Punch-Out!! Wii

I can now cross an item off the list of Nintendo franchises I’ve never played.

Punch-Out!! has a special place in the hearts of many Nintendo fans, in spite of being a fairly small franchise. After a modest start with a couple games in arcades, it was eventually ported for Nintendo’s Game & Watch, and then on their home consoles, with its content adjusted for the more child-friendly platforms. We got Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out for the NES, featuring Mike Tyson as the final boss; Super Punch-Out for the SNES; and this game for the Wii, made by Next Level Games and released in North America on May 18th, 2009.

The franchise’s concept has appeal: You are Little Mac, an up-and-coming boxer trained by Doc Louis, an ex-heavyweight champion, and you are going up the ranks of the boxing world. Your adversaries are walking, talking national stereotypes with comical quirks, but they also have their own attacks that you must learn and defend yourself against. It’s not about unleashing a flurry of punches on them without thinking; it’s about studying them, spotting the telegraphing of their attacks, and reacting accordingly with proper timing. Dodge and/or punch back, and if it’s been done correctly, the opposing boxer is left stunned and open for attacks.

Will I fare well on my first experience? Let’s see.

Upon starting the game, we have five options: Career, Exhibition and Head-to-Head are the more important ones, though we do have Options and Gallery. In the Options, you can change the controls for the game. It’s normally played with the Wii remote and Nunchuk, and you flick one to punch with the associated fist (Nunchuk for left, Wii remote for right, with the joystick on the Nunchuk to dodge left and right, duck with Down, and guard or throw a hook punch with Up). It’s possible to change the controls to use only the Wii remote, with buttons 1 and 2 for attacks, instead of using the other method, as that one can get very tiring for the arms. There's even an option to add the Wii Balance Board to the mix!

For those who know nothing about boxing (like me before I started playing this title), a jab hits forward and a hook usually aims for the jaw. Since everyone else is bigger than Little Mac, his jabs hit the opponent in the chest area, and a hook goes for their face.

When the opponent goes red, you'd better be quick to avoid
his attack. But hey... it's Glass Joe. How tough could he
possibly be?
By the way, big thanks to WhiteKhakis' playthrough on
YouTube.

If you time right using your Star Punches,
you can even KO your opponents in perfect
fashion. (Seen here with Mac hitting Von
Kaiser.)

Every attack is telegraphed. The enemy will flash red to indicate the exact moment where you can safely get out of the way or counterattack. Dodging is a safe way to fight, but counterattacking will have bonuses – if you strike an opponent during or after his attack, he may be stunned and open to receive multiple punches. These boxers may also taunt you, which could make them flash yellow. Attacking them at that moment will earn Little Mac a star. It’s possible to also get stars from counterattacking an opponent with perfect timing and in some other ways as well. Mac can get up to three stars, and by pressing A before swinging, you unleash a blow that will use up the stars you collected into a far more powerful punch. But careful; if you get hit, you lose any stars you collected!

A 3-star punch WILL destroy your opponent.
Almost guaranteed knockdown.
The tough part is getting those damn three stars.

You also have a heart meter separate from your life bar, which depletes when you’re hit, and when your attack either missed or gets blocked. If that meter hits zero, Mac turns purple and can’t attack for a moment. That heart meter’s level varies between battles.

Okay, Disco Kid is gay, and proud of it.
Wear that pride, buddy! Keep fighting!
...Actually, keep training, you could do better as a boxer.

Each boxing match is split in three rounds of three minutes. Between rounds, Doc will give Mac some advice on how to beat the opponent… but sometimes he’ll say useless things; that can happen. When a character is knocked down, they have the 10-second count to wake up and come back to fight. That goes for Mac as well; you get him up by shaking the Wii remote and Nunchuk during the count. (Doing the same while the CPU opponent is down for the count will let Mac restore some health.) The fight ends either when an opponent doesn’t get up before the referee counts to 10, or when either character has been knocked down three times in a single round (this is considered a technical K.O.). If both you and your opponent have been knocked down the same number of times at the end of Round 3, the victory goes by decision to the character with the most remaining HP.

One of the most awesome elements is that, if you’re about to be knocked out by the current opponent, if you’ve been doing well enough so far, Mac might regain balance before falling and he will then come back into the fight, regaining some HP. This can make a world of difference if you’re close to victory. Yep; DETERMINATION is a gameplay mechanic! It works only once in a fight, though – your next knockdown will be an instant KO. But when it happens, it is glorious.

