Emulator: Dolphin 5.0-15520
Controller: Wii Remote (Extension: None) Options>Controller Settings>Configure Wii Remote 1>Extension: None
Wii Save Folder: Empty
PAL60 Mode: Active
Audio: DSP LLE Recompiler/Cubeb Backend
CPU Engine: JIT Recompiler for ARM64
Punch-Out!! for the Wii follows Little Mac on his quest to become the greatest of all time. It starts with him becoming Champion of the World, as seen in this TAS which is just the Contender fights. A full game TAS as for right now is not plausible, as 1. both Title Defense Von Kaiser and Title Defense Disco Kid require motion controls to gain access to the lefty star to match the TAS Time. As the lefty stars manipulate their patterns to be faster. Motion Controls are a huge pain to TAS with and will desync 10 times more than just the wii remote. Also, Last Stand is required to lose as fast as you can to the boxers that are presented to you in a full game run, and that is complete RNG. There is no way to manipulate this RNG via TAS means at the moment. Those two reasons are why I can't TAS a full game run, and the Last Stand reason is why I don't ever see a TAS of the full game in a Dolphin Movie file at least. I am planning to upload a segmented TAS of the Full Game at some point in the future.
As always with the Punch-Out games, the goal is fastest in-game time.
I sacrifice 30 frames at the end of each fight so the viewer can see the times. I understand that it was at least not fond of in McHazards TAS, but here is why I think it matters even less that I waste 6 and a half seconds of real time:
This game has RNG that I cannot control, being the ref counts. There is a random chance the fighter can get up at a later number, which losses real time, and it cannot be manipulated through TASing. I am going to lose real time here no matter, so sacrifices real time in a game focused on in game time to improve the viewers experience, I think is 100% necessary.
There are three more things I will address:
- Cutscenes: On 4 fighters, watching the cutscene either fully or to a certain point will save a frame on their first attack. Making it possible to go 0.06 seconds faster in in-game time (one frame) on them. I perform this on the fighters necessary.
- Restarts: On Soda and Bull, I do a single restart at the start of their matches. This is due to the Power-On Glitch. The Power-On Glitch is when you have booted up the game, and played a fighter for a first time (on the select few that have this), you lose 0.06 ingame seconds (0.12 if you also skip the cutscene on a fighter with cutscene watch). Because I can't start from a save state, This is the only way around this to optimize in-game time.
- Credits: Credits are another huge RNG moment, and while in a perfect world I would TAS them and get the perfect score, there is little chance I'd be able to get the score world record simply because I cannot manipulate the pattern, so I opt to just hide the Wii Remote from the sensor and let them play out.
Now, with the elephants out of the room, onto the fights:
The Fighters:
Minor Circuit:
- Glass Joe: 25.76
- Joe starts with a taunt, we counter this with a left hook then delay a right hook as he is reeling back to pick up 2 stars.
- We then start with a 15 punch combo: 3 alternating hooks, 3 alternating jabs. This nets us our 3rd star.
- Joe is then recentered so he does his taunt 3 frames earlier
- We actually delay our triple star until the last frame possible for the instant knock-out, as it slows the clock as much as possible. When throwing the star on the first frame the fastest time you can get is a 26.49
- Strat Credits:
- Early 2010's Community
- Von Kaiser: 18.93
- Von Kaiser throws a wind up jab, we can then counter this and buffer a left hook to recenter him. Because we have thrown two punches, a third one will make him duck down to the right, and we can quickly collect another star here.
- The first right jab that he ducks, is actually delayed a frame. This is so that his wind up jab that Little Mac ducks is throw right away without a long delay.
- Triple star into his "taunt" to end the fight.
- Strat Credits:
- McHazard
- Disco Kid: 27.42
- Disco's phase one is five punches all of different timings. In order, they are:
- 1. Collecting a star of his taunt with a left jab
- 2. Collecting a star while he is recentering with a right hook
- 3. Landing a left hook so he goes into his next attack faster
- 4. Getting a third star off of his attack with a left jab
- 5. Delaying our triple star for it to be an Instant Knock-Down.
- Disco's phase two is simple: collect a star, then throw it into his taunt for an Instant Knock-Down.
- Disco's phase three is same as two, but there is an extra hook from Disco we have to move cancel, and that is what the blocked left hook is.
- Strat Credits:
- Phase one and two: Early 2010's Community
- Phase three: Mysteryman
- King Hippo: 46.94
- We counter Hippo's first mouth open, then deliver 12 hooks. We purposefully wait out the stun because if we were to throw another Hook onto him, he would recoil with the clock at 100% speed. The clock in stuns is at 25% speed so it's faster to just wait until he recovers.
- Dodge his attack then respond with a jab.
- This is the first fight where I spice it up with some TAS Swag. The jabs are not necessary, but give a funnier animation.
