Punch Out!! | August 7, 2016
Nintendo Exclusive Title

Punch Out!! is not only a boxing game but to many gamers it is the only boxing game. It is also referred to as Punch Out featuring Mr. Dream and at one time it was called Mike Tyson's Punch Out. It still is a Nintendo exclusive title and was first released in 1983 as an arcade game. Then in 1984 it hit the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES in North America. Finding the arcade version is hard to do but the game is excellent. Currently you can only get it from Nintendo through Nintendo eshop but does it hold up?
Punch Out has only one character and that is Little Mac, an upstart boxer trying to make a name for himself. You start at the bottom of course in a low level Minor Boxing Circuit. Then you make your way to the Major Circuit and then finally the World Circuit Division. There are 14 fights to get to the top and 11 very unique fighters. You end up boxing 3 fighters twice. The boxers are all really different and that maybe unexpected because the game is so old but we had enjoyed trying to figure them all out. Some have a trick to them to win, some are really fast and all of them have patterns to memorize. It takes a lot of practice. Many can only be defeated in a certain way that is why the patterns are so important. But, the more you play the better you get, there is no luck involved.
You can only lose three times before it is game over. If you lose and you were halfway through a certain circuit then you get knocked down in the rankings and have to box someone you previously defeated. Or, if you all ready at the bottom of the rankings you fight the boxer that you just lost to. Each time you win a Title you get a code and you can start right where you left off. Thanks to the save system in the Wii U you can save right at the start of each match and practice, practice, practice until you get good enough to move on. We love this feature and made us want to try and go 14-0!
We played Punch Out the old school way and it took us 5 hours to figure out all of the fighters movements to get to the end. It starts to get really challenging in the World Circuit and it will test your reaction time. Many of the fighters start to telegraph their moves but you have to be fast enough to react. You start to do more counter punching as you start to get closer to the end. Punch Out!! also has an extremely high replay value, a replay value as high as high can be. Even after all these years many of us played it on our NES in the late 80’s early 90’s and we still wanted to play more and save our game at certain points so we could just box our favorite fighters over and over. Punch Out is easily worth buying on Nintendo eshop for $4.99. If you find it on sale for anything less than $4.99 it is a MUST BUY PRICE!
 
10 out of 10
Buy This Game Today

10 out of 10
Buy This Game Today


Rated
E10 for Everyone

Rated PEGI 7

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