandman is special, in that he is specifically hard coded to have a KO be completely impossible on him, even via methods of hacking. This means that despite how much youve dominated in phases 1 and 2, Sandman will get up on his 3rd knockdown with a *massive* health refill, which is unlike how this works for any other fight in the game.
For phase 3, you start by throwing an uppercut with a slight delay. I like to time this uppercut immediately after I hear the first note in the Major Circuit theme, which works really well for setups that are playing on an actual Super Nintendo on a CRT (or RetroTink with lagless monitor). From there, Sandman goes into his signature move, the Dreamland Express.
In this game, the Dreamland Express is pretty slow, so you just have to cut the final quick dodge as tightly as possible. Also, once youve dodged the 3rd uppercut, you need to stun him with your RIGHT hand, because this jab deals slightly extra damage that you NEED in order for this strategy to work, and then follow it with an uppercut. Finally, Sandman will throw another hook, similar to how the phase started, and youll also need to land an uppercut into it. I dont have a great cue for this, but I try to time it very slightly after I see Sandman fully centered.
Once that uppercut lands, then Sandman should be down for the TKO! This fight is fairly challenging to match the TAS on just because you would need to land 5 frame perfect maneuvers throughout, but the lack of randomness makes this fight a great mix of challenge without being annoying. I would highly recommend giving this one a shot!
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Glass Joe [0:25.76] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EfJJvZctlUw/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Glass Joe [0:25.76] (WR)
So, it was pointed out that the 2 fights that I uploaded had a pretty bad high pitch noise throughout the video. I ended up doing a bit of noise reduction to both videos to spare the ears of headphone users, which unfortunately meant that I had to reupload the entire 2 videos. As something of an apology for the reuploads, Ive learned how to upscale the raw videos Ive captured to 4k quality! This also happens to significantly increase the clarity of the quality in lower resolutions as well. Ill leave the original video unlisted here so you can compare them if you want: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMPgtNs6ydo
Anyways, thats all that needs to be said about that. Heres the original video description below:
Sent off my SNES & NES for repair/upgrades, so I decided to try to see if my Wii U would finally cooperate with letting me play PO Wii via HDMI on my BenQ monitor. The tl;dr of it was, yes I can, but it involves a really stupidly complicated process to turn the console on and have my TV actually display the game so the Wii U will actually boot the game, THEN plug the console into the monitor. Capturing it also has its fair share of difficulties to fix the extremely loud audio this game has (the overpeaking was really really bad as is).
Anyways, now that I have a serviceable way to record this game in the best quality the console can output, Im thinking about redoing the ILs in the game gradually, and getting good recordings of each fight. Decided to start with the easiest record, and one of the most infamous tied records in the game, being none other than Glass Joe.
This fight requires 4 frame perfect inputs, one of which is mandatory to slow down the clock in a unique way that would otherwise make 26.49 the best possible time for this fight. Despite it being the easiest, it is certainly way more difficult than his MTPO counterparts record. Regardless, expect to see some more of this game in my uploads every now and again!")
![Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [14:11]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FMDU4OPr9v4/hqdefault.jpg "Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [14:11]
So, me and Mr. K have been gradually chipping away at the 2 player run for this game, getting it to a 14:19 with Steve and Cormano, which had a bad mistake on my part at the end that cost a decent chunk of time. We were going to improve that time... but then we started messing around with Cormano and Bob as a team, and well... lets just say having 4 shotguns in play pretty handily outweigh the OoB trick that Steve has on the stage 7 boss.
Our run was pretty decent, gaining substantial amounts of time over our other PB constantly on every split of the run. We lose about 2 seconds to the stage 7 boss by not having Bob go out of bounds, because that seems to be a Steve exclusive trick. However, consistency has never been better on other boss fights in the run.
