Next Level Games/Nintendo
Reviewed by Anthony
This just in: Flyweight fighter inexplicably earns Heavyweight championship using only three types of punches! It’s either the worst sports league ever, or perhaps as the phrase goes, “Little Mac is back”.
Punch-Out!! is essentially a stylized remake of the old NES and Arcade classics. Next Level Games took the reins for Nintendo here, apparently earning their trust with the excellent Mario Strikers series, and managed to put out a pretty impressive and memorable package. Punch-Out!! is fun, challenging, full of life, but just might have a bit too little overall gameplay for its $50 asking price.
What’s good:
- The colorful cast of characters you’ll fight are recreated beautifully and are bursting with personality. Next Level managed to get authentic language speaking actors for the huge array of nationalities represented, even jokingly going over-the-top stereotypical for the one fighter from their home in Canada. Fighters will taunt you when you fall, get knocked out in spectacular fashion, react visually and audibly to your actions, and run a complete gamut of cocky, yet vulnerable personalities. The characters were so realistic in their absurdity that at times I felt genuinely bad for having to beat them up. I mean come on, Piston Hondo should be able to beat me up for punching him when he was respectfully bowing to me, Mr. Sandman should win by default simply because he frightens me, and Glass Joe deserves that glorious second win by now!
- Next Level was surprisingly faithful to the old games, allowing for a ton of easter eggs for folks who played the NES originals. Don Flamenco can still be caught in an endless loop of alternating punches, King Hippo will still make no attempt to get back up once knocked down, Bald Bull’s charge can still be countered by a hook in the right direction, and his second form still can’t be knocked down without a special punch. When you include those as well as the ever famous “running through New York” scene, you can tell they put a lot of care into making this version seamlessly nostalgic to the fans.
- Before taking an opponent on in arcade mode, they allow you to fight a hologram version of the fighter that fights exactly the same, but can’t injure you. This is a great feature in making the game play more smoothly, since the average player would just be restarting or losing constantly.
- After beating an opponent, you unlock three challenges unique to that fighter that will have you accomplishing various tasks during a fight. While there are a few that are a bit picky, overall it’s an often fun diversion that can be satisfying to complete, and adds significant playtime to the game.
- The ability to quickly restart fights was an important inclusion that could’ve broken the game had it not been included.
- The various fighters’ music can be really catchy. Just try not getting the Russian “bum-ba-daaa” chants of Soda Popinski’s music in your head.
What’s neutral:
- The options for remote + nunchuk control and even wii balance board functionality were a nice touch, but not practical compared to the classic sideways remote use. Especially in later stages/challenges, this is not a game where minor timing/detection errors are okay, and players will simply not get the precision you need in using those. It could be fun for mindless 2-player action though.
- I had the same minor gripe with Mario Strikers Charged - someone should tell Next Level Games that you don’t need to use the pointer for navigating every menu. There’s a d-pad/analog control for a reason.
- Translations for the characters’ numeous lines of voice work would’ve been great. Finding out that Glass Joe says “My hands hurt; the gloves are on too tight” is priceless, but without looking it up, it’s lost to 99%+ of the players.
- The 2-player option, while a nice inclusion, is more akin to that of a party game than a serious multiplayer option. Being able to be something other than Little Mac/”Giga Mac” would’ve been wondrous, but as is, it’s more like complicated Mario Party fare.
- Although it’s supposed to be a timing-based game, with the harder opponents, everything comes down to pattern recognition. Those who just jump into it wanting a ‘fair’ fight may be bummed at this aspect; the fact is, often they’ll have opponents that have split-second dodges necessary with no tells, yet simultaneously have delayed ones that will hit you if you dodge immediately, again with no tells. It’s honestly a lot more fun before their visual/audio cues start disappearing from play. It does, however, make opponents like Great Tiger more fun to fight.
What’s bad:
- The difficulty level in the game is all over the place. Naturally, the start is incredibly easy, and it ramps up a bit, finally becoming difficult in the major circuit. Then Mr. Sandman comes along and is very, very challenging. Then the “Title Defense” mode opens up and you’re fighting everything again. While many reviews give the idea that Title Defense mode means you’ll be screaming for your mother, that’s not true. Although there are some new patterns to learn and attacks to dodge, few Title Defense fights are actually harder than or even on par with how difficult Mr. Sandman was. Some come with new quirks that make them tougher, such as Bald Bull needing a star punch to knock down, Glass Joe being immune to Jabs, or Bear Hugger needing a star punch to actually stun him for attacks... but the majority simply have a few new attacks and timings. As long as you learn the patterns, even the second-to-last Title Defense opponent is a cinch. It’s strange to have a game that’ll either give you no problem or utterly destroy you back and forth.
- Although the Exhibition Challenges are a nice, challenging timesink, some can be breezed through even in later stages, while others may seem like they’re too precise to be worth the effort. A more pressing situation is that if you don’t consider doing these challenges as fun, the game’s length may be a sincere disappointment. They can easily double or triple the main game’s length, which consists of 28 fights that could all be over within 3 minutes. Of course it’s not really -that- short since it takes a lot of practice, but when you break everything down, there’s not a ton of meat to the game overall.
- The “Last Stand” mode is kind of cruel. Not being able to restart is one thing, but not even being able to see which opponent you’ll get is just mean... that means you don’t even get a chance to re-practice their timings/patterns. And considering three losses means you’re done, and I very quickly got Mr. Sandman, followed by a special character not available during the normal mode, it’s not surprising that I was beaten pretty quickly. You can cheat through it, but what’s the point?
Next Level Games did fans a service here, and brought a great old gem back to life with the kind of presentation it deserves. Essentially, you’ve got a really great arcade game here with unlimited coins to play and a couple extras too. That said, whether a really great arcade game is with your $50 is another story.
I’ll make a comparison to the other Next Level Games Wii title I paid $50 for: In Mario Strikers Charged, it also has some brutal challenges and a gradually tougher main mode that’s over in a moderate amount of time. When it’s done though, you have both competitive and cooperative modes of play, tons of different game-options to set, as well as online play. Beyond that, your opponents won’t do the same thing every time you play against them, so there’s real lasting appeal. Multiplayer mode here is kind of silly, opponents always behave in set patterns, and there are no options to be toyed with during fights.
So really, the likelihood that you’ll dust this off for any other reason than to show it off to others seems pretty low. I can’t claim to know the solution to this conundrum, so I’ll just end by saying Punch Out!! is a pretty great game that will likely end abruptly for you. But I won’t soon forget moments like Von Kaiser going berserk, yelling and hurling himself at me... so that has to stand for something.
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