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The strategy section - Piston Honda 1 

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Phase 1:
When the bell rings and Piston Honda begins to move toward Little Mac begin to hold up on the control pad. This will cause Honda to raise his guard. As sonn as his guard is up give him 3 low left body jabs to get 3 stars. Immediately after obtaining the 3rd star press START to deliver it. Then deliver stars 2 and 3. There is something I wuold like to discuss here though that is crucial to getting this strategy to work. After Mac has released the second star and starts his 3rd uppercut Piston must not do a swing jab. The third uppercut will still hit Honda but less energy will be taken away. You have to hope that Honda is just standing there with his guard down when Mac delivers star #3 in order to cause maximum damage. In other words certain uppercuts take away more energy than others and when Honda is just standing there is takes away more energy than if Honda is in the middle of a swing jab (see the nsm file and pay close attention to uppercut #3 if you are confused). Whiel Mac is in the air it is important to once again begin to hold up on the control pad. This way when Mac lands back on his feet Honda's guard will already be raised. So once Honda's guard goes back up give Honda another 3 left body jabs to obtain 3 more stars. You need to be extremely quick here in order to obtain all 3 stars as Honda has a tendency to block. If you are successful at obtaining all 3 stars Honda will quickly bend down into an uppercut position. Dodge the uppercut and answer with 2 face jabs followed by star uppercut  #4 to send Honda down to the mat at 0:30. Mac should have 2 stars in reserve.

Phase 2:
Provided that you have not been hit Honda will get up at the 1 count. As soon as Honda comes back into the fight press START to deliver star #5 and Honda will go down for the second time at 0:34 or 0:33 if you are really fast. Mac should have one one star left.

Phase 3:
Honda will get up between a 2 and 8 count. Begin holding up once again before Honda comes back into the fight in order to to raise his guard. Then give him 2 fast left jabs to produce 2 stars. Immediately hit START to deliver star #6 and repeat for star #7 and #8. Once again though there is a certin pattern of Honda that he must give you in order for him to go down after the third consecutive uppercut. After star uppercut #6 you have to hope that Honda goes into his eyebrow pattern. If he does this, uppercuts #7 and #8 will land directly into the eyebrow preparations causing more damage and honda will go down for TKO. If you did everything right Honda will go down for tko at 0:47 although many times you may end up with 0:48. It all depends on how fast honda bends down for the uppercut in phase 1. If you execute this strategy correctly and get Honda in under 0:49 you definitely deserve to be in the Punch-Out hall of fame...

Push UP button when the fight starts and Honda will put his guard up. Release the UP button and throw 3 low jabs to get 3 stars and unleash these 3 uppercuts in a row. Push the UP button again to raise his guard, release it and throw 3 low jabs again to get 3 more stars. Now wait for Honda's hook or uppercut (the quicker he attacks, the better it's for you), dodge it and throw 4 punches to the head follow by an uppercut for the first knock down at 32 seconds. You should have 2 stars and Honda will get up at the count of 1 then immediately throw an uppercut to put him back to the mat at 35 or 36 seconds.

After the second knock down, hope his stamina will get back exactly at the middle (50%) otherwise you will need an additional uppercut to win. Push UP button to raise his guard, release it and throw 2 low jabs to get a total of 3 stars. Follow by your 3 uppercuts and Piston Honda will fall down for TKO at 49 seconds.
 

Then immediately at the beginning of round 1 give him three consecutive left face jabs to get three stars.
When you have got them, deliver all three stars immediately.
Then get another bunch of three stars right away (same as above) but do NOT deliver them but wait for Honda to punch!
Dodge and counter and deliver one star with the last punch of your counter attack (depends on Honda`s move: counter jab no.5 or no.11 must be the star punch!)
If you were able to deliver 10+1 counters on Honda then you should have sent him down to the mat. If not, then deliver some more stars...(keep one star!)
When Honda is back on stage, deliver a star to knock him down for the second time (as he was up at 1!!). Clock should show 0:38 - 0:41.
To finish him off get immediately as many stars as you need to have got three stars at all. When you have got three stars then deliver all of them to TKO Piston Honda 1 at around 0:56 Round 1!!
 

Quick KO:
Give him a star upper-cut when he comes back after his 1:00 "step-back" routine. If you have got full stamina and hit him right in time Piston Honda should get down for KO! If you have got no star for this final punch than a normal left face or stomach jab should do fine, too.
Timing and virginity is key to quick KO!

Prologue:
Piston Honda is the champion of the minor circuit. Several excellent strategies have been written most notably the orginal 0:49 tko by Martin Charlebois. I set the NTSC record with a time of 46.97 but was able to go even lower than that by using a strategy that I  discovered this past week that lead to a time of 46.25 on MTPO (NTSC). Here is how I did it.........

Phase 1:
Phase 1 is exactly the same as the "TKO to Tokyo" (see above). You should try to get the first knockdown at 0:30-0:31. Mac should have 2 stars in reserve.