The one exception is now Richard Rose becomes a really dangerous gamble. As you can see, we can absolutely decimate the balcony in about 3 seconds if were both in the correct spot. The problem is we BOTH have to be in a very precise spot in order to kill the balcony in time to escape the oncoming death from the bullets closing in on us, and I ended up costing us this run since I stopped very slightly too early on the right. Even if we do survive the first phase, phase 2 is really luck dependent on the setup we have for it. This run will get absolutely pulverized if we ever land the fight that we want on Richard at the end of a good run, probably to the point where sub 14 is assured.")
![Splatterhouse 2 - Speed Run [15:30]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FeJM-cMoB14/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse 2 - Speed Run [15:30]
Outside of stage 5, this run was basically perfect. The only thing is, stage 5 definitely looked really ugly, so chances are Ill probably be trying to improve that before I move on from this category completely. However, if I cant beat this run, then this will be a pretty decent time to settle with. This ended up being a very high 15:30 (3 frames away from being a 15:31!)
Also, this was captured off of an S-Video modded model 1 Sega Genesis with an original cartridge of Splatterhouse 2.")
![Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [13:57]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FiwPFsG0UDw/hqdefault.jpg "Sunset Riders (Arcade) - Co-Op 1cc Speedrun w/ Mr. K [13:57]
This upload is a high quality 4k upscale, without commentary, of my previously uploaded 13:57 from the fightcade replay file. I wasnt sure if I could rip the replay correctly, so I went ahead and just uploaded the Twitch VOD, but now that Ive sorted that process out, Im following up that upload with this one. With a proper frame count, the exact time of this run is a 13:57.217, which is timed from the first frame that the character select screen starts to disappear, to the first frame Richard Rose is in his reeling animation from taking the final shot. The rest of this YT description will be the same as my previous uploads for posterity.
Our run was performed on default settings via Fightcade 2, which allowed us to play remotely with practically no input lag. Fightcade 2 uses the Final Burn Neo emulator, and the replay for our run is hosted on Fightcades website, and can be viewed here: https://replay.fightcade.com/fbneo/ssridersebc/1598146839606-7348
Anyways, this is absolutely the best co-op run weve done of this game, both in time, and play quality. We effectively executed our entire route and got favorable luck where it counted. For this run, I played as Cormano, and Mr K played as Bob. We had to adjust a few things in that route since the last upload here however.
First off, youll notice that we have several more planned deaths than before. Thats because we realized that the lower rank on Richard Rose actually gives us several more frames of wiggle room for the balcony kill by slightly slowing down enemy bullets, which improves consistency dramatically because less luck elements with spawns can stop us there.
Weve decided that the deaths need to be compliant with our perception of a 1cc run, which means we want each player to die a maximum of 2 times, which would *also* be a 1cc on the US version that typically doesnt have extends. This means we need Mr K to die once per autoscroller (stages 2 and 7), and I need to die twice on the carousel in stage 6. This allows both of us to get fully restocked on powerups without any time loss, but at the cost of us needing to both get 0 unplanned deaths if we want to reach our personal 1cc restrictions.
The only real hiccups in this run were in stage 5 where Mr K got in a slightly sub-optimal spot during the boss, making him take damage slightly slower from him, and the final boss, where our positions in the top center area were slightly too far (we both could have been dealing more damage if we were closer to center). That had us chase him down, but thankfully he had low HP by that point, and I decided to gamble the entire run by jumping over his bullets and point blanking him; it clearly paid off, haha.
Im not sure what were thinking of doing with this game in the future. Possibly might add more runners for 3p/4p runs? Well see!")
![(TAS) Super Punch Out!! - 2 Player Mode [1P Wins All Fights] (1:09.29 In-Game Time)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GSb-hLWcMyM/hqdefault.jpg "(TAS) Super Punch Out!! - 2 Player Mode [1P Wins All Fights] (1:09.29 In-Game Time)
Ive been occasionally messing around with TASing strategies for the newly revealed 2 player debug mode, mostly out of curiosity. Theres likely several improvements that others could make over this, but I felt like this might be a decent starting point for others to build onto if they wanted.
