Punch Out!! (Wii) - Opinions

Despite never having played a Punch Out!! game, I've been enamored with the styling of the Wii release since I first saw it in motion. The animations and characterizations found in this title are superb, making the opponents you face more interesting than ever before. As a lover of both lore and visual storytelling, I watched dozens of hours of video on the game before I ever owned a copy.

Approaching the gameplay, I didn't really know what to expect other than I would need to read the opponents in order to succeed. After learning the controls, I felt like I cruised pretty fast through the base game, until I started hitting opponents that thew punches to which I could not react fast enough. Because my main strategy relied on pure reaction, I quickly grew frustrated with the title defense fights that demanded I learn the patterns in order to succeed (Bear Hugger & Soda Popinski especially). On fights that weren't this way (e.g. Don Flamenco and Super Macho Man), I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I even grew to appreciate the Bald Bull rematch after learning the timings, but Mr. Sandman was sadly where I could take no more.

As someone who enjoys pattern recognition in boss fights à la Dark Souls, Punch Out!! showed me how frustrated I can get when my mechanical ability to read and react isn't sufficient enough to win, especially because I think I'm pretty good at doing exactly that. If I brought out the notepad and wrote down the script for all the fights, I'm sure I could've demolished every one of them (Sandman included), but because I'm not in the business of beating games I don't find fun at all costs, I unfortunately had to set this one down. As technically impressive as I still think this game is, in the end, it was definitely one of those games that felt more fun to watch than to play.