Shenmue 70 Man Battle fastest WR pace speedrun [in 2020] - 66 defeated in

Today I’m sharing an excellent run I pulled off just before the end of 2020, where I get very close to achieving a time at least 10 seconds faster than the current World Record. This is also my current fastest pace up to Pedro, with an improvement of almost a second compared to the old Best Time (2:06.03 VS 2:07.00).
The run is the first one I upload that was played on Dreamcast (albeit emulated with Flycast, a DC emulator available for Retroarch). To be more precise, I’m playing the Shenmue Undub: Definitive Edition made by Shenmue Master and Phantom River Stone, in order to enjoy the original Shenmue experience with Japanese audio and English subtitles (read more about this amazing release here - www.phantomriv... ). I hope this doesn’t make the run any less valid in people’s eyes.
To elaborate on why I’m playing on Dreamcast, it’s because there's a variety of small little differences between versions, some of which end up making the time trial easier in some ways and harder in others. For instance, on Dreamcast you start the time trial by pressing “A” and the input won’t count as a move (unlike what the HD remaster does, which is making the A press count as both the run start and Crescent Kick *facepalm*). This allows me to start the run with a base Brutal Tiger, which, according to my tests, saves half a second compared to the standard KPK combo strategy we generally employ (granted, KPK is 100% consistent, while untrained Brutal Tiger can kill the run instantly if you miss the target lol).
However, one noticeable downside of the Dreamcast version is that the AI is generally more reactive compared to the remasters, which makes the speedrun even more difficult than usual. That being the case however, the original release doesn’t suffer from glitchy hitboxes, so you can go nuts with combos, not that it really makes for a faster run to be clear, but I reckon having more options can always come in handy.
With all of that said, I'm yet to talk about the run per se, but apparently I write too much (which is probably true), so I'll leave a link to a pastebin document where I describe my thoughts about the run and some of the new strategies I've employed. Give it a read if you find this stuff interesting! - pastebin.com/V...
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Thank you for reading and watching! If you have any questions about the video or Shenmue stuff in general, feel free to ask in the comments section, I'll be glad to answer. :)
Any like, share and feedback is, as always, much appreciated! I spend way too much time researching the game’s combat and it would mean the world to me if you could help me grow the community of active Shenmue players speedrunning the 70 Man Battle!
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Music is "Dirt Motocross" by Harumi Fujita from "Tomba!/Tombi!" (PS1). The version I used comes from the composer's official soundcloud account and sounds great - you can find it here: / tomba-car-racing
#Sega #Shenmue #シェンムー #VirtuaFighter #speedrun #timetrial #70ManBattle #worldrecord #wr #fight #battle #fail #pb

[@thatsmekarl5365]

This is 1:32 - 1:35 most hate/annoying bandit in shenmue series😂

[@RichardPayne5]

For sure! That 4-punch combo is so bloody annoying, it’s hard to find a way to hit them without getting hit in the process (exactly what happens in the video). They can also randomly stop attacking mid combo to throw off your timing and waste even more time; and too add insult to injury, these guys also like to randomly dodge your moves…
That said, I’m not sure if I hate them more than the hat dudes though… Those Mad Angels with hats more often than not will wait for you to attack only to block your move, and they can do that as many times as they want: they can essentially kill the run whenever they please. Throws are their weakness (they can't block them!), but they're slower and can easily fail, so I usually just use Side Reaper or Crawl Cyclone and pray they don’t block it. 😬
Interestingly enough, this type of behaviour is only seen in time trial mode. If you play the 70 Man Battle in the story, you will notice no Mad Angel is capable of dodging or blocking (for the most part)... so that means it was an intentional change in an attempt to make the time trial harder. 🤬

[@thatsmekarl5365]

​​@@RichardPayne5yup forget about hat guy always blocking move and waste time like first bandit i told u. Mostly hate when battle with pedro😂just like 3 bandit left and the purple one idk the name he also dodge you attack and likes to take cover behind Pedro .hard to hit him and wasting more time.

[@thatsmekarl5365]

I just beat the game second time. But never notice 70 man battle story. just like u said no dodge or block.. i think that must be easy 😅

[@RichardPayne5]

@@thatsmekarl5365 I’ve never tried speedrunning the 70 Man Battle in the story, but I suspect it would be much easier and likely faster too, but a little less interesting as a result.
About those final minions that accompany Pedro, I don’t remember the specifics, but at some point between when you beat the 50th guy and the 60th guy, the AI becomes much more reactive and aggressive, and up to 3 opponents can attack you all at once. That’s why the final segment against Pedro is so atrociously evil 🤬

[@kmodahighest]

Can u please make a handcam or combo tutorial run pls