There's 2 different types of runs for this game. The Wrong Warp category, the one I stumbled into, is fairly easy to attempt and it tricks the game to skip to the final cutscene after a single encounter victory. The current any% is a little bit more involved and is a lot more reset heavy to start a run.
To put it simply, any% is collecting all 5 rocket pieces and going to the moon to defeat the lunarians and the final alien. It is important to note that you can skip time one month at a time in either the War Room or Take Off screens by pressing select. NOTE: if you're in the war room and progress time by 12 months, you'll instantly lose the game, but in Take Off you don't but you'll cause the WW skip. *Also note that if you progress another month after all other countries have been taken over, this will also cause the skip.
The game has seeds, predictable by initial agent placement, and the optimal agent layout for any% is simply an agent in Venezuela and Peru, and the other 3 will be 2 in Africa and 1 in Germany. This guarantees the factories in Brazil, Peru, ussr, Yugoslavia, and Italy. Seeds are set from the first start press after reset. The first any% seed is at 16 frames from reset
Once you find that seed, head to the War Room (and the timer starts here for this category), move your cursor to Venezuela and skip time to April. Select the agent in Venezuela and CHANGE ORDERS to RESISTANCE, CHANGE COVER will only increase the RNG factor of failure. There are times that Krang eliminates your agent here before or shortly after you interact with the agent, in which case reset and retry. Move back to US and skip time to Dec.
From there, go to the fuel depot and put Lunarium into the jet pack to at least 128, but no more than 130 if your reserves are at 106 (note: if you did skip time to Dec, your Lunarium Storage needs to be >100 or reset as Krang took out your agent). Then TAKE OFF to Brazil, fight, Peru, fight, USSR, fight, Yugoslavia, fight, then Italy, fight. You can skip time while moving around to make sure you get enough Lunarium for the rocket (200). Send the SOS and check your Lunarium stores, skip some time if needed until you get 200 to go to the moon. After that shoot 10 enemies then take down the eyes of the alien. NOTE that if your lunarium doesn't increase, your agent was captured, in which case reset and retry. You can also try to buffer in time advances while moving to the next location. Just don't advance 12 months or more or you'll glitch/game over. Passing 8-10 months with just Resistance should produce enough Lunarium to launch the rocket. Keep an eye on Venezuela when progressing time as well, because if it gets overtaken and you haven't advanced time at least 7 months, your agent will have been captured and you won't have enough Lunarium.
Some fisticuffs notes: You can hold either the direction of the punch you want to throw or hold A and then tap the opposite to throw the punches. There is a rhythm to the enemy blocking/punches, but it gets progressively more difficult per encounter. I recommend finding the timing from the guard drop first, as the enemy left jab is ~2 frames faster and the right cross is ~4 frames slower. There seems to be some relation to the amount of frames the punch is held vs enemy behavior (guarding or punching faster), at least more noticeably in the early fights. The TAS is able to manipulate full lower punches for the first 3 fights and forces a block at first on the last 2 fights followed by full lower punches.
*After trying to rebuild the TAS I learned that punch inputs are only read every 3rd frame and each low punch animation lasts for 29 frames. After the first hit, the low punch has to be started on at least the 2nd available frame after your punch animation ends but no later than the 4th and held for a minimum of 13 frames to execute a punch. I try to make a point of hitting A first as with the input "lag", if you press D a frame before, you're likely to block instead. You'll have to release both direction and A between punches, as this reduces the chance of the opponent blocking or throwing a punch. You "can" buffer the inputs for punches, but this will usually cause the AI to block. I started to use audio/visual cues on the chain low punch timing, releasing when the last noise starts and pressing A->D just as the hit SFX ends.
*Uppercut requires 27 frames held and 30 frames to execute, Left punch is 18 frames held and 30 frames to execute, Right punch is also 18 and 30. The timing before you can connect with another of these punches is also greater than the low punches. Overall, the low punch is faster to execute and faster to trigger, but the drawback is you're more likely to take some hits if you miss the timing, the uppercut is ok to sequence 2-3 hits and you're unlikely to take any hits if you miss but is a lot slower in comparison.
Shooting notes: Lunarium mines/boss fight you want your bullets to end on the enemies/eyeball, so don't forget to move up and down. The center top pedestal can be hit on the extreme top, left upper platform with a small tap down from that, and both lower platforms can be hit from a bottom out and short tap up. The aerial plane fights are similar but it feels like there's a bit more leeway.
I go through the any% here at a relative snail's pace
Wrong Warp is a lot simpler and a little less reset heavy. Simply advance time 12+ months and go to Canada. You can complete it with the Rocket Parts Factory encounter or the Mission Impossible encounter. Mission Impossible is humanly faster, but the Factory is potentially faster if you're able to manipulate the hits in succession.
Wrong Warp here, although it's much faster going through
