(Link to video)
Hello. This is DJ Incendration. This beats Adelikat's TAS by 3:28.36, and the current TAS on YouTube (as of the day this was finished, April 16, 2021) by 8.47 seconds, in a few unexpected ways. The times are now as follows:
  • Ken Barryhill 1: 07.25
  • Lisa Hick: 16.97 (was 17.61)
So, it turns out that getting your star right away is a bad idea because it's slower. Since you have to throw a normal punch in phase 3 anyway, it's faster to get your star then.
  • Jeko Knight 1: 32.48 (was 33.25)
Phase 3 uses a max-damage uppercut to slightly speed up the fight from Adelikat's TAS.
  • Disco Kid: 42.00 (was 1:00.99)
It's funny that the fastest time on this fight is a couple frames away from the fastest time for the fight this one was based on. You can land stars every time, by holding Up and Start at the right time. These stars also deal more damage.
  • Doc Louis: 53.48 (was 57.82)
By getting knocked down, we are able to gain two free stars each time. There is no other way to do so, except waiting for the round to end.
  • Zelda: 57.48 (was 1:42.82)
Unlike Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NTSC and PAL) and Punch-Out!! (NTSC), you can land jabs without having one blocked. This saves a lot of time, since we don't have to worry about the number of hearts we have.
  • Rick bruiser 1: 46.48 (was 1:01.00)
I improved this fight twice. The first time, I just improved a few things in phase 2. On March 20, however, I found a faster strategy for the whole fight. After his guard speeds up at 30 seconds into the fight, it is possible to land unstunned jabs, even when they don't counter one of his punches. This is used to reduce the time between punches in phases 2 and 3. This strat also saves some frames real time, compared to the old submission.
  • Jeko Knight 2: 31.48 (was 58.82)
Like Honda 2 in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, you can throw max damage uppercuts. These saved a ton of time through the fight. My improvement (from the 9:37 TAS) is thanks to a re-ordering in phase 2, resulting in having a star for phase 3.
  • SW7 Destroyer: 42.25 (was 53.82)
As stated by Adelikat in his submission, stars into his dance deal more damage than stars while he is doing nothing. With lots of luck manipulation, SW7 throws these dance jabs almost immediately.
  • Rick Bruiser 2: 58.61 (was 1:07.00)
Unlike NTSC MTPO, you can land star punches into rolling jabs. This is frame perfect, but saves a few seconds.
  • Ken Barryhill 2: 55.25 (was 55.82)
At first, I thought that swapping the order in phase 2 from the original TAS saved time. However, I was wrong.
  • Nick Bruiser: 44.25 (was 1:05.61)
Like Sandman in Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream (PAL only), you can land unstunned jabs for a free 5 damage. Also, star punches deal less damage after the first punch of a stun, so I have to either not stun him at all, or do an extra punch.
  • SW7 Destroyer 2: 32.97 (was 38.48)
Well... I stumbled on this 1-second improvement (over the current TAS) by accident. I lost some real time, but saved about a second in-game.
  • F.A.S: 45.61 (was 1:37.25)
F.A.S has an instant knockdown, but it requires you to get knocked down. When Mac gets up, I do a few things to trigger the instant knockdown as fast as possible (while getting hit to set up for phase 2.) In phase 2, I intentionally get up on 9 so that he'll get up on 1.
  • Total time (in-game): 9:26.56
  • total real-time improvement from Adelikat: 3339 frames

Special Thanks:

Thanks go to McHazard, Zallard1 and mPap for showing me what to do and making this improvement possible. Also, thanks to Adelikat, Phil, and Summoningsalt for their TASes, speedruns and tutorials that helped me get into this series. Enjoy!

Other comments:

The Punch-Out!! fanbase has grown throughout the past 11 years, and strats have been improved a ton. I made a bunch of improvements since I first said I don't see any more, but with this Rick and SW7 improvement (3/20/22) I really don't think any more can be made. In the discussion thread, I asked if I should TAS the game in the Pal mode of FCEUX. However, I found out that the game is called Turbo because of faster music and Mac. Punch-Out!! (featuring Mr. Dream) (PAL) was used to make this hack, but the NTSC version of MTPO is used to patch this game. While playing Pal games on NTSC is not allowed, playing the game in PAL mode takes the whole "turbo" idea away. For these reasons, I am starting to think I should leave the TAS the way it is. Enjoy the run! Also, I have tested more thoroughly to confirm that this is as low as it will go. New userfile here: UserFiles/Info/637834326088739094

feos: I know nothing about the original game or its hacks, but let's just jump right into it. Judging...

