Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Reviewish | PUNCH-OUT!!

Chocolate Bars Are Your Friend!

Welcome to Reviewish, where I kinda-sorta "review" games I haven't actually completed yet. See, I play games at my own pace - which is a nice way to say I play them very slowly. But after I play what I deem to be enough of any one game to get the proper feel of what it is and has to offer, I'm ready to put my not-entirely informed stamp on it. Enjoy!

Oh, and feel free to play this clip while reading my reviewish of Punch-Out!!, I think it adds a little something to the experience...



I can only assume that for dedicated game developers, bringing back classic and charished games can be an incredibly difficult task. If you stick too close to the original (which in the case of games like Punch-Out!! can include gameplay that over the course of a couple decades got more than a little stale) you end up with a cheap rehash, but if you try to innovate too much you end up ruining the nostalgic feel you meant to capture in the first place and that fans will be expecting. What a bitch... Last year's Bionic Commando: Rearmed was a step in the right direction, although outside of some seriously awesome remixed music tracks, it was simply the classic NES game with a new and impressive coat of paint. Punch-Out!! on the Wii first seems like the same formula at work - after all, it has the familiar music and sound effects and the roster of fighters is almost 100% comprised of fighters you may have fought when you were a kid. Facing foes like Glass Joe and King Hippo are certainly no brainers, but when you realize that every fighter is one you've seen in Punch-Out!! lore before, you may start to think that this game is simply a new coat of paint too, but shockingly that's not the case. It's nice that the game has you once again battling all the foes from your past, and aside from one two new fighters (one in particular I certainly had no idea I'd see popping up here, and he is AWESOME), the roster shapes up nicely. I also like how the game manages to touch on the concept of ethnicity but never tread so deep into stereotype territory as to truly be insulting. Yeah, Piston Honda (oops, I mean Hondo - I'll assume lawsuits were involved somewhere along the line) has sushi circle his head when Mac dazes him, but outside of that sort of example and him speaking Japanese, the rest of his personna seems more interested in cultural influence than out-right mockery.

Visually, Punch-Out!!'s biggest strength is that it's cel-shaded look allows the fighters to really express their surprisingly deep personalities and quirks that go far beyond the ways they telegraph their various moves. For example: Glass Joe, the world's worst gaming opponent, is no longer simply just a lifeless punching bag you get to train on - he's also funny as hell to watch, and while he speaks his native French (sadly, Punch-Out!! offers no subtitles for the foriegn languages many of the fighters speak, which is slightly annoying), the animation is so colorful and spot-on that you know he's waaaaay too over-confident - perhaps this unfortunate and comical attitude is the result of a brain tumor that formed from all the people that have leveled him out with a TKO over the years. But this level of expressive body language and physical comedy is present throughout the game, and it's really quite enjoyable to watch. It really brings a level of depth to the game that the old pixels couldn't even quite convey - though they sure did an excellent job... On the audio side, Punch-Out!!'s sound relies a lot on the original NES and borrows and remixes many of the memoriable sounds and cues that old time fans might recognize, the music too is lifted from the classic and reborn through all sorts of new genres, many of which fit the cultural tones of the fighters Little Mac will face.

In terms of gameplay, Punch-Out!! manages to take the control concept of the original and tighten it to today's standards. Punch-Out!! has always been more of a reflex-based puzzle game than an actual fighting game, and this version holds on to that proud tradition by making sure you succeed or fail on your own merits. This is one of those rare games where if you lose, it's because you were at fault - not the game. The game follows a simple structure at first, with Little Mac going through three classes of fighters before winning the championship belt. Amusing as it is, pros may find that to be not much of a challenge, but the trick is that once Mac wins the belt, you open up the Title Defense mode. Here you'll face all your foes again - only now they've been working on their game and they're ready to take you on with a whole bag on new tricks. Glass Joe, forever the loser, shows up in a facemask, taking away the liability of the jaw that earned him his dubious moniker. How you deal with the loss of an enemy's once-reliable weakness is key to holding on to your belt. And aside from some costume changes, these second versions of all your enemies also have new suites of moves and their timing has changed. In short, they become a hell of a lot more of a challenge, which is certainly welcome to die-hard fans. It's not all about getting the belt though, as Punch-Out!! has an exhibition mode that is sort of like it's own version of Achievements. You're presented with all sorts of challenges for each fighter, and successfully meeting those challenges earns you all sorts of rewards from music to play to bios and such. All in all, it's a great way to extend the game's replayability and make sure you get your $50 worth, which is not a problem here...


Ah, the old days

The game does have some faults, but their so silly and probably limited only to me as to not even be worth noting - but I will. For one, why the hell isn't Mario the ref? Don't get me wrong, Ref from Super Punch-Out!! does a fine job, but it would have added one more little touch of old school class if Mario had been able to once again don the striped shirt. Also, I'm sure it would be a licensing nightmare and maybe a PR one as well, but why not just toss Mike Tyson in the game as a hidden character, you know - just for fun. I'd love to see him rendered in this art style, dumb face tattoo and all. Oh well. On a more realistic note, however, the multiplayer mode feels tacted on big-time. You're limited to playing offline and only Mac VS. Mac, and I find that really lame. Why not allow Soda Popinski to face off against Bald Bull? So much work went into the fighters (which are really the stars here) it seems a shame to waste them in what could have been a more solid 2-player experience. Heck, with this roster you could have even set up a bracket sytem, which would be fun as hell at parties. I suppose that will have to wait for another edition of the game - and if the delay between Super Punch-Out!! and the Wii reboot are any indication, could be quite some time.

Simply put, Punch-Out!! is one of the best titles you're going to find on the shovelware wasteland that is the Wii. It stands comfortably alongside games like Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl and deserves to be part of any Wii owner's library, especially if you still have fond memories of getting your ass handed to you by a pixelated Mike Tyson...

2 comments:

M. H. Mason said...

Your jerky tastes a bit like sweat.

Oh, we're talking about Punch-Out!!, aren't we? I have it on good faith from my oldest son that this game will be mine for Father's Day. Ah, subliminal parenting at it's best.

You've pretty much put to word what I was hoping for in the game; and even more so with your grievances. I never really played Super Punch-Out!! (Shame, I know) so I have even less love than you do. Mario would have been killer.

And Tyson would be nice; but I want the goofy, gap-toothed slobberknocker and not the face-tatooed woman beating one. Like they did in Fight Night Round 4, only cartoony.

I saw the secret fighter today, all I gotta say is wow, I didn't see that one coming.

Still not a substitute for Mario, though.

Bannen said...

I haven't mastered the art of drying strips of meat...

Punch-Out!! is the real deal - and it'll make a fine Father's Day gift. It's got the ability to support all the fancy new Wii ways of playing, but I highly suggest just turning the Wiimote on its side and playing it like the NES classic. It plays like a dream.

You may not have the old school Punch-Out love, but after this one, you might...