Indie game developers, Soupmasters, have cooked up something special. Big Boy Boxing is a single player high-stakes boss-rush combat (you can only take 3 hits per match), the counter-attack system and the cartoon quality hand animated pixel art style. The visuals for some reason reminds me a lot of old-school 90’s adventure games. I mean, this looks exactly like a game you’d see played by someone in a cartoon and I mean that in the most amazing way possible, this is gorgeous. Obviously, this is a Punch Out inspired game. I love this new influx of indie games made for the (not sole) purpose of telling Nintendo we want more games from their dormant franchises. However, it is not a simple clone of Punch Out and after playing through the demo … well, there really aren’t enough games like this.
Here is a breakdown of the very unique cast of opponents that we went toe to toe with
Ice Cold Killer – Strangely easy compared to the rest of the fights.
Mr Adyltmen – Huge difficulty spike. So much is going on. You need to keep your eyes everywhere
Coach Skank – Fast, insane and very hard to predict. Takes a lot of hits to defeat.
Titanic 5000 – His very strange animations make him hard to predict and his belly flop attack caught us off guard.
My random thoughts:
The fact that my instinct tells me to dodge in the opposite direction of the punches, while you actually have to dodge into the direction of the punches didn’t help me. This is probably the first game where you’re actively encouraged to punch a child. I do say, the fact that three kids managed to give a proper fight is quite Impressive. I really like the implication that the coach “Taught everything you need to know about boxing” and that “You’re as good of a boxer as he is” and there was absolutely no mention of dodging in the tutorial. It’s a pretty tough game and you can only take 3 hits per match, so you really need to learn each boxer’s tells to beat them. I honestly love everything about this, insanely charming, fresh art style/animation, fire music and some pretty excellent albeit difficult gameplay. Seeing the love on display for it is both commendable and endearing.
Vourbot has some thoughts as well:
The Swedish Punch Out homage has lots going for it. Think Super Nintendo’s Super Punch Out, playing on an NES, loosened up with opponents for far-out and more numerous than what you’ve seen before, and with fast-restart gameplay at a Cuphead pace (three hits and you’re out, countless hits for the bad guy), and you’ll be imagining this game. The other main detail is that the animation is very fine, super cartoony, super hand-sketched, even though the final presentation is a nintendoey big pixel format. The enemies spin and wiggle, undulate and leap, filling the screen. This game will be a pleasure to try again when it’s finished. It’s great to see the Punch-Out format expanded upon. First-Person Punching game with a tiny guy.
We were told (by the Soupmasters) that the play through campaign will have over 15 unique boss fights. You can fight the way you want with customization perks (abilities and cosmetic skins). Collect ALL the trophies by completing achievements, mini games and more. There are TONS of replay value where you can rematch powered-up versions of previous bosses.