DJ Incendration: I've decided to cancel this submission. I wanted to see where it would go, but it's not looking that great. While I couldn't find any more improvements, I found that people didn't think it was different enough compared to the original MTPO. I was hoping the community had enough fans of the game who thought this hack was different, and that this TAS could be published. I am sad to say it doesn't seem like it. Canceling.

DJ Incendration: Uncanceling due to the fact that this submission's verdict could help improve site rules, as pointed out by Adelikat in the discussion.
feos: We're back!
feos: Setting to Delayed until we figure out if we want to improve the rules and how.
feos: We finally agreed on the new rules for hacks, the gist is that it should just be a decent quality hack and not a clone of an official game on the same platform (or rather its tiny tweak). Being present in well-known databases helps to make sure there's a community that cares about preserving that hack, because we can't publicly preserve them.
This hack features new gameplay and is well done, also it's presented on https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1630/ so it will survive for a while. Replacing the file and accepting to Standard, since the Moons requirement for hacks is no more.

despoa: Processing...

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14776
Location: 127.0.0.1
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
This TAS was fun to make. It was also challenging, since I am blind and can't see anything. I was able to use Ram watch to find my times and see if they matched or improved previous TASes.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
Thank you making this TAS, I enjoyed seeing the new strategies for this rom hack.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
GJTASer2018
He/Him
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 241
Location: Stafford, NY
(eagerly awaits a temp encode) Also, for anyone that doesn't have any idea about what this hack is here's the RomHacking.net page. This is listed there as completed with version 3.5 in March 2016, so it's safe to assume there won't be any further work done on this hack.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
juef
He/Him
Player (123)
Joined: 1/29/2007
Posts: 204
Location: Québec, Canada
Temp encode: Link to video
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
Found an improvement on Nick that saves 0.75 seconds in game, and 1.06 seconds or so (real time.) This is the last improvement I can find, so a new .fm2 and .bk2 version have been uploaded to the userfiles. I can make a YouTube upload, but it won't be as good quality as other encodes since I can't install the preferred codecs.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
Quick question. This hack is based on the Punch-Out!! (PAL) rom. Should I redo this TAS in PAL mode to match this?
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
Absolutely you should. I watched this TAS and noticed that it might be running a PAL game in NTSC mode. Harder to notice since the hack itself speeds up some of the music. PAL in NTSC mode is specifically not allowed. Also PAL isn't generally allowed without a good justification
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
Sorry. Thinking about it again, it's called Turbo because of faster music. It was also patched from MTPO NTSC. The PAL game may have been used to make this game, but the NTSC MTPO is the rom that works to patch it. For these reasons, I am starting to think I should leave it as is.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
nymx
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Skilled player (1585)
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 798
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
Yes vote. I like seeing the new content.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
scrash14
He/Him
Joined: 9/15/2021
Posts: 6
Location: france
How does the fight go VS Doc Louis? It's like "air uppercuts" and his bar goes down? Or does the hit actually happen but doesn't show because of Louis' own punch animation?
Emulator Coder, Experienced player, Judge (593)
Joined: 2/26/2020
Posts: 691
Location: California
scrash14 wrote:
How does the fight go VS Doc Louis? It's like "air uppercuts" and his bar goes down? Or does the hit actually happen but doesn't show because of Louis' own punch animation?
"Doc Louis" is really a palette swap of King Hippo. King Hippo normally cannot be star punched, and thus the devs never bothered to give King Hippo an animation for getting hit by star punches (and this persists in this hack). This hack gives you free stars to start and upon each knockdown recovery, so it's possible to star punch Doc Louis and thus see this oddity.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
Almost a month in the queue, and very little interest. For ROM hacks, we need them to be entertaining enough to get to Moons, and also to feature obviously unique content compared to the main game. Last time (11 years ago), this hack absolutely didn't fly. Now, as someone who doesn't know the game, I found it extremely boring (tho I can say the same about the base game too maybe because it doesn't feature Mike's actual fighting style at all). And the only gameplay difference I see without prior knowledge of either game is that this hack does indeed look easier. Voted No. It would be great if more people watched this movie and posted opinions about how entertaining it is, and how different it looks from the original game!
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Player (5)
Joined: 8/30/2020
Posts: 42
Location: United Kingdom
