Shenmue - Breakdown of Pedro strategies [70 Man Battle speedrun]

Breakdown of "Shenmue 70 Man Battle - VS Pedro BKTs and strategies" [https://youtu.be/bZdSMbcs9r0]

CLIP 0 (VS Pedro in 0:37.60 No throws; No Glitches - PS4) and CLIP 1 (VS Pedro in 0:34.90 No Throws; No Glitches  - Dreamcast):

These are my two best times without using any throw or glitches. There’s not much of a strategy here, instead the idea is to adopt a very aggressive play style and try to capitalize on each chance you're given. To tell you the truth, you must know Pedro’s A.I. like the back of your hand to mantain a fast pace. I try to take advantage of the surrounding walls to get more hits with “Crawl Cyclone” or “Mud Spider”, which can dish out an impressive amount of damage if used correctly. I also benefit from what I call "the A.I. lag”, which is the inability of the CPU to react to “Dark Moon” and “Cyclone Kick”. For whatever reason, the enemy A.I. gets stuck if you use those moves and is less likely to attack/dodge/block, so you can chain a bunch of strong attacks (no more than twice per move) and dish out a lot of “easy” damage. Pedro is one the few opponents who can break the chain at random if he so wants to, so I was really lucky to get as many hits as I did (referring to CLIP 1).

CLIP 2 (VS Pedro in 0:32.06 Wall combo strategy - Dreamcast):

This time is only a bit faster and the strategy is very similar to the previous one. The only difference in play style is that I abuse the wall properties to lock Pedro into a long combo. On Dreamcast, you can use the first sequence of “Arm Break Fire” to make everyone vulnerable, even Pedro!  You then continue with the “Infinite combo” strategy (which I show off in this video - https://youtu.be/QsakNccWTbc ) until he goes down. I was incredibly lucky and was able to chain 4 consecutive Crawl Cyclones (the game usually prevents you from spamming moves by pushing you backwards, but it didn't do that here).
Unfortunately, you can't do this on the new remastered releases because the collision is completely screwed and most moves don't work as they should (Arm Break Fire being one of them).

CLIP 3 (VS Pedro in 0:29.27 Standard Demon Drop spam strategy - PS4) and CLIP 4 (VS Pedro in 0:25.37 Demon Drop X9 strategy – PC):

These are my best times with the use of the infamous Demon Drop spam (DDS for short). While this technique may seem cheap, you have no idea how hard it is to pull off consistently. I would explain it to you, but it’s really complex and, besides, it would be hard to explain it in words. In a nutshell, Demon Drop can’t be escaped by the CPU and there’s a very, very slim window during the “standing-up” animation where enemies are vulnerable to being thrown. You can - you guessed it - abuse that to spam Demon Drop 10 times (or less if you have damaged Pedro with other moves before) and you win!... assuming you don't screw up the timing of course.

In CLIP 4 I use a slight variation of the DDS (suggested by friend and Shenmue speedrunner afterblue) where you can defeat Pedro with exactly 9 Demon Drops and 1 Surplice Slash (actually it’s any move that does 4 points of damage, including Thunder Kick, which is the one I used). According to my tests, the strategy doesn’t seem to work on PS4 (I have no clue why exactly, I tried everything but couldn’t replicate it. Either enemies have more health or moves do less damage or maybe neither of these things).
That being the case, it’s absolutely not worth going for if you’re on a nice pace, because Pedro can troll you and block the finishing blow and, depending on what happens next, the time loss could be brutal! You’d better off just spamming those 10 Demon Drops, trust me!

CLIP 5 (VS Pedro in 0:22.83 "Single" Wall Glitch strategy – PS4):

This is my fastest “single” Wall Glitch execution (check this video's description for an in-depth explanation of the "Wall Glitch" https://youtu.be/fqNVg80EcBk ). It’s almost disgusting how risky I played and how kind Pedro was not to send me flying with any of his BS moves. The final Wall Glitch at the end was just the cherry on top! To this day, I haven’t been able to top this performance… well... that’s not exactly true.

CLIP 6 (VS Pedro ‘only’ in 0:08.62 "Double" Wall Glitch strategy – Dreamcast):

Introducing… “the DOUBLE Wall Glitch”! This clip might be the most ridiculous and lucky play I have ever performed in my entire life. The chances Pedro doesn’t dodge two Tiger Storms in a row is probably 0,1% (only had it happen 3-4 times in 500+ hours…) and the chance two Tiger Storms result in two Wall Glitches is also pathetically low. Add the fact that Pedro and his boys need to cooperate and that your inputs must be perfect and you have the most beautiful Shenmue clip ever recorded!
Unless someone comes up with a consistent way to recreate this, I don’t think I’ll be able to execute a double Wall Glitch ever again. Funny thing is, this is the first time I take out Pedro before his minions, so that’s why I wrote “Pedro only”. If you’re wondering how much time it took me to defeat Pedro AND the other Mad Angels, it’s 0:15.88 in total, which is still absolutely insane.

Well, that's it from me. Hope you enjoyed the read and learned something new. See ya!