For people who might be unfamiliar with what this is all about, a fellow by the name of @new_cheats_news on Twitter found several undiscovered cheat codes for all releases of Super Punch Out!
https://twitter.com/new_cheats_news/status/1556727895778856960
The 1st one is by pressing and holding Y+R with the 2nd controller while 1p presses A or Start on the title screen. This brings you to a secret menu where you can fight any opponent. If you select a character on that hidden menu, then hold B+Y with the 2p controller during the pre-fight text while pressing A or Start, then the 2nd controller lets you control the opponents!
This TAS was made to try answer the question of: What are the best possible times you can get as player 1 if player 2 happened to throw out whatever attacks that are beneficial for player 1?
There are quite a few fights that end up being weirdly trivial, while some others end up being either interesting, or really silly. Ill give some descriptions of each.
Gabby: His special attack freezes the clock and has an instant knockdown window at the end, making the fight time stupidly short, and the fight itself ends up being a funny footnote, but not too interesting. There will be a few more fights like this.
Bear: This ones great, because his taunt where he runs to the back of the ring freezes the clock. I use this multiple times to land right jabs exactly as he walks in. These punches are slower usually, but since the slow startup of the punch isnt counted on the timer, it ends up being a nice way to deal extra damage. Because of this extra damage, Im able to KO him without him getting back up for phase 2, saving about 3 frames of in-game time at the cost of several seconds of real time, which is just so ridiculous that I love it.
Piston: This one is similar to Gabby, except Piston does a scripted uppercut after a knockdown no matter what P2 presses, so the fastest way I could cancel it was landing a delayed gut punch for phases 2 and 3.
Bull: This is just a completely comical in-game time of 00011 seconds for the entire fight. Bull charge is just not a good button for P2 to hit, hahaha.
Bob: 3 windmill attacks that freeze the clock = 3 instant knockdowns for a ridiculously short fight.
Dragon: The first knockdown is actually kind of similar to another 3 second knockdown that you can do on the real version of this fight, but since you can swap 2Ps guard at will, you can fit in faster jabs while also getting enough gut punches for the early dizzy. Rapid jabs in phase 2 make Dragon dizzy very fast, which makes his phase 2 refill irrelevant.
Muscle: Headbutt has an instant knockdown window lol.
Sandman: I tried a bunch of stuff, but this really bland simple pattern was the best I could find. As a side note, since P2 controls the opponents guard, you can have him allow as many rapid punches as you want to go through, which comes into play a lot in this weird TAS.
Aran: Pretty similar story to Sandman, however, its worth keeping in mind that landing a super that isnt rapids will make Aran attempt to get you into a clinch, which is not good for the purposes of this TAS.
Heike: This pattern just *barely* allows a KO to be possible this early, due to the timer barely being under 803 off of a high 4 second phase 1. Rapids on phase 2 are a must, because just like Piston, Heike always throws a hook to start a new phase regardless of buttons pressed.
Clown: The end of the balls rush where Clown flips to chop you has an instant knockdown window, so we get yet another one of these silly fights.
Macho: I tried a handful of tricky things that would get low 6 second times, but this phase 1 blew all of those out of the water. Phase 2 is super similar to the real version of this fight, except we can get a left jab counter, which is faster.
Narcis: Ok so, Narcis has access to the triple jab pattern from when he flashes, which has a very fast startup w/o any flashing, but is still counterable! This happens to be very abusable in this fight, which makes this fight look pretty hilarious.
Hoy: Stick has an instant knockdown, so another quick TKO.
Rick: I actually messed around with this one the most, because refills are critically important here. Phase 1 ends up being really similar to the real fight, because all that damage is absolutely necessary for phases 2 and 3.
Nick: The rush from the back of the ring has an instant knockdown, so 3 = the final quick TKO.
