Punch Out!! (Wii) - Aran Ryan [0:53.40] (WR)

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This is a really cool strategy found by McHazard in 2014 or so, back when the only other strategy for Contender Aran was the 54.66 WR that I set a decade+ ago. This one, however, involves Champion's Mode, which is an unlockable mode from surviving 10 matches in Mac's Last Stand. With this enabled, every punch will send you to the mat in one hit. This will be used in one of the coolest ways imaginable for a Punch Out speedrun, so let's get into the fight.

This strategy involves dodging Aran's 1st attack, hitting him once in the gut, then dodging his subsequent counter-attack. If you dodge the 2nd attack fast enough and punch immediately, you'll get a star! You want to make sure that your punch here is a left hook, because the direction you hit Aran will greatly impact the time it takes for him to do his next attack, since he dances around the ring and has to get to a specific side for certain parts of his pattern to continue.

Next, Aran will knock his head twice and attempt to punch you from the right side. Once you hear the 2nd "knock" noise, you can throw a punch and stun him off of it. You'll want to land only 4 punches here, because you need him at a very specific health value later, and you want him to break out of the stun naturally, since his next scripted move is a taunt from the center of the ring, which he'll already be at if the stun ends on its own.

For this taunt star, I've modified the buffer strategy that Nolan and Awosomeandy use in their WR runs. They immediately buffer 2 dodges, one punch, and do a delayed punch to collect the star. I ended up doing those same movements, but I instead delay my first dodge relative to when Mac fully pulls his fist back from punching Aran. I tried their buffer for a bit, but it refused to click with me at all for whatever inexplicable reason, but once I changed it, I was getting 2:33 phase 1's left and right.

Immediately as Mac's punch hits Aran when countering his taunt, I start another pseudo buffer for the next dodge by using the exact same cue of Mac pulling his punch back, then throwing another punch into a dodge to evade his counter-attack frame perfectly. From there, I buffer a gut punch, then the fireworks begin, because this is the only time in the entire Punch Out series where a frame perfect double hit is ever used in an optimal speedrun.

As soon as Aran gets into his stance to throw a punch, I delay slightly after I see the stance visually, then throw my double star punch such that Aran knocks me down due to Champion's Mode, while he receives the full damage of the double star punch. I have to stress that every single Punch Out game in the series has a double hit, and yet they've never *ever* been useful for strategies until this Aran strategy from McHazard, and I just think it's so cool. Getting a 2:33 means your time up to that point is frame perfect.

Once you get up, dodge his overhead to punch him in the gut, then dodge his counter-attack quickly like usual to punch him with a left gut punch so he's sent to the right and gather a star. Throw a punch as soon as you hear the 2nd knock noise, then throw only 6 stunned punches and let the stun end naturally. He will immediately go into a taunt, so I opted to do my pseudo buffer of starting my dodge right as Mac pulls his fist back, then do a follow up dodge, left gut punch into right gut punch to send him to the left side of the ring.

At this point, he is one hit away from being knocked down, which is actually a good point to bring up the new strategy change. McHazard's original strategy called for knocking Aran Ryan down with a gut punch, and he probably figured the punch type didn't matter here, because the internal game timer is the same value when Aran is down, so 53.52 was considered the best possible time.

However, EpicJake72 discovered that while the time is the same when the knockdown happens, it is *not* the same when it comes to the 2nd phase, since Aran will take 2 extra frames to get to the back of the ring if he was knocked down with a gut punch due to the different position he falls down in! This makes a lot of sense in retrospect, because when I set the 54.66 record back in 2009 or so, a lot of people had a hard time matching it, but no one knew why. I liked knocking Aran down with a face punch when I stunned him back then because I thought that animation was funnier; little did I know it was also faster lmao.

So, for the last punch of phase 1, you want to jab counter him. When phase 2 begins, Aran goes to the back of the ring, and you have to actively block his headbutt within an 11 frame window iirc. From there, buffering your 3 star punch is an instant KO!

This fight was really fun for me to do actually; thoroughly enjoyed this grind. Despite needing 11 frame perfect inputs to match the WR/TAS, I got this much faster than I thought I would. Here are my stats:

2:33's - 22

53.70 - 5
53.64 - 11
53.58 - 4
53.52 - 3
53.46 - 2
53.40 - 1

Anyways, thanks for watching!

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I like to think that the double hit in this strategy is the canon reason how Little Mac learned about how super armor works before Donkey Kong steals him and takes him to Smash Bros.

zallard

This is the optimal run of Aran Ryan simply because we get to hear "you probably got cheeseburgers in those gloves have ya mac?"

MrMisfortune

This was the day Aran learned that, while he was stowing horseshoes in his gloves, Mac was hiding gunpowder in his cheekbones.

jellywillreturn

That trade with Aran is wild. Hitting with a Star and being yourself knocked down, is an interesting strat.

Zythria

“Keep hitting me! I love it!!!”- Aran Ryan 2009

oblonglobster

Speedruns are mesmerizing to me, watching the optimization and game knowledge is awesome.

DeltaPhox

Aran ryan at the beggining of The fight : starts screaming, Zallard : I have to stop you right there

mniamburg

If they every make another punch out game you need to be referenced in it

zhanorz

"You got cheeseburgers in those gloves?" - Aran Ryan

squidwardtentacles

That counter star punch after the headbutt is so satisfying.

pigfish

So cool! Aran ryan really encouraged me to shake things up and innovate when I fought him, great to see he's still doing that even in the big leagues :3

Pacca