Thanks to the SDA crew as always. They make the process of submitting speedruns fun and easy.

This game has long deserved a place on SDA. It is one of the greatest NES games of all time, but also one of the most difficult to speed run. I remember when I first visited the SDA site I looked for this game immediately and was dissapointed to not see it. I am very happy to have filled this void and hope this run encourages more people to make attempts at this game whether they be single segment, individual level, or segmented.

There are a lot of people to thank for this run. People that have worked incredibly hard to develop the strategies you see throughout the run. I wish I could say that I came up with some masterful strats and changed the game, but the folks who really did that are:

Matt Turk
RedTom
Martin Charlebois
Adelikat
Brian Sulpher
Jack Wedge
Daniel T
James Browne
Kingdomcarts
Chrome Virus
and anyone else I am forgetting

I dedicate this run to all of them and thank them for their hard work, determination, and dedication.

As for the run itself, I think I did a pretty good job of executing the intricate strategies developed over the years. My original goal was to get sub 18:00 minutes and I accomplished this relatively quickly. That should have been the first sign my work was not done. The second more blatant sign was when Mike Girard uploaded his single segment runs to youtube. After seeing what he could do I knew that I really had to push my segmented run to the limit or it would not be worth much compared to a single segment. Many of the fights are trivial when it comes to single segment vs. segmented. Glass Joe is down at 42.00 no matter what, Don Flamenco takes the fall around 15 seconds and Von Kaiser, King Hippo, Great Tiger, Piston Honda 2, Soda Popinski, Bald Bull 2 and Don Flamenco 2 all really just come down to the randomness you get which affects your time by mere seconds, or fractions of a second.

So with that in mind I knew that I had to go hardcore on Piston Honda 1, Bald Bull 1, and the big three...Mr. Sandman, Super Machoman and Mike Tyson himself. Those last three are quite a challenge in case you never played this game before. If you have then you know what I am talking about. On to the fights:

Segment 1 a.k.a The Minor Circuit a.k.a Where the hell did you find these jokers?
Not much to say about this segment other than surprisingly Von Kaiser is one of the toughest fighters to get a top notch time on. Piston Honda requires a lucky energy refill that probably happens 25% of the time or less (although lately I have noticed the faster you get him down the more he tends to get the lower energy refill).

Glass Joe (00:42.00): Well there is really nothing special about this fight, pretty much anyone who ever played this game probably got this time on Glass Joe. An interesting tidbit is that I once knocked Joe down at with the clock showing 00:41, but he got up =\

Von Kaiser: (00:37.82) There is a faster strat on this guy but it is very very difficult. So difficult that I cannot even perform it (yet). It only saves about 1 in game second or less so I decided to not waste too much time trying to perfect it and rather spend more time on Honda 1 who you can actually save more than a few seconds on. As for this fight it was pretty mediocre by my standards and really should have been in the lower 37's but I was kinda slow in a few spots and frames were lost.

Piston Honda: (00:47.25) This is probably one of my favorite fights in the run because I improvised the end of phase 1 and came up with a strat adjustment on the fly that I had never tried before...and it worked out beautifully. My best time before was 48.82 using my now obsolete yet very consistent strat I had developed over the course of many fights with this guy. This fight could actually be improved through better strats but I do not know them currently and have put in quite enough work on this guy for the time being. I originally was trying to get 50.xx on him so needless to say I am pretty happy with 47.25.

This segment could possibly be improved by 3 - 5 seconds if someone was good enough at Von Kaiser to get 36.xx consistently and had better strats for Honda 1 which I am sure exist.

Segment 2 a.k.a The Major Circuit a.k.a Randomness hell.
This is easily the most frustrating segment due to the massive amount of randomness that affects your times. The dynamic duo of Don and Hippo makes getting anywhere nearly impossible.

