I’VE DONE IT
Mr. Sandman TD, final boss of Punch Out, TKO’d in Round 1. There’s a lot going on under the hood on this one:
At the start of every round or after either fighter gets up from a knockdown, Sandman opens with a series of Wink Uppercuts: He will wink with one eye and then send a lightning fast uppercut in the direction of the wink. You have to dodge to the other side to not get hit… Or, you can use the opportunity to earn Stars: There is a very tight frame of time (you’ll see it a number of times in the video) after he finishes winking but before he starts launching the punch where, if you punch him on the side of the face with which he winked, you’ll counter the uppercut entirely and earn a star. Punch too late, you eat an uppercut for 1/3rd of your health. Punch a bit too soon (while he’s winking), you punch him, but no Star. Punch too soon, he blocks and launches the uppercut immediately after (you can still dodge this). Keep this in mind. After that, he uses combos of 4 to 6 attacks which are a mix of instant and delayed moves: Left overhand, delayed right overhand (”Stand still!”), right straight, delayed left straight (”Night-night!”). After he’s done with the set, he goes into a Peek-a-Boo stance (used by the likes of real life boxing legends like Cus D’Amato and Mike Tyson, the latter of which Sandman references in part) and prepares to use his signature Dreamland Express, three lightning fast uppercuts (”Dreamland…”). However, you can use a jab before he goes into Peek-a-Boo to prompt a counter hook, which in turn you can dodge to land more hits on him; The counter he uses depends on which hand you use to prompt his counter! If you use your left hand, he’ll use an instant hook, easier to dodge, if you use your right hand, he’ll use a delayed hook. Every three times this counter is prompted, he reverses the hand rule.
Additionally, attacking Mr. Sandman pays reference to how he had to be hit in the NES Punch-out: You must hit his face in order to initiate a stun, as his body defense is perfect. After you stun him, his head defense becomes perfect, so you must work his body. So, open with jab, follow with hooks. Normal hits let you land 1 jab + 3 hooks, delayed hits let you land 1 jab + 4 hooks, and Dreamland Express lets you land a whooping 1 jab + 6 hooks. Additionally, after you finish the stun, you can use an additional jab immediately to hit him in the face for some extra damage, so the combo to punish a delayed hit, for example, becomes 1 jab + 4 hooks + 1 jab. The only exception to all of these are the Wink Uppercuts: You only get to hit him once in the face if you dodge them.
After knocking him down twice in one round, Mr. Sandman will enter Enrage (indicated by a little cutscene of him snarling): He’ll throw an absolutely ludicrous 14 (!) Wink Uppercuts faster than usual. Wink Uppercuts that you counter count towards that total. After all 14 uppercuts, Sandman will exhaust himself, letting you pummel him freely and giving you free Stars every three punches so you can finish him off in spectacular fashion.
All of this is condensed into around 2 minutes of execution and a lot of training to get it done in one round, bwahaha. I hope the video is fun to watch, this was VERY fun to learn.
