An incredible feat has been achieved at this year's Awesome Games Done Quick. Which is not to say that every speedrun completed in this marathon for charity isn't an incredible achievement, they are, but every year there are one or two bonus incentives that go above and beyond what most gamers think is humanly possible.
This year, two runners beat Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! blindfolded using only one controller between the two of them. Speedrunners Sinister1 and Zallard1 collaborated to finish the classic NES boxing game in under 25 minutes.
The AGDQ 2020 Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! run was performed last night as a bonus incentive. This means there were enough viewers who donated towards seeing this run happen that it actually came to be. Both the runners are classic game speedrunners who are among the best Punch-Out!! players in the world. Sinister is one of the best Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers runners out there, while Zallard excels at the Splatterhouse games and the newest SNES game Star Fox 2.
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! is a notoriously tough Nintendo game. The series requires fast reflexes, pattern memorization, and one of the most difficult final bosses in the history of video games: Mike Tyson. For most players it is an achievement just to beat Mike Tyson. Doing it quickly with a blindfold is on a whole other level.
Previous AGDQ marathons have featured blindfolded runs of Punch-Out!! games before. Due to the reliance on memorizing patterns and listening to audio cues it has become a fairly popular series to run this way. Last year at Summer Games Done Quick 2019, Zallard completed a blindfolded run of the Wii Punch-Out!!, a game that the fan base recognizes as the most difficult in the series. In 2018, he beat both Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! on the NES and Super Punch-Out!! on the SNES at the same time, using the same controller. When it comes to this series, GDQ doesn't pull any punches.
Awesome Games Done Quick is celebrating its 10th year as an event. The event has only grown over the course of the past decade, setting a record by raising $2.3 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation last year. Games Done Quick has begun to branch out and do other events throughout the year but AGDQ takes place every January and is the tentpole fundraiser. The 2020 ADGQ marathon is ongoing until Sunday over on the Games Done Quick Twitch channel.
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! is out now for the NES.