Hello, I'm not really in this community or anything, but I have some information that is probably interesting to this group: it is definitely possible to knockout Piston Honda II in 30 seconds flat, 10 seconds faster than the recorded world record for the level. I was watching my 7 year old son on our raspberry pi running emulation station, and he managed to land a series of lucky punches that triggered his special move where he backs up then comes at you and starts punching. He somehow triggered it twice before the 30 second mark, and each time a single punch was required to knock him down. The second time he was down for the count, and the clock said 0:30. I didn't realize it was a record until later when I checked the site. No video, we're not speedrunners, and that's pretty much as much as I can provide from memory, but I thought some of you might be interested to know that it is possible, if you're not already working on it!
The TAS can’t even get Piston 2 that low. It would only be possible if you either A: used a game genie or B: hacked the game. If this was done legit and you can show video proof, It might get looked into more.
Is your son Todd Rogers? Sorry couldn't help myself. Salt is likely right. In no official version of the game is this possible. Even I can tell you that. If your son can give us details we'd love to know more. Replicate it on video if possible.
It was RetroArch, no intentional hacks, could have been an emulator glitch for sure. It was that same move he does at 2:00, and you just have to land a jab (bald bull style) to knock him down ... no idea how he triggered it twice before 0:30. Might be nothing, but I wasn't sure if it was a known thing already. We'll keep plugging at it (on something other than RetroArch) and see if we can repro. Thanks!
honda 2 does do the attack at 30 secs.... in rounds 2 and 3. Is it possible that your son got the knockout in a later round?
