Solitary Fighter Speedrun Mini-Guide

Solitary Fighter Speedrun Mini-Guide
 
tl;dr : Pick Ron Max, mash Punch+Jump, enjoy. For strats, CTRL+F Actual Strats
 
Since Solitary Fighter got up on speedrun dot com I figure I may as well share everything I know about the game and speedrunning it. There's no real difference between a speedrun and a 1cc attempt because you'd lose so much time restarting a fight (fight intro + actual fight itself) that in order to have a competitive time, you need a 1cc. There are two bonus stages, but due to how the animal fights being a crapshoot, it's actually faster to beat them than it is to let them beat you. Plus, you might need the extra damage against the bosses.
 
Each character has the following moves:
Punch, Jump, Kick, Punch+Jump, Kick+Jump, Punch+Kick (a crouch that serves no purpose whatsoever), Double Tap Punch and Double Tap Kick as well as a throw. Some characters will have special moves that change their properties after being used once. E.G.: Bat Blue's Punch+Jump starts out as a overhead hook, but pressing the buttons again will instead have an uppercut. Throw is performed by moving close to an opponent and pressing forward+Punch. It is to be avoided at all times in the run as it throws them way too far. AI will throw you directly upwards and can combo you. You can't.
 
The most important trick to learn is the corner manipulation. The AI in the game is deceptively simple and aggressive but it does have a sense of self-preservation that can be manipulated. On a knockdown (preferably near the corner), you want to back up a bit and approach from over or under in order to use your fastest, most damaging attack (character dependent) in order to repeat this again and again. You want to not close the gap too much else they'll bounce off the wall and end up behind you, cornering you instead.
 
There is another "trick", available to everyone but Ben Smith and that is neutral blocking. The way the game calculates blocking is if you are in the blocking animation, which can be triggered by pressing back on the joystick (unless it's on cooldown. Yes there's a cooldown on block. No I don't know why either.) So, on a knockdown, you can tap back and hold that pose for however long you wish. It can be useful against certain characters' obnoxious wakeups (Ron Max's flying headbutt ¤cough¤) but it is unavailable for Ben Smith due to the fact that his standard bouncing around sprite overwrites his blocking animation if he's not actively pressing back.
 
That being said, which characters are useful? I personally classify characters in three distinct categories:
Competitive (top) - These characters can perform corner manipulation the easiest. They also have other advantages over other characters for the animal fights.
Contenders (mid) - These characters can perform corner manipulation and could have a competitive time, but lack the ease by which better characters could do so.
Jobbers (bottom) - These characters struggle at corner manipulation or are just too slow. These are obviously subject to change if more is discovered.
 
Competitive:
Ben Smith - Returning from his Violence Fight supremacy for 1ccs, he hasn't lost a single thing on his Vulcan Punch (Punch+Jump) of Violence Fight fame as it can corner manip and has the long sweep by double tapping kick for kicking animals. His only issue is having to fight Ron Max (He of the Run Destroying Headbutt) without neutral blocking which would help tremendously.
 
Ron Max - Unfortunately nerfed from his boss appearances in both games, he's still top for a reason and that's his Punch+Jump cross-chop/shove type thing. It comes out absurdly fast and does very reasonable damage for its speed. His double tap kick is a flying butt attack that's fairly useful to get in. He also doesn't have to fight himself, which is definitely an advantage. The only sad thing is that the flying headbutt is boss exclusive. I'd highly suggest starting out with him if you're just picking this up as a meme game.
 
Contenders:
Bat Blue - The poster boy of the "series". His Stardust Punch (double tap punch) is the highest damaging move in the game and can get buffed further with the bonus animal fights. It has some measure of corner manip, but the problem is getting consistent double tap punches. If that could be done, then he'd be competitive. He also struggles versus the animals as his only weapon against them is kick which is a 2 in 1 NORMAL move, with the front kick whiffing most times (it'll hit an attacking tiger though, so...)
 