Don Flamenco: (00:15.00) This strat requires a frame perfect punch to work. One 30th of a second is all you get so good luck with that. Lots of resets on this guy as you can imagine, and not only is the star frame perfect the dodge and counter when he gets up is very frame dependent as well. I was probably a frame or two off from getting 14.99.

King Hippo: (00:41.82) Probably the worst luck based fight in the game. Not only does it come right after frame perfect Don, but it requires very tough timing. You have to hit the King close to frame perfectly in order to land 9 gut punches instead of the usual 8. Try doing that three times in a row. Did I mention it requires insane luck to get a decent pattern against him. Fortunately he only threw one non-counterable punch here and ate glove the rest of the time. The good news...the next fight is a bye.

Great Tiger: (00:48.61) There really is nothing "great" about this guy. He is probably the 2nd easiest fight in the game behind good ol' Glass Joe. Pure skill, and not much of it required. I was a bit cautious seeing that I had a pretty good time going and probably could have gotten a lower 48.xx but the best I have ever done with this strat is 48.00.

Bald Bull: (1:12.61) This is one of my favorite fights in the game. I used to dread going up against the bull charge as a kid, so how bout beating him well before he gets a chance to do it? Sounds good to me! There is some luck required in terms of the stars you get (1 is 50%) and the last energy refill (also 50%). With the worst luck you can still get a time under 1:20. One of the best moments in the game is when Bull drops his gloves around 0:17 of round 1 and you punish him for not keeping his guard up by smacking him in the jaw for the first knockdown. Thank you Martin Charlebois, you made my day with that one. As for the fight I won the first coinflip and managed to pick up the random star at the beginning of phase 2. The energy refill for phase 3 did not go my way though and cost me 3 - 4 seconds.

It would almost be worth it to redo this segment to improve this fight if the 1st two fights were not frame precision madness. This is NOT a TAS!! My play was near perfect, my luck was not, the end.

Segment 3 a.k.a The World Circuit a.k.a Didn't I fight you already?
This segment is probably the most exciting to run. Some really tough fights here, lots of randomness, and some truly unforgetable characters.

Piston Honda 2: (00:58.97) This guy is annoying. I used to have such a tough time getting him under 1:00, so much so that I would just take the standard 1:00.99 time you get for knocking him down during his kamikaze attack and keep going. After much practice I got good enough to take him down sub 1:00 pretty consistently. You do need some luck for that to happen, and this fight was not too bad. It could be improved if I was more consistent at Matt Turk's "Blinded Barrage" strat, but I have only really done that once getting 55.48. It is probably the 3rd toughest strat to execute behind Von Kaiser and Mike Tyson.

Soda Popinski: (00:56.97) This is one of the easiest fights in the game...if you get the right randomness which requires him to go for his big uppercut three times in a row. As long as that happens you will get anywhere from 51 - 60 seconds depending on how long he decides to wait before going into his uppercuts. I got a bit towards the higher end but he rarely gives you the short delay two, let alone three times in a row.

Bald Bull 2: (1:29.97) This fight is pure skill. There is no randomness but that does not mean it is easy. The first two counters are especially hard to time, but once you get those the rest of the fight is a cake walk. Can't really ask for a much better time than this.

Don Flamenco 2: (1:56.48) For a long time this guy was the bane of my existence. That is until I developed a reliable sub 2:00 strat for him. I did not get the greatest luck here as he blocked a few of my punches before throwing his big hooks. I also could have gotten a better energy refill after the first knockdown...but I could have gotten a worse one so I should not complain. I actually had a segment recorded where I got the 1 in 100 luck of getting random extra stars on him, but that is so rare its not worth trying to get unless you are doing an IL run.

Mr. Sandman: (2:24.61) This is where things get good. I do not get the best luck in phase 1 and manage a 1:21 knockdown which is the outer limit required for this strat. After that it is all pure skill and a 50% shot (maybe better actually) on his 2nd energy refill. With some help from Matt Turk I was able to develop a manipulation that allowed me to force Mr. Sandman into his dreamland express as soon as possible. Notice his gloves moving up and down before he goes for it. That is me tapping up in a certain rhythm a certain number of times to manipulate him. I am very happy with this fight as any 2:2x time on him is very good.

