Super Punch-Out!!
I feel really bad saying this, but I thought this game was much better the way I remembered it. The obligatory upgraded everything with “Super” attached, Super Punch-Out!! took the game to the next level graphically, but the gameplay leaves something to be desired.
The NES original was a classic button masher which had a sense of urgency and intensity. You knew you could be wiped out if you didn’t have a certain rhythm, or if you didn’t time the opponent’s specialty punches.
In Super Punch-Out!! the specialty punches feel like a gimmick. They take the borderline feeling of being able to win (much like one or two of the Mario Kart games) and gets gimmicky to a point where the game is all about those punches: win or lose.
In this way, it feels cheap and underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I still like this game and feel it’s worth playing, but some of your standard punches are going to make it through, whereas the older game was all about ducking, dodging, and timing.
And for some reason, Doc Louis (Little Mac’s trainer in the NES original) is MIA too. (Actually, the fighter in