Phase 2:
Honda will get up at Mario's count of 1. Have you ever noticed that Honda sometimes comes back into the fight with his guard already raised? Just as soon as Mario restarts the fight press B and deliver a quick left body blow which should come through Honda's guard to produce a star (100%). Note: Only sometimes will Honda hold his guard up long enough in order for Mac to land this punch. The bad news is that he tends to block the punch. The good news is that if the punch makes it through the star is 100%. I will call this the "fluke gutter". Once again do not hold up to raise his guard but instead just punch him. See nsm file to see how to do this properly.So if you manage to land the "fluke gutter" immediately press Start to deliver a star uppercut which will send Honda down for the second time at 0:35-0:36. Mac should have 2 stars remaining.

Phase 3:
Honda will get up between the 2 and 8 count. You need to hope for a 2 or a 5 count. I have found that when Honda gets up at these counts his energy refills less.  As soon as Honda comes back into the fight immediately press Start to deliver one star uppercut. Hit start again to deliver another star uppercut which should land right into the beginning of one of Honda's eyebrow/jab patterns. Immeditely after delivering the second star uppercut wait just a tad and time a face jab right into Honda's second eyebrow pattern to produce a star (100%). Immediately press start to deliver the final star which should hit Honda while he is just standing there to knock him down for the final time in under 0:47 seconds (nsm file shows 46.82). Note: If Honda decides to throw a hook when Mac is delivering the last star uppercut he will not go down and will need two more punches to go down. This may lead to time like 0:51 then.

Well you did it. You have have beaten the champion of the minor circuit in record time. How does it feel champ? My best time and current world record on NTSC is 46.25. I obtained this using the above strategy.

Dedication:
I want to dedicate this strategy to Martin Charlebois for inventing an intially outstanding and widely used 0:49 strategy on Piston 1. I was motivated to look for this strategy based on a large number of requests for a sub 0:47 strategy on Honda 1 on the MTPO GameFaq's message board. Remember practice makes perfect and this strategy is not easy to execute and requieres a lot of cooperation from Honda. The best way to practice is start a new game and beat Glass Joe and Von Kaiser to get 2 chances at Piston 1. Good luck guys.
 

Prologue- Piston Honda 1 is the champion of the minor circuit. He is not very hard to beat but he is hard to defeat quickly sometimes due to his random patterns. Several good strategies have been written for him. These include "TKO to Tokyo" which is good for tko at 0:48 but random. The fastest strategy known to date for NTSC was invented by Matt Turk and is known as "Eyebrow Attitude". However, it like the strategies that preceded it is very hard to execute and somewhat random. However I found a way to get Honda 1 sub 0:48 very easily. Here is the story of how I tkoed Piston Honda 1 at 46.99 using only 3 tries..............
 

Phase 1- As soon as Mario starts the fight press up and deliver 3 consecutive left body blows (gutters) which will yield 3 consecutive stars (100%). Immediately after obtaining the third press START to deliver one star into Honda's eyebrow pattern for maximum damage. Press START again to deliver a second star into his eyebrow pattern. Now hope Honda throws a hook and intercept it with a quick left face jab ( up +B) to yield a star. Note: You must anticpate his hook and intercept the hook extremely fast to get this strategy to work. Immediately press START again to deliver another star. While Mac is in the air you will notice that Honda will be holding his guard near his head. As soon as Mac lands back on his feet Honda will lower his guard and you need to take this opportunity to land two face jabs just as he is lowering his guard. Note: The face jabs must land as Honda is just standing there and must not intercept another one of his hooks in order to get maximim damage. Both of the face jabs will produce 2 more stars (see nsm file if you are still confused). Now hope Honda throws a quick face jab or an uppercut and answer with 2 face jabs followed by a star uppercut in his stunned face to send him down from 0:30-0:32 (clock read 0:30 for me). Mac will have 2 stars left.

Phase 2- Provided that Mac has not been hit Honda will get up at the 1 count and you know what that means. Await him with the START button pressed and deliver a star uppercut which he will take to send him down at 0:34-0:35 (clock read 0:34 for me). Mac will have one star left. You have almost done it.
 

Phase 3- At the beginning of phase 3 you have to hope that Honda's energy does not fill up too much. It should fill up to just past the third dot. This usually happens when he gets up at a 5 count. If he comes back with too much much energy you will have to reset. Once Mario restarts the fight welcome Honda with the up button pressed on the control pad and deliver 2 consecutive left body blows which will yield 2 more stars. Immeditaly use one which land right into Honda's eyebrow preparations. Use another which will also land into his eyebrow preparations as well. Finally use the third to send him down from 0:46-0:48 (clock read 0:46 for me).

Well you did it. You tkoed Honda 1 under 0:49. You have done an amazing accomplishment that very few MTPO players can say they have done. If you are a really good player this strategy should take 5 tries or less. If you are an average player then maybe 20. Nevertheless this is the easiest, quick strategy to date.

Dedication- I want to dedicate this strategy to Jedi Samurai who gave me the idea of intercepting that first phase 1 hook. I was motivated to look for this strategy in order to find a much easier, less random way to beat him fast.

The strategy may be frustrating at first but watch the file and after a few tries it will become easy. Remember to have fun playing this great game. Maybe it can yield a lower time than 42.00 on PAL Tom.