I CAN DO THIS!

Keep protecting yourself, Hippo.
In a bit, you won't be defending much more.

Story? There’s not much of one, to be honest. Just Little Mac going through the ranks as a contender, first battling the boxers of the Minor Circuit. I won’t describe them all in detail, but every opponent hails from a different country and represents stereotypes of that country. Glass Joe, the very first adversary, is very proudly French and will be sure to let you know! I do appreciate that, putting aside their obvious place of origin, each character speaks their native tongue. I could understand Glass Joe very well, being a French-speaker myself, but I have no clue what the other non-English fighters said. Like Von Kaiser, the proud German. Disco Kid is less of a national stereotype and more of a gay stereotype, which doesn’t make him any less dangerous on the ring. This circuit is topped by King Hippo, a brutal beast that doesn’t even speak a human language. He presented one of the first roadblocks in my playthrough, as he was able to block most of my attacks, and to top it off he had a move that struck from both sides at once. I knew Mac could duck to avoid such an attack, but in the heat of the moment I kept forgetting.

Halfway there... did I see a twitch?
No! Stay down. Stay! Down!

The game requires some pretty crazy reflexes, you aren’t given a lot of reaction time when the opponent is about to attack. The boss battles only get tougher and less forgiving as time goes on, with particularly ruthless attacks chopping huge blocks off Mac’s health if you don’t respond fast enough.

An angry Canadian? Impossible!

After winning Minor, Mac moves to Major Circuit. Four more opponents await: First is Piston Hondo, from Japan. Next is Bear Hugger, from Canad-oh. Oh. Oh boy. Yeah, I see this game punches a bit below the belt as far as the stereotypes go. It's all in good fun, but it does go for low-hanging fruits. This dude with chest hair shaped like a tree, who chops trees for fun, trains for boxing with bears, and guzzles maple syrup like it was soda, was probably one of my greatest foes yet. Trial and error is your best mentor here – Doc Louis helps with his advice, but he would be helping more if he stopped being so fixated on chocolate. Next up is Great Tiger, from India, and this section ends in a fight against Don Flamenco. Unlike King Hippo, he didn’t seem like he was worth being the strongest in this group – just a regular battle, not an easy one, but nothing that would classify it as an important milestone.

Come at me with this sort of advice, Doc.
I feel like I'm going to need them.

"HAVE YA GOT CHEEZEBURGERS IN
THOSE GLOVES MAC?"
"Shut up Aran."

Moving on to the World Circuit. The first opponent here, the Irish psycho Aran Ryan, was another test of skill as he’s too quick to hit more than once after dodging. The only way to stun him is to counterattack. This was another learning experience for me. Moving on to Soda Popinski, formerly known as Vodka Drunkenski in the original arcade versions until Nintendo censorship stepped in for the NES version; this Russian dude carries his bottle on the ring, that’s not right! Though you can punch it out of his hands. He’s wearing nothing but a slip; where is he keeping those bottles anyway? It’s safe to say that none of them are pushovers at this point, but the next opponent, Bald Bull, is particularly aggressive with his ramming attack, which I’ve struggled against for a long time. Then, Super Macho Man might lull you into a false sense of confidence as he starts off really easy, but he gets nasty after he was knocked down a first time.

Don't you dare shake your bottle at me!

He's gonna put you to sleep by the sheer
strength of his fists.

But Super Macho Man still pales to Mr. Sandman, also known as Replacement-Mike-Tyson. No loss to his boxing record. His left hook is so fast, if you don’t anticipate it, you’ll barely have time to react to dodge it. His other attacks are slower, so if you misread his moves, you’re guaranteed to suffer. You can hear Mac’s bones crack under the power of Sandman’s fists. He wears the title of champion proudly – and will be angry to lose it to this half-pint of a man.

By the way, if you want to re-fight any of these at any point, head over to the second mode, called Exhibition. You can rematch the thirteen opponents at will here. However, each fight also comes with three achievements that you can try to obtain. Best of luck, though – those are very difficult to get. But in this game? That’s not the least bit surprising. Getting all three of a boxer’s achievements unlocks their Sound Test (voice clips, etc.) in the Gallery. Exhibition Mode also offers Training against the next opponent you haven't defeated yet; Doc boots up a hologram so you can learn an opponent's attacks and how to react to them.

