PixlBit

Number 20

I always love it when a formerly dormant franchise get’s a revival because it’s interesting to see what they’ll do with it. Will it continue off where the previous game left off in terms of story? Will it use the same gameplay as the previous games? Will the series make a leap from 2D to 3D? Will it be rebooted? Will they remake one of the games? Or will they get lazy and make a compilation disc? I’m not sure where does this game fall in, but I was as pleased as punch when I got it.

I never played any of the Punch Out games before, I do remember playing an arcade version of it at Mexico when one of my cousin’s took me to a local arcade. I also remember playing a Super Mario Bros. arcade game there too, but not sure if there is an actual SMB arcade game out there. I do remember reading about it at 1up years ago, but sadly I don’t have any way to verify it now. I remember the arcade version of Punch Out being hard, then again I was a kid so it would seem hard to someone who’s never had any experience with a new franchise.

I remember going to Best Buy in 2010, my dad said he would buy me any game I wanted. As odd as that sounded, how could I say no to that? It was an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I looked around the Wii section because it was the only “current” gen console I had. I was debating between Transformers: Cybertron Adventures, but I remember reading about it in Nintendo Power magazine, and it said it was an on-rails game and you couldn’t transform at will. That last part put me off. Then there was NFS: Undercover, and I do love me some Need For Speed, but my brother had it on the DS so I could just borrow it from him. I saw Punch Out and I recognized Little Mac thanks to Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was either that or a Wii version of Twilight Princess. I decided on Punch Out since I never really played any of the games outside that arcade version.

I’ll tell you that I’m not really one for sports games unless they involve a certain Italian plumber throwing shells and bananas. Sometimes I make an exception though like this time. Plus it’s a game from Nintendo so it couldn’t be that bad right?

The first thing I did when we got home was open the box and pop the disc in the Wii. When you first start the game, it asks you to create a save file, then you are taken to the main menu to select a mode. I’ll touch on the other modes later, so for now I’ll focus on career mode. Career mode put’s you in the shoes of Little Mac as he rises from Amateur Boxer to Championship Boxer. With the help of his coach/trainer, Doc Louise.

One of the first things you’ll notice is that the graphics are cel-shaded, which is nice and gives the game a certain charm to it. In career mode you start from the low ranks and you must fight an assortment of racist stereotypes in order to qualify for the next fight. You can use from 2 different control options, you can use the Wii remote held sideways, or use the Wii remote and Nunchuk like in Wii Sport’s Boxing. I prefer the Wii remote and Nunchuk myself.

So, from there you fight one of the first boxer’s Glass Joe, and what’s neat is that before you fight them, you are given an intro about them. It really shows you kinda like a little backstory on them. Afterwards, you begin the fight and you would assume that all you had to do was punch them and win right? No, and here’s where the neat part comes in.

Basically you punch your opponent, but they will also block your punches often. What you do here is that you have to look for an opening. In order to find an opening, you have to pay attention to what your opponent does. It can be from striking a pose, to smiling, or anything in general, sometimes you can attack them when they are charging an attack because it leaves them wide open. But you have to be careful because this window of opportunity doesn’t last long. However if you’re having trouble finding a chink in the armor of your opponent, you can also get advice from Doc Louise in between rounds. He either gives you advice on how to expose a weak spot, or tell you to be careful of an opponents certain attack. Or he can give you some advice or talk about chocolate.

                        

If you punch your opponent successfully, as in that you land a hit, you start filling out a meter for an attack called the Star Punch. It’s a strong attack that deals a lot of damage. You can fill the 3 star icons for it for a really powerful attack, but the problem is filling the meter up. If you’re filling up the meter you have to be careful because if your opponent lands a hit on you, you lose the meter you’ve built up. You can dodge attacks to save up the Star Punch meter, but not all attacks can be dodged, so again you have to be careful.

             

In order to win a fight, you have to knock your opponent out by either winning from a k.o. to the best 2 out of 3 rounds. If you manage to beat an opponent, you move on to the next fight against another boxer. If you manage to move up a rank, you get a training montage of Mac with Doc. Despite never playing the series, I’m quite familiar with these cut scenes, so it’s a real treat to see them here.

As for the other modes, there’s Title Defense and Last Stand mode. Title Defense has Mac defending his championship title against previous opponents, but it has a twist. Remember when I said that every opponent has a weakspot to expose? Well in this mode, they have covered or eliminated any sort of weakspot they had. This makes you think of a new strategy and possibly seeing if they have a different weakspot to expose. Last Stand is more of an endurance mode, like a boss rush mode in other games. In this mode you face the other boxers in a random order. If you lose, Little Mac will retire and career mode will be blocked, forcing you to restart a new file from scratch. Just like in a real boxing championship. However, if you manage to defeat 10 opponents, you’ll unlock a new Championship mode where one hit will knock you down.  There’s also an Exhibition Mode that has you fight the boxers again but with certain amount of requirements, like not get hit and the like. You even have a 2-player mode where you fight against another player controlling another Little Mac. It’s basically a head to head mode, with a twist. You can turn to Giga Mac if you fill up a meter by either dodging attacks successfully to landing hits.

One of the things this game did was also help me get strength in my arms again. You see in 2009 I was hospitalized. I lost alot of weight, and my strenght too. Heck doing things with my arms was a chore. I was pretty weak but I’m glad this game allowed me to get my strength back.

          

As for my final thoughts on this game, well it’s a really good game. I know people regard the other boxers as racist stereotypes and they have a point. However this game gives them more personality than the previous installments did. The characters are still racist stereotypes no doubt about it, but at least they have personality that the previous games couldn’t capture. The characters personalities are really silly and it shows during intros and fights. I was surprised at the amount of character they had for a game like this. The graphics are really nice, the game is really fun, and the game has strategy involved for something that involves nothing but punching things.

This game also gets pretty hard later on so don’t expect to be dishing out knock outs so easily. If you can find it cheap, check it out. It has also been rereleased on the Wii U as part of its Wii Virtual Console service. This game was certainly a knock out, now I have to go because there’s a chocolate bar with my name on it.

           

So have you ever playd Punch Out on the Wii? Have you played any of the previous titles? Thanks for reading and later.