Super Machoman: (1:10.61) Well this is my favorite fight in the game. You get to perform my favorite move that was invented by Matt Turk called the "dizzy destroyer" which you see is a 6 hit combo that puts Macho on the mat at a blazing fast 37 seconds. Luck was definitely on my side in this fight as I got the right pattern in phase 1 which is where he goes into his mini-spin punch. Of course you don't get to see him throw it because he gets dizzy and destroyed before he has the chance. After that comes my single mistake in this fight which cost 1 second. I try a dizzy destroyer before he goes into his super spin punch and he blocks the face jab :( After that I perform another Matt Turk special, the "spin sucker" which requires you to super punch Machoman in the spine just as he is finishing his last spin. Don't try this one at home kids. For the final phase I get the good luck pattern and use my adjusted "safe" strategy which costs no time by throwing a super punch, then a gutter, then another super punch. Most folks just throw a super followed by another super and just pray that he does not go into his spin punch which would result in a reset. Using my method, you will just whiff the gutter if he enters his spin punch early and lose nothing. Once again I land the spin sucker and get a sick time of 1:10.61. This fight was a huge improvement from my previous best segment in which I got 1:18.99, which, at the time seemed awesome. That was before I mastered Matt Turk's techiques and had the guts to use them in the final fight of a very difficult segment.

This segment would be very tough to improve because of the length, difficulty, and randomness involved. The only weak point of this segment is the Don 2 fight and I could imagine there is a better strat out there to maybe get him in the 1:4x.xx range more consistently.

Segment 4 a.k.a. The Dream Fight!!!!

Mike Tyson: (2:29.xx) Knocking this guy out in round one is probably the hardest thing to do in this game. It requires immense skill and sick timing. Most of the punches are frame perfect or very close to it. Getting a good pattern goes a long way in this fight. Tyson will sometimes pause for around 8 in-game seconds during phase 1 which pretty much is a reset (unless you are doing a single segment, you might wanna try your luck then). The earliest I have ever knocked him down is 00:56 when I got the best pattern which is very rare, and executed perfectly (also rare). Anything 1:07 or under is likely going to result in a round 1 TKO. As long as he throws four or more uppercuts when he gets up you have a shot. Otherwise reset.

I have to admit that I am not very good at this fight. If I was better a single segment would be doable for me. Unfortunately I think if I got to Tyson I would have a 1 in 10 shot to get him at best. Not great odds. Luckily in a segmented run you just keep pumping that code in and take as many tries as you need to get a good time. And honestly there are probably only a handful of people that have even beat this guy round 1 so even 2:59 is technically a good time.

As for this fight I got a fast pattern from him and landed all the late punches which dropped him at 57 seconds. Now I was not expecting Tyson to throw 6 more uppercuts but somehow he went berserk and did it. I kept my composure and and landed all the late hits again!! Once he went down at 1:33 I knew I was on pace for 2:2x because depending on his pattern (he gave me the slower one) you will get him down in another 53 - 56 seconds. I played it safe once he started throwing his hooks by not going for any late hits. The late hit punch does the same amount of damage (or maybe a bit more) than the two fast hits but it is frame perfect. If you go for it and are a frame too late he will block which basically kills the fight. If I were to improve this fight I would have to get a least a few of the late hit punches in but I am ok with this time for now.

Just for fun here are my best times on each fighter over the course of my attempts. some of the sicker times I got insane luck with the randomness:

GJ: 00:42.00
VK: 00:37.25
PH: 00:47.25
DF: 00:14.99
KH: 00:40.25
GT: 00:48.00
BB: 01:05.82
PH: 00:55.48
SP: 00:51.61
BB: 01:29.97
DF: 01:30.25
SD: 02:24.61
SM: 01:08.82
MT: 02:29.xx