http://highdefgeek.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8795
This could so easily have been a failure. When developer Next Level Games (responsible for Mario sports games like Mario Tennis and Mario Strikers Charged Football) were given the task of bringing back one of Nintendo's most beloved cult franchises, it could have been so easy to mess it up. Especially when the series in question is Punch Out!!.
Had it been too tricky, the vast majority of Wii owners would have been put off. Like it or not, the Wii's audience is very different from that back in the days of the SNES and NES. Had it been too easy, though, the game would have certainly upset the hardcore Nintendo gamers; long time fans who have been waiting upwards of 14 years for a new Punch Out!! to emerge. This is a tricky tightrope to cross, and yet Next Level Games have done it with ease. On a unicycle. While juggling fire.
On first glance, it seems that Punch Out!! doesn't have much in its locker. It's got an Exhibition mode, a Head-to-Head two player mode, and a Career mode where, like the previous games in the series, you fight your way through three circuits (Minor, Major and World) in order to become the champ in each one.
Punch Out!! is faithful to the original game, to the point that some opponents can be defeated using the same tactics as before. When we made King Hippo expose his weak stomach so we could punch away at it, or realised that with the right timing we could once again hit Bald Bull and knock him down as he charged towards us, we couldn't help but think that this was little more than a re-imagining of the original NES game, something that newer gamers would love but older ones (or those that took our advice and have already played through the original games on Virtual Console) would feel short changed by.
In fact, it seemed to us that anyone who'd played the SNES and NES games would have no problem breezing through the 13 opponents, all of whom (with the exception of Disco Kid) featured in previous instalments of the series. And as we got to the thirteenth and final opponent after only an hour and a half, we feared this would be the case.
We were worried. Sure, anyone who hasn't played Punch out!! on the NES or its SNES sequel would indeed take a lot longer than a couple of hours to play through the game, and they'd probably get a lot more enjoyment learning how to defeat each opponent. But nobody's been looking forward to this game more than Punch Out!!'s long time fans, and as we finally disposed of our 13th foe, we couldn't help but feel let down by how easy it all was. We had this review all planned out in our head: "great for newcomers, but far, far too easy for Punch Out!! fans. 70%" And that's when things got interesting.
You see, as with all great boxing champions, once Little Mac wins the belt, he has to defend it. In this case, by fighting again against everyone he's already fought. "Fair enough," we thought, "at least we already know how to beat them all". Ah, how foolish of us. This string of title defences comes under the heading of "World B", and every opponent is significantly harder than they were before.
Take Glass Joe, for example. He's long been the butt of many a Punch Out!! joke. Having never won a match, he's by far the easiest opponent in the game thanks to his glass jaw (hence the name). Before defending the belt against him though, a cut-scene shows him going to the doctor. The doctor show him an X-ray and explains that his jaw is weak, giving him a headguard to protect it. As a result, punches to the head no longer faze him. His fighting style is much trickier now too. When he leans back to punch, he'll sometimes fake it, making you dodge at the wrong time and leaving you open.
The result of this? We lost the fight. To Glass Joe. Glass Joe couldn't even fight sleep, and here we are on the receiving end of a walloping from the worst fighter in the game. With this one defeat, all our worries about the game's difficulty and our annoyance at Next Level Games completely disappeared. The extreme difficulty continues throughout World B, and turns the experience from a heart-crushingly easy game, to what is far and away the most difficult and punishing Punch Out!! yet. And we loved every minute of it.
Considering each fighter has a completely new set of moves the second time around, it's effectively 26 opponents instead of 13, making the game much longer and much, much more harder. Even so, with these extra opponents taken into consideration, we're still talking probably five or six hours before they're all beaten. So what then? Not to worry, there's still another little trick up Punch Out!!'s sleeve: the Exhibition Mode.
We know what you're thinking. In any other game, Exhibition mode is the bit where you just have a one-off game and there's no real point to it really. That's not the case here. Here you get to choose from the opponents that you've already beaten and fight them again, only this time you're given three challenges before you fight. Glass Joe (and we mean easy Glass Joe, not the tougher version) becomes much harder when you have to beat him without ducking, dodging or blocking a punch. Or how about beating Von Kaiser in only five punches? It's a great way to extend the games lifespan, and we defy anyone to say that it's anything other than insanely hard to complete every challenge for every fighter.
There's also a two-player mode, but if we're being honest, it's the weakest aspect of the game. It's fun when you rack up a combo and see your fighter transform into Giga Mac - a huge monstrous version of Mac with obscenely strong punches - but overall, it's nowhere near as entertaining as the single player modes.
Punch Out!! does a fantastic job of appealing to everyone. The first set of 13 fights is essentially an introduction to newcomers who have never played a Punch Out!! game before, while the World B mode and Exhibition fights provide the real hardcore challenge for dedicated gamers.
What's more, there are loads of cheeky winks that will appeal to fans of the series - the music, the fact you can use the 'extra energy' cheat between rounds as in the original game, and of course that pink jumpsuit - which make it clear that this is as much a love letter to long-time Nintendo fans as it is a great experience for newcomers, making it a must-have for everyone.
And the final surprise will please everyone, but we're sworn to secrecy on that....
Pros:
+ Looks absolutely incredible
+ Boxers ooze character
+ Classic Punch Out!! gameplay
+ Easy for n00bs, hard for pros
Cons:
- Multiplayer mode is weak
Overall:
The best Punch Out!! game yet. Accessible for newcomers, but a real challenge for experts.
Total Score: 91% (Gold Award)
Keep this in mind when reading what I type...
I've been gaming longer than many of you have been alive.