If even Glass Joe is so tough in Title Defense,
imagine later bosses like Bald Bull!

So, 13 opponents, that’s it? Not quite. Now that Mac has reached the top, he has become a target. The next portion is called Title Defense. In it, you’ll be fighting against these boxers in the exact same order – however, all of them will havce new move and new tricks. And is it hard? Well, let me put it that way – if you’re careless, even friggin’ GLASS JOE will kick your ass. Other than that, it’s not very different. But if you want to have even a slight chance of beating any of them, practicing in Exhibition Mode is pretty much a requirement from this point on.

Super Macho Man looks... old
Must be the white hair. He's just 27!

If you somehow pull through despite your increasingly sore arms, you’ll see Little Mac become the GOAT, the very best like no one ever was. Having reached the top, for real this time, he decides it’s time to hang the gloves after a final bout of confrontations. This mode, appropriately called Mac’s Last Stand, pits you against a random opponent at each match. It goes on until Mac has lost three times, after which he officially retires. To show this within the game, the Career option of the main menu becomes unusable. The career is, indeed, over.

That said, if you keep going long enough in the Last Stand, you’ll eventually fight against a bonus boss who was never seen previously and has tactics you aren’t prepared for – Donkey Kong, the great ape himself. Yeah, good luck with that one… At least, the famous Nintendo character is having an absolute blast on the ring.

This is but our first encounter. See you in Smash 4 in 2014!

Following his defeat during the Last Stand, Mac is now renowned as a champion, and Doc Louis regularly visits his protégé’s aisle at the museum. Roll credits.

Mac even gets a museum aisle all to himself?
That's a Wayne Gretzky level of honors!

Phew! Let me say, this was a tough one. A very tough one. Not so much to review (well, perhaps a bit, since it’s my first time approaching this franchise), but to play. Punch-Out!! didn’t steal its reputation, it’s definitely hard. Mike Tyson, the final opponent of the original Punch-Out!! for the NES, is considered one of the hardest video game bosses of the era, if not THE hardest. These games have a reputation to uphold, y’know? It requires a sense of timing, very quick reflexes, and even quicker thinking. The Wii game seamlessly transposes the original concept (which utilized two-dimensional 8- and 16-bit sprites) into the modern era.

I think the base idea was brought well to 3D, with each fighter’s personality shining through their design, and all of them able to dip into a pool of varied attacks. The animated segments before a fight and during pauses between rounds serve to further showcase these characters. The taunts and other battle techniques unique to each enhance these encounters. I do like that they were given their language of origin instead of speaking some sort of heavily-accented English. As a bonus, it allowed the devs to slip in a handful of lines that wouldn’t have been accepted any other way.

There is a multiplayer mode attached to the game, in which you and a friend both play as Little Macs trying to one-up each other. It feels a bit lackluster, to say the least. Oh, I’m not outright expecting a mode in which all of the opponents are playable. That would be awesome, but a pain and a half to program, especially considering none of these opponents are made to fight fair.

Besides Career mode, in which you fight each opponent once as a Contender and then once more to defend your title, I like the inclusion in Exhibition Mode. It’s not that the fights over there are any easier, but at least they don’t matter plot-wise. That secondary mode offers the possibility to fight against a “hologram” of the next opponent so you can prepare against the next challenge, as well as achievements to obtain by achieving precise things against all 13 enemy boxers, in both their Contender and Title Defense forms.

I can’t complain about the difficulty, I knew what I was getting myself into – but isn’t it part of the (admittedly small) franchise’s charm? The upside is that, if you tire your arms out swinging left and right against these colorful and powerful characters, you can switch from the Wii remote/Nunchuk mode to a plain controller-only mode. Also, hey, this means that you have options if you don’t want to swing your arms at all. On top of that, the Wii remote only has the 1 and 2 buttons on the right. It almost feels like how the NES game played!

Should you try it? If you’re intrigued by the franchise (in part due to Mac’s appearance in Smash 4 onwards), then I definitely recommend it. I’d suggest trying the original one on the NES, but this one, while tough, is a little more lenient for gamers who are new to the franchise and its battle system. If you’re looking for a challenge on the Wii, though? This will sate your thirst. And if you wish to take a risk and feel like a proper boxer, try your luck with the motion detection controls…

Next week… Hey, the year has been tough on everyone – let’s end this with some laughter.