- Dodge his next attack then respond with a hook to pick up a star.
- The star punch we land is a one frame window for his next attack after he recovers to come out instantly. The duck before it is just some more TAS swag, not necessary.
- We then abuse 2 instant knock-downs which he throws at this point, which after he "gets up" once, the second will knock him out as well.
- Strat Credits:
- Early 2010's Community
Major Circuit
- Piston Hondo: 33.76
- The first fight where we watch the cutscene, which saves 0.06 in game seconds. If we were to skip the cutscene the best possible time would be 33.82.
- Hondo has 3 attacks before his bow which we can get an instant knock-down off of.
- We move cancel his first wink, and his uppercut.
- Then get a star off of his second wink.
- Perform the instant knock-down.
- After getting our first star, we delay throwing it until he is fully idle because:
- 1. Slows the clock down to 10% instead instead of 50% if you were to buffer it
- 2. Makes his wink right after come out instantly.
- That actually is the first frame we can throw it for those two things to happen, Hondo becomes fully idle quite slow compared to other boxers.
- Strat Credits:
- Phase one and three, Early 2010's Community,
- Phase two, McHazard
- Bear Hugger: 26.70
- Second fight where we watch the cutscene to save 0.06 in game seconds. If we were to skip the cutscene the best time we could get is 26.76.
- Other than that, it is a very simple fight. Each phase is simply:
- 1. Gathering a star from his taunt or first attack
- 2. Recentering Bear to save time
- 3. Throwing the star into his next attack for an instant knockdown
- Strat Credits
- Early 2010's Community
- Great Tiger: 41.92
- This is the only fight where we actually have to skip the cutscene within the first few frames to get the optimal time.
- Pretty complex strat. Phase 1 is dependent on getting Tiger down as fast as possible with 3 stars in reserve.
- We interrupt his first right jab to be able to get our first star faster.
- We then use this star to skip his second right jab.
- We then counter his third right jab for our first of 3 stars we will keep.
- We then punch him as he recenters, then buffer two more hooks for him to disappear then for us to collect a star.
- We do this again, but after he does a slow uppercut so we have to delay the third hook.
- Catch him again so he does the rush as fast as possible.
- Phase 2 is simple: unload our triple star, then do a hook so he goes into his uppercut faster, get a star from it and send him down.
- Phase 3 is similar to phase 1, but now we're just trying to get to his rush as fast as possible.
- We get 2 stars off of his first 2 uppercuts, which are both fast. This lets us use our stars to skip his slow uppercut right after.
- We use our final star to slow the clock right before his rush.
- Second fight where I do some TAS Swag, the jabs as he is recentering are not necessary at all, they just look cooler.
- Strat Credits:
- Mysteryman
- Don Flamenco: 17.74
- The whole concept with Don is carrying out the Infinite on him, an alternating Hook, then Jab, for at least seven punches in phase 1. Then a single star in phase two will give us a knockout.
- We provoke Don with a hook, then counter him.
- We then do the Don Infinite. There is a two frame window on each punch where it will keep the clock at the slow stunned speed. That's why we do fourteen punches here even though only seven are required. he goes down quite quickly.
- A quick phase two where we pick up a star, then throw it for a KO, gives us the fastest fight yet!
- The final star is actually delayed a frame, because buffering it causes the clock to speed up dramatically.
- Strat Credits:
- Early 2010's Community
World Circuit
- Aran Ryan: 54.66
- The Last simple strat. This one is all about countering Aran Ryan with a specific glove so that he delays the least amount of time before his next attack.
- Because of how simple this strat is, I add in some TAS Swag in this fight. The random Jabs everywhere are not necessary, just makes it less boring.
- The one exception to what I said above is the final punch of phase 1, which actually does have to be a jab as it makes his Headbutt in phase two come out 2 frames faster. The best time with ending phase one with a hook is a 54.78.
- Parry his Headbutt with a block then use a triple star for an instant knock-out.
- This is also the first strat that can be faster with champions mode, but we don't have that option in a career TAS. An exhibition TAS will most likely never be made as for a TAS to sync you would need to load in the same premade game save the taser had while making it.
- Strat Credits:
- Early 2010's Strat, two frame save in phase 2 made clear by EpicJake72.
- Soda Popinski: 48.43
- Uh oh!! it appears the TAS is having some trouble here on Soda! Or is it?
- The first fighter where I have to take a restart to get rid of the power on glitch.
- The third fighter where I have to watch the cutscene to save 0.06 seconds of in game time. However this is the one fighter where I can skip the cutscene halfway and still save the frame.
- This is the most interesting strat, because we take a hit and 2 knockdowns to get the best time.
- Start off by taking a hit to set up the knockdown when soda gets up, which will skip his rage uppercuts and set up a really fast phase three.
- We then get a star by punching him in the gut after ducking his next hook. Similar to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Soda is now really weak to a star, but in this game we have to follow it up with a delayed jab for the instant knock-down.
- We take a knock-down for the two reasons I listed above. Plus the bonus that Soda will throw a hook when Mac gets up, which is crucial for phase two.
- For phase two, we are going to do the instant knock-dow again, but now we need two stars instead of just one.
- We open and get our first star from his hook, then we let him drink. If we were to knock the bottle out of his hand, we would need to use a jab, and then he would go into rage uppercuts, and we can't take a knockdown with stars. So it is better to let him drink. Because when he comes back from the drink, we can get a second star with a gut punch, then perform a second knock-down.
- We then take 3 more hits to get our hit count over six, and take a knockdown. When we get up he will do a hook which we can farm a star off of. Then Immediately do a taunt because we have been hit more than six times, and we can throw the star into it, ending the fight.
- The second fight that can be done faster in champions mode, but we don't have that option.
- Strat Credits:
- Early 2010's Strat/Unknown
- Bald Bull: 32.08
- This is the last fighter I have to take a restart on to get rid of the Power-On Glitch
- This is the last fighter I have to watch the cutscene to 0.06 in-game time.
- Strat starts out by cancelling his first rolling jab.
- We duck then collect a star off of his rolling jabs twice.
- We dodge his uppercut the first frame where we get six stunned jabs instead of 4-5, or earlier so we would get seven.
- We do this because getting 7 would lose time over 6, and we need at least 6 so that we can knock him down at the end.
- Here we delay our star so that the clock remains at a very slow speed, the old strat was to buffer the star as it was just assumed that was the fastest way to get our star off.
- We collect 2 stars going into phase two, the final punch has to be a gut to deal enough damage, thankfully the clock stops right when the punch lands so we don't lose any time over the long recoil animation we otherwise would.
- Collect a star at the start of phase two, delay then throw it into him. Do it one more time to knock him down a second time sub 30.
- Strat Credits:
- Early 2010's Community, Star adjustment by Mysteryman.
- Super Macho Man: 54.69
- Nothing all too special on this fight except at the end.
- In phase 1 we do unstunned star punches because it moves his attack script along faster.
- Exiting phase 1 with 3 stars actually only loses around 3 seconds to what is possible without stars, and speeds phase 2 up drastically.
- For the finale, ducking two of Macho's spins then buffering a star is an instant knockdown. The one difference we implement is we use a quick duck instead of a normal duck. Which is where we hold up while the first duck is finished, then hit down as we arrive back at the top. A 3 frame window to start the next duck earlier and save 0.08 in game seconds.
- Last fight where I add TAS Swag, there's a long boring opening where I do some fast up spams to pass the time. Then when ducking his cclothesline in phase 2 I do a duck beforehand to add some extra swag.
- Strat Credits:
Early 2010's Community, Quick Duck found by Mysteryman
- Mr. Sandman: 36.34
- The last fight where champions mode would save some time, but we don't have that option.
- This is actually a fighter where a faster time has been confirmed by Mysteryman but he forgot the strat he found, he'll have to refind it and if he does I'll reTAS the end then resubmit this.
- The beginning of this fight is just knocking him down as fast as possible.
- After stars the clock slows down, and after a triple star it slows down the most, so we utilize this. It's slightly faster to use our stars one by one because we take advantage of the single stars show clock slow down, instead where a double star wouldn't have as much because the clock is freezing when the star connects anyway as it is knocking him down.
- Phase two we utilize a more recent instant knock-down found on the mid round boos.
- We grab a star off of the first attack, then the next three left hooks all cancel his next three attacks. After that we actually have to throw a mandatory frame perfect hook, then buffer the star, to set up the boo knockdown. Just trying to throw the star will have his boo come out much faster and the star will whiff.
- Strat Credits
- Phase one and three by Awosomeandy, Phase two boo knockdown by Mysteryman
Total Time: 7:45.37
That's it for Contender%!
"Ohh wee Mac baby! you're the best of the best! The world circuit champion!!"
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: We were unable to get this movie to sync even using the NKit game image. And NKit is considered bad dump by Dolphin and Redump, especially for Wii where you have to also have an extra file that NKit converter splits from the main image. Without that extra file you can't losslessly convert NKit back into a good dump (I was told you can for GC games, but this is a Wii submission, and NKit as is is still not a good dump). If that extra file was there during ISO->NKit conversion, then the question is why not use the good dump right away for TASing. If it was TASed on a good dump, we'd definitely make a call for people with compatible machine to try syncing this on.
I added the note about NKit to https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Topics/18330 and linked to it from Movie Rules #MovieMustBeTechnicallySound. We also used to have this at LegacyPages / MovieRules #DolphinMovies.
Rejecting.