I’ve given this TAS a look (or finished actually. Got ten minutes in before). As someone with no prior experience with the game or it’s original counterpart, I was relatively interested. Seeing the characters go down in almost single punches was somewhat entertaining. That’s the key, however. Somewhat. At no point was I COMPLETELY entertained. Just sort of. For that reason, I’ll be voting meh.
Bigbass
He/Him
Moderator
Joined: 2/2/2021
Posts: 153
Location: Midwest
In both the original game, and this hack, there's not enough variation in what's happening on screen, to keep my attention. Punch punch punch, knock-out, then wait some time for the opponent to get up or move onto the next one. Tried skipping ahead to see if it got any better, and besides the fights sometimes taking a few more punches, it was still the same for me. The fight at about 5:53 in the encode was interesting though. If every fight in the hack had more unique characteristics like that one, I think it'd be much more entertaining for me to watch. The TAS certainly finishes the fights faster and I'm sure there's strategy involved, but the majority of the TAS visually feels like the same few actions repeated over and over. Thus a very boring experience. I'm voting no.
TAS Verifications | Mastodon | Github | Discord: @bigbass
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
feos wrote:
Almost a month in the queue, and very little interest. For ROM hacks, we need them to be entertaining enough to get to Moons, and also to feature obviously unique content compared to the main game. Last time (11 years ago), this hack absolutely didn't fly. Now, as someone who doesn't know the game, I found it extremely boring (tho I can say the same about the base game too maybe because it doesn't feature Mike's actual fighting style at all). And the only gameplay difference I see without prior knowledge of either game is that this hack does indeed look easier. Voted No. It would be great if more people watched this movie and posted opinions about how entertaining it is, and how different it looks from the original game!
Here's my view on the hack. This hack is unique in many ways. It changes the intro music to the fight beginning music, it changes every opponent's patterns (and strategies as a result), and the music is faster than in the original game. It is easier in some ways, but harder in others. It's easier because you get two stars at the start and after every time you get knocked down, but it is harder in that opponents use their special moves more often (such as Nick Bruiser/Sandman's dreamland uppercut being thrown more often, or SW7 Destroyer 2/Macho throwing their spin punches at random throughout the fight.) All of these changes made finding strategies challenging, and the gameplay is different in that the strategies and patterns are different.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
Editor, Player (67)
Joined: 6/22/2005
Posts: 1041
Without having played the hack to know what was changed from the original MTPO, the rapidity with which you defeat the opponents makes it seem like this is primarily a graphics hack, which makes me vote no. I assume that it is not just a graphics hack, but it's hard to tell otherwise from what appears in the run.
Current Projects: TAS: Wizards & Warriors III.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
I would encourage everyone to play the hack, then watch the movie. You will get a good idea of what was changed.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
Emulator Coder, Experienced player, Judge (593)
Joined: 2/26/2020
Posts: 691
Location: California
DJ Incendration wrote:
I would encourage everyone to play the hack, then watch the movie. You will get a good idea of what was changed.
If playing the hack is needed to enjoy the movie, then the movie would not appeal to the general audience. This doesn't bode well for this movie.
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
Those who know the general patterns in Punch-Out (NES) should know that the patterns have changed for this hack. Also, you don't normally start out with 2 star punches (or hold up to 7), but you do in this hack. The music is faster than in the original game, and many more things have been changed.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
EZGames69
He/They
Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3941)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2701
Location: Michigan
Many people including myself do not know the general movement of the base game. To me this hack feels more like a visual change than an actual gameplay change. I don’t doubt the author when they say the gameplay is different, but to me it doesn’t feel enough to warrant a hack like this from being published. The original MTPO already feels pretty straightforward and basic as a game concept, which I don’t feel like this hack adds enough to it.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
Ok, I'll keep that in mind for the next hack I TAS.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
Player (50)
Joined: 4/1/2016
Posts: 282
Location: Cornelia Castle
I've decided to cancel this submission. I wanted to see where it would go, but it's not looking that great. While I couldn't find any improvements, I found that people didn't think it was different enough compared to the original MTPO. I wanted to see if it could be published, but it doesn't seem like it.
DJ Incendration Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!
TASVideosGrue
They/Them
Joined: 10/1/2008
Posts: 2728
Location: The dark corners of the TASVideos server
om, nom, nom... blech, salty!
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
I would have preferred if you wait for the verdict. Even if rejected, this submission could help improve our rules documentation and set a precedent.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects