These are various stategies discovered for the opponent Piston Honda 2. While some of these strats maybe doable in real time, these demo movies are Tool-assisted and demonstrate the strat in a frame perfect manner. These times present the fastest possible time that can be obtained with these particular strats.

This one is easy and most MTPO players have pulled it off. Simply wait for the 1 minute mark where Piston will back up and charge at you. Time a punch to his face or body which will knock him down permanently! This 1 punch defeat will score at best a 1:00.99 final time.

TODO: Early sub 1:00 strats

This is a strat developed by me, Sinister, and Matt Turk. It allows for a sub 52 time without the need for the "immaculate" punch required by the TAS strat. It does require random stars (or lack there of) and the random energy refill, however.

This strategy was originally demonstrated in Phil & Genisto's first publication.

Phase 1
Begin with a dizzy destroyer combo (a gutter followed by a quick face jab, see the main MTPO page for details). Then comes one of the hardest to time punches in the game. You must delay slightly and tab+b to deliver a punch to the face. The punch has a 1 frame window of opportunity in which this punch will land and only if you tab up+b (holding it too long will fail). This immaculate punch seems to somehow catch Piston precisely as his guard pattern is changing even though there is no visible signs of the change. It is also hard to time because there is no visual cues as Piston is merely standing there with his guard down. Once it is delivered, tab up+b again for another face punch that will land a star. Hold up for just a few frames beyond his recovery point (which is face returns to normal). Then hold up + start to deliver a star. His guard must raise during your uppercut for this to work. If it doesn't, you didn't hold up long enough. Once it is delivered tab up + b twice to deliver two more punches for stars. The 2nd punch has a random 50% chance of success, if it fails the strategy will not work. After these punches, immediately deliver a star uppercut. Next pause slightly and deliver another uppercut that will intercept is eye brow shake. The punch must be timed perfectly in order to do the maximum damage (22). There are many timings that intercept the eye brow pattern but only do 15 damage. After the uppercut throw 3 jabs to intercept his jabs to knock him down for the first time at 27 seconds.

Phase 2
He must get back up with only 56 energy not 64 or this will not work. When he returns, hold up + start to deliver an uppercut while keeping his guard up. After the uppercut tab up + b twice to land two face jabs for two stars (again the 2nd star is random). Now delay for awhile (Piston will shift his feet 5 times) and press start to deliver an uppercut that will intercept his eye brow shake. Again, it must be timed perfectly to do the full 22 damage. Throw two more jabs, the first of which will get a star and the 2nd will send him to the canvas at 46 seconds. You must have 3 stars remaining.

Phase 3
He will get up on a 1 count and assuming you have 3 stars in reserve, simply hold start which will deliver a knockout blow. The TAS shows the fastest possible time for this strat of 50.25 seconds.

Achieving this time requires 3 random (50%) stars and one random energy refill. Thus the odds of getting the right pattern is 1/16 or 6.25%.

Starting with the 4th unstunned punch delivered on Piston II, every even punch is guaranteed (100%) to deliver a star. Every odd numbered punch has precisely a 50% chance of success.

After the first knockdown delivered to Piston II (as long as your health bar is full), he will get up with two random values, 64 or 56. There is a 50% chance of either value. It will be 56 if the lower nibble of the RNG address (0x0018) is in the range of 2-5 or A-D.