Review - Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! (original) (raw)
12:01 pm - Review - Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!
Tonight is the night of the boxing fight between Mike Tyson and Danny Willams, which is a hugh night... for Mike Tyson and Danny Williams. Everyone else probably couldn't care less, but in case there's anyone that does, I will harken back to the time when Tyson was invincible, when his first liscensed video game was released in 1987.
Tomorrow, if I have time, I might write a review for a game I DON'T like.
All screenshots are by me, via the VirtuaNES emulator, and the box scans are courtesy of the Video Game Museum, who dumps so much spyware, I won't even bother linking them.
NOTE: I AM REVIEWING THE FIRST RELEASE OF THIS GAME. THE SECOND RELEASE WAS JUST TITLED "PUNCH OUT!!", AND DID NOT CONTAIN MIKE TYSON.
TITLE: Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!
Developer: Nintendo
Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Sports
In 1987, Mike Tyson was the most feared and dangerous man alive. At 21 years old, he was well on his way to the WBA Heavyweight Title, and shook some opponents just by them finding out they were about to fight him. With his reckless and powerful fighting style, he was the king of ending fights within the first three rounds, sometimes within the first couple minutes, as he proved when he finally beat Michael Spinks for the title in that year. Naturally, Mike Tyson was my HERO. I wanted to beat people like him, to be as fierce as him, and as famous. I was starstruck. I was seven.
Fast forward seventeen years. Tyson is now 38. After his trainer Cus Damato died in '87, his life started coming apart. He was married - and quickly divorced from - Robin Givens in the late '80s. In 1991, he was convicted or raping a beauty pagent contestant by the name of Desiree Washington, and when he came out, he was never the same fighter. He would win the title again, but would lose it to Evander Holyfield, and again in a rematch, in which he would bite off part of Evander's ear. After a couple more tuneup fights, he would have two more title fights, against now retired Lennox Lewis, who toyed with him like a cat before finishing him off both times. Now heavily in debt, Tyson is about to embark on a series of PPV fights specifically for the purpose of paying off his millions of debt.
When people see what Mike Tyson has become, it's almost impossible to remember - especially for anyone under 20 years old - what he used to be. The biggest reminder for me, someone that used to worship him as a childhood hero, is his NES video game, a quasi-home version of an older arcade game of the same name. As with most Nintendo games of that era, the home version would far surpass the arcade game - a normally rare feat - and would become one of history's most cherished classics.
The story of Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! is that you take control of a 17 year old, undersized Bronx kid named "Little" Mac, who is trained by former Heavyweight Doc Lewis, who was a "famously hard hitter in the U.S. around 1954" (from the Punch Out!! instruction manual). As Mac, you work your way up through the ranks in the World Video Boxing Association (W.V.B.A.), you go through the Minor, Major and World Circuit, fighting such characters as Glass Joe (who is, unsurprisingly, French), King Hippo, Bald Bull, and Super Macho Man, before coming up against the man himself, Mike Tyson, in a one for it all bout.
Mac can throw four different types of normal punches: lefts (with the B button) to the body and head (while holding up), and rights (A button) the same ways. He can also sway left and right (press left and right on the control pad), block (hold down), and duck (double press down). By punching an opponent after he misses you, you can string together combos, enough of which will whittle his energy bar down, and knock him down. Also, if you punch your opponent at the right time, you will "stun" him, giving you an uppercut punch (start button) that can take off some major power. For you button mashers, Mac has a stamina meter, measured in hearts, in the upper left hand corner. If this runs out, he will lose his ability to punch, will take more damage from hits and blocks, and must avoid punches from opponents for a while, until it comes back. Fights are three rounds of three minutes each, with a three knockdown per round TKO rule. Decisions are based on points at the end of three rounds, depending on the opponent; sometimes, it's impossible to win via decision (the instruction manual calls these "hometown decisions"). At the end of every circuit, you're given a password, depending on your record; if you get three losses in a game (or if you lose to Tyson), your game is over.
GRAPHICS: 9 Yes, there are games on the NES that look better. However, almost none of them are older than this, and NONE of them have the scaling that this game has. This is the best looking NES game of it's era, period. Also, it's one of the few games to utilize the MMC-2 chip, which allowed the smaller sprite in front of larger sprite effect (I believe the only other ones to have this were boxing games as well; Power Punch 2 and George Foreman's KO Boxing. I could be wrong, though...). Since it's only fair to compare graphics of one era to it's peers, this game stands out above the rest.
GAMEPLAY: 9 Simply put, there are games that have come out within the past year and a half the try to copy the very same system this game had, and can't do the trick; to an extent, even it's sequal, Super Punch Out (SNES), couldn't replicate the magic here. Everything here is based on timing; if your timing is good, you'll win, and if not, you'll lose. It takes a little bit of memorization to win in the later levels (which brings the score "down" to 9), but even then, you need to have your timing down, or you WILL lose. Also, some boxers have quirks to them that go beyond the conventional knowledge, and the ones that are conventional now (King Hippo), weren't back then, and made people scratch their heads in disbelief back when this came out. Simply put, this level of originality hadn't been seen before this on a home console, and this even beat out both of it's arcade predecessors in that regard. Also, not only do the harder circuits get longer (requiring better precision to get through them), but for those that beat everything, there's the "Extra" World Circuit, which is a bonus challenge. The learning curve in this game is perfect, letting newbies climb right in against Glass Joe, and still challenging vets from Mr. Sandman and up. Although all the boxers have a pattern to them, having the timing (I keep coming back to that word) to hit them at the right time is not easy, even for people that have been playing this since it came out. Simply put, as far as arcade style boxing games come, many have tried, but none have duplicated yet.
MUSIC/SOUNDS: 6 Not much selection here, but what is here gets the job done. Only one theme plays during the actual gameplay, and that only changes to something celebratory if you knock your opponent down, or something urgent if it's the other way around. There are also different themes that play when the boxers come out before the match; nothing that I mentioned is of note. The sound effects are a little better, but not much. Overall, it all adds up to being above average.
FUN FACTOR: 9.5 It's still more fun to play than the SNES game, which was a fun game to play in it's own right. The characters all have a very distinct personality to them, and even your catylist character and his trainer have a charm to them. And it doesn't get funnier than Doc saying things like "Join the Nintendo Fun Club Today, Mac!"
OVERALL: 9.5 This is a true classic that ANYONE should try to get, although the Mike Tyson version is definately prefered to the rereleased version, after Tyson starting getting in trouble with the law.
Simply put, if you're into older video games, this is the best boxing title ever, and one of the top 10 NES games of all time.