Well, that last one didn't last long.

This submission is intended to be an improvement over https://tasvideos.org/9686S , which beat Difficult? Punch-Out!! in 13:23.62 of in-game time and 18:01.00 of real time. In the 4 days since it has been published, I have managed to find improvements in 2 of the 14 fights, pushing the total in-game time down to 13:22.24, and perhaps more importantly, the total play time under the 18 minute barrier. Note that this TAS prioritizes in-game time over real time, meaning that it aims to achieve the fastest real time completion of Difficult? Punch-Out!! while still getting the fastest (known) possible in-game time on each of the 14 fights. It's also worth noting that sub 18 RTA was actually technically possible prior to the discovery of these 2 improvements had real time been prioritized over in-game time. Difficult? Punch-Out!! is a romhack of Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream, despite the fact that the final boss in this romhack is Mike Tyson (who is featured as the final boss in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!). The romhack can be found here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4476 .

Here are the times for each of the 14 fights:

Glass Joe - 47.48

Von Kaiser - 34.48

Piston Honda 1 - 39.61

Don Flamenco 1 - 14.00

King Hippo - 53.48

Great Tiger - 36.97

Bald Bull 1 - 56.61

Piston Honda 2 - 43.61

Soda Popinski - 27.97

Bald Bull 2 - 1:11.00

Don Flamenco 2 - 54.97

Mr. Sandman - 2:39.61 (was 2:40.48)

The general game plan for defeating Sandy in this hack comes from abusing the gameplay loop of face punch to force him to throw a hook -> dodge the hook -> face punch to stun him -> delayed right gut punch to do 5 damage -> repeat. There is an extra step you can add to this gameplay loop though, and that's doing a 1 damage left gut punch after the face punch stun and before the delayed right gut punch. This is generally suboptimal, and it's 16 wasted frames in exchange for only 1 point of damage, hence why I neglected it in my previous TAS of this hack. However, with how the timing in the first phase of the fight, these 1 damage left guts turn out to be pretty useful.

Since it's impossible to damage Sandy in the first 50 seconds of the fight (if you throw a facejab he'll block instead of retaliating), the first phase only truly begins at the 50 second mark. Sandy will go into his Dreamland Express (or DLX) pattern at the 1:30 mark, where you can repeatedly punch him after dodging 3 of his uppercuts, and this is the fastest way to damage Sandy on average, which is why it's often suboptimal to be forcing a hook right before the 1:30 mark, as you delay the start of Sandy's DLX until the forced hook gameplay loop finishes. After 7 gameplay loops, there just so happens to be around half a gameplay loop worth of time before the clock ticks to 1:30, so instead of forcing another hook, it's more optimal to use a gut punch to force a jab and land a single 4 damage punch, then let Sandy's DLX timer begin.

Upon the publication of my previous TAS, however, I realized that it's actually substantially faster to perform 4 of the aforementioned 1 damage left guts to substitute out the forced jab. This timesave ended up leaving me with more time before the DLX, so by performing 2 more 1 damage left guts, I'm actually able to cut out a whole DLX stun punch (this refers to the repeated punches that can be performed after dodging a DLX) and save a whole second in the first phase of the fight. This isn't the end of it though, as the 1:30 DLX happens to only be the first of 2 framerule-esque moments in the fight.

Since the DLX is the fastest way to damage Sandy, it's optimal to force him to perform as many as possible. However, the DLX isn't just a move he'd normally perform, specific conditions need to be fulfilled. These conditions are either timed triggers, such as the 1:30 DLX, or knockdown triggers. Specifically, after Little Mac or Sandy take a knockdown in the 2nd or 3rd round of the fight, Sandy is programmed to immediately go into his DLX pattern. The Little Mac knockdown trigger actually extends into Round 1, but only in the last minute of the round, specifically starting from when the clock is at 1:59.10, hence why a faster Phase 1 knockdown time means that the first part of Phase 2 must be adjusted to accommodate for this, so that Little Mac doesn't take his knockdown too early. The fastest adjustment I found involves forcing 3 hooks and performing no 1 damage left guts, as any other reasonably fast strategy appears to be slower.

One final thing to note regarding this fight is that knocking Sandy down with a face punch is faster RTA than a gut punch, as the face punch knockdown animation is a fair bit faster. However, you may notice that the first 2 knockdowns are achieved with a gut punch, as they are faster in terms of IGT. Finishing Phase 3 with a gut punch would also be faster, by 1 frame to be specific, but since this fight originally finished on the 2nd to last frame of the .61 decimal, I was able to sacrifice that 1 frame to save real time without impacting the in-game time on this fight. It's also possible to replace Phase 2's knockdown punch with a face punch without losing a significant amount of time (it'd lose 3 frames to be precise), but doing so will inevitably bump this fight's decimal up to a .82.

Super Macho Man - 42.48 (was 42.99)

I've got a ton to write about for this improvement, probably more than I've written for Sandy, but I've tired myself out, so I'll get this done later :)

Mike Tyson - 1:59.97

Final Time - 13:22.24