Punch-Out!! Wii Review By Tom Kerkhof

Punch-Out! for the Wii takes us back to the late ‘80s, early ‘90s when the original Punch-Out! was released in arcades and on NES. This new installment hardly adds any real novelties but still manages to deliver. Despite its apparent simplicity, Punch-Out! still provides hours upon hours of clean fun due to its challenging difficulty. This difficulty, combined with a nice roster of boxing opponents and (sometimes frustratingly hard) challenges will keep you busy for quite some time.

The effectively cell-shaded, cartoony characters are simply hilarious to watch and fight, and constitute a large part of the fun an charm of the game. From their appearance to their remarks and theme music, every single boxer has his own personality and style that you either love or hate, and in some cases, love to hate. The likes of Glass Joe, the wimpy Frenchman, Bald Bull the raging Turk and the psychotically insane Irishman Aran Ryan are colorful stereotypes that lightheartedly mock their respective countrymen. In my case at least, it didn’t take much to love these characters for their silliness.

Also worthy of note is the pleasant voice acting, mainly because of its welcomed variety. Every character speaks in his native language, adding to their character, and each one is accompanied with their own awesome background theme. Punch-Out! scores well in the sound department.

But most important of all is of course the gameplay. As stated before, it’s a relatively simple setup where the directional pad controls the direction in which your character leans, 1 is a left hook and 2 is a right hook. Pressing up and 1 or 2 results in either a left or right jab, and finally, A launches a deadly uppercut; that is, if you’ve collected the necessary stars to do so. In fact, the control scheme is awfully similar to the original one from the ‘80s. That means no movement, just you and your opponent in a battle of wits and fists.

Behind this simplicity however, lies a game that requires you to anticipate and react, to know your opponent through and through so as to foil his every attempt to take victory. This starts out easy, but becomes tough along the way and especially the more skilled boxers will take more than just a few tries. However, once you’ve figured out their patterns, the specifics of their moves and timing, they have nothing on you, and you become a boxing god.

The road to becoming this boxing god is a surprisingly pleasant one, and this makes Punch-Out! one of the more enjoyable games released for the Wii in recent times. For some it might be to simple or just not enjoyable, but I expect that a fair few gamers can really appreciate the game. And for those people, the game definitely deserves the NiSuTe Value Seal of Approval.