Lee Chen - Suffers from a similar problem as Bat Blue, except his double tap kick does less damage than the Stardust. It does come out faster though. He also struggles versus the animals as his good weapon against them is the Punch+Jump special, which is a 2 specials in 1 move thing, with only the downwards punch being remotely useful (the shove is decent, but not as good as when the computer uses him).
 
Jobbers:
Lick Joe - Unfortunately nerfed from his Violence Fight appearance, where his Punch+Jump was at least good enough to get a 1cc. Here, it's inexplicably delayed and does even less damage, leaving his only recourse vs. everyone as the dropkick. While the dropkick does a great amount of damage and knockdowns in 2 hits, it's just not fast enough to corner manip. If something else is found, which I doubt, then that can change but as it is right now I can't see anyone getting sub 9 with him, and sub 10 might even be a stretch.
 
Tony Won - Hoo boy. Boss of the game, hardest one to get a good time with. His Punch+Jump would be great if it wasn't a 2 specials in 1 move thing. On a shoddily emulated MAME cab you can get a throw loop with him by doing his double tap punch running lariat then moving close for a throw but that is actually slow and on most emus and the actual board, it won't work. His only working move against the animals is moving in real close and pressing kick. Everything else will go over the tiger. Had a chain in Violence Fight, but apparently threw it away in this one.
 
¤ ¤ ¤

ACTUAL STRATS
(Bear in mind these are OPTIMAL and assume the game didn't try to screw you over. Chief strat is to corner manip your way to victory - Anything that allows you to do that is recommended over this guide)

Character: Ron Max

Round 1: Bat Blue
Move down+forward a little bit, Mash P+J until knockdown, walk up to head, walk forward alongside Bat for half a second, Mash P+J, repeat.

Round 2: Ben Smith
Walk back then double tap kick, mash P+J until knockdown, walk up to head, walk forward alongside Ben for half a second, Mash P+J, repeat.

Bonus Round 1: Bear
Walk bear to corner, mash P+J.

Round 3: Lick Joe (Rooftop)
Rooftop is the worst possible stage due to lack of Z-movement. Still can do some work.
Move up+forward, take chops if necessary, mash P+J until knockdown, walk up to head, walk forward alongside Lick for half a second, Mash P+J, repeat. If he chops his way out, move down+forward and try to reapply the corner manipulation.

Lick Joe (Corral)
Move down+forward until on even level with top of the bottom interactable box. Mash P+J until knockdown, walk up to head, walk forward alongside Lick for half a second, Mash P+J, repeat. If he chops his way out, move up+forward and try to reapply the corner manipulation.

Round 4: Lee Chen
Fuck this guy

Walk back then double tap kick, mash P+J until knockdown, walk up to head, walk forward alongside Lee for half a second, Mash P+J, repeat. If he gets out, walk back then double tap kick and reapplies. If he corners you, try to make it so that the wall bounces you past him so you have the rest of the stage to walk back.

Bonus Round 2: Tiger
Walk up+forward to trick the Tiger into following you. Then walk down+forward to try and get under him, mash P+J. If he's at the bottom right corner, mash P and hope it works.

Round 5: Tony Won
He deals a LOT of damage so if you get hit, retreat and try to z-move over or under him that your P+J hits him before he can hit you.

Walk back then double tap kick, mash P+J until knockdown, walk up to head, walk forward alongside Tony for half a second, Mash P+J, repeat. 

And that's pretty much it. Any questions you can either hit me up on the site or my Twitch or my Twitter or etc. which should be on the website you read this from anyway.

Hatman

Solitary Fighter

If you are feeling like masochist today, well have I got two fight games for you. 

Violence Fight - https://www.speedrun.com/Violence_Fight

and its sequel 

Solitary Fighter - https://www.speedrun.com/solitary_fighter

Both leaderboards have been updated, are you ready to take up the challenge of 