The ending I go to at the end of this video is actually unlockable through another code that @new_cheats_news found which you can see here:
https://twitter.com/new_cheats_news/status/1557458843361333250
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
![Splatterhouse (Arcade) - *Former* High Score World Record [742,600 points] (TG/Aurcade ruleset)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HuO4CC5Gjbk/hqdefault.jpg "Splatterhouse (Arcade) - *Former* High Score World Record [742,600 points] (TG/Aurcade ruleset)
EDIT: I beat this by 68,800 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=U9JfMckWfzc
Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/393247354
And for convenience, heres the Twitch highlight of the run itself, complete with live commentary similar to the last video I uploaded of this game: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/393259083
Ok, now that we got all the fine details out of the way, lets talk about the run itself. My pace was pretty good heading into Stage 6 this time, but I still had some stage 6 loops that were cut short. Instead of them being embarrassingly short, they all at least broke 25k, as opposed to some from the last run that couldnt even break 20k. I did also have less than 60k for more of my loops, but my average stage 6 was still better overall, despite seeing less blue orbs than the previous record.
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.
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.")
![Punch Out!! (Wii) - Bear Hugger [0:26.70] (WR)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J7yBhPnA2m8/hqdefault.jpg "Punch Out!! (Wii) - Bear Hugger [0:26.70] (WR)
Now these ILs are starting to heat up in difficulty. This fight requires 9 frame perfect inputs to match the WR/TAS time of 26.70, and to set the first attack of Bears to come out as soon as possible, I did not skip the cutscene in any of my attempts. I threw tons of attempts at this fight with numerous really close calls. I had gotten six 26.76s, and five 26.82s before finally getting this perfect time. I also had a whopping 62 attempts that got out of phase 1 with a 2:54 (Ill explain the significance of this knockdown time in a little bit).
Lets break down this fight a bit. The name of the game for this fight is to land star punches during the first frame of startup from Bears next attack. Every single attack and taunt Bear has is critically vulnerable to a star punch, even if it doesnt seem like it should hit!
After collecting the first star from Bears taunt, he starts reeling to the side. If you throw a delayed hook, you can cancel his reel animation so he can start his next attack sooner than normal, which is absolutely mandatory to master if you have any hope of getting sub 27 seconds on Bear. After cancelling his reel, throwing a delayed star punch with the proper timing will meet his hook perfectly to send him to the mat at 2:54, which is a possible first knockdown time ONLY if youve hit the first 3 inputs frame perfectly. One frame slow on any of the inputs in phase 1 will get you a 2:53 first knockdown.
When he gets up, countering his hook will net you a star, then hell bust out his signature hug attack, which you want to hit with a star as early as possible. If you hit it perfectly, you should see Bears head tilt up slightly right as the punch is about to connect, too early and the star will deal normal damage, and too late will obviously have you take a ton of damage.
The final phase of the fight is effectively the same as phase 2, except his hug comes out much quicker than before, so as long as youre ready for it, it should be no problem.
I cannot begin to describe how satisfying it was to crush my decade long PB on this fight almost instantly when I started attempts on him. This fight was *so* hard for me to optimize when I was just starting out with speedrunning. Its just such a tangible reminder in how far Ive come in running Punch Out games, and speedrunning as a whole over the years.
For the next fight, Ill be working on Piston Hondo, since I want to put off Disco Kid as much as logically can, lol. Hondo is another 9 frame perfect input record, held only by Pottoww right now.
The Hondo strategy is pretty new, but the fight should prove to be quite a bit more difficult than this one for me, on the basis of this fight having similar inputs repeated, whereas that fight has mostly unique inputs that have to be mastered and strung together one after the other. Not to mention that fight also has mandatory frame perfect move cancels, and a similar situation where you can get a phase 1 knockdown thats immediately identifiable as frame perfect, since 2:47 is possible to get on the very last frame. Expect me to upload my progress on that fight every now and then (i.e. it almost definitely wont be immediately a record tie like these other ones have been).
Anyways, thanks for watching!")
