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Relive the Punch-Out Wii blindfold run from SGDQ 2019

It's been one of the most incredible feats at this year's Summer Games Done Quick. Relive zallard1's run through Punch-Out Wii, where he's completely blindfolded.

Ozzie Mejia

June 28, 2019 6:30 AM

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Have you been watching Summer Games Done Quick throughout the week? The top speedrunners in the world have been working hard to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. Their hard work has largely paid off, having hit the $1 million milestone faster than any time in the organization's history. So we at Shacknews would like to celebrate by reliving one of the week's most incredible runs.

If you're not familiar with zallard1, he's become one of the most prominent speedrunners of Nintendo's Punch-Out franchise. He's run through the original NES Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, as well as the Super Nintendo's Super Punch-Out, with the greatest of ease. He's done them blindfolded, as well as simultaneously. But he upped his game for this year's Summer Games Done Quick, as he leveled up and decided to tackle the modern Punch-Out on the Nintendo Wii. And with the donation incentive having been met, zallard1 attempted it completely blindfolded.

It's incredible to witness zallard1 complete both the main game and the much tougher Title Defense campaign without seeing a thing. The key to a blindfolded Punch-Out mainly involves memorizing patterns, as well as listening for certain audio cues. There are a few things that make the Wii version of the game simultaneously easier and more difficult. For one thing, the characters are much chattier. While certain lines of dialogue can cue certain attacks, the talkative characters can also crowd up the audio and make it harder to listen for those critical cues.

And zallard1 certainly didn't breeze through this game. There were some instances where he was in real trouble, such as the Bald Bull Title Defense. But his greatest adversary was the one that added precious seconds to his run. It was... the Wii motion controls!

Yes, the Wii motion controls are much harder to navigate when blindfolded. There were a couple of instances where zallard1 had to slow down to make sure he was pointing at the right prompt and there were a few close calls where he almost went into the Options menu, which would have been a bear to escape.

Check out the run above in amazement, especially as it concludes with a blindfolded battle against secret fighter Donkey Kong. For more on Games Done Quick and to donate to the runners' efforts to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, visit the Games Done Quick website. And don't forget to keep up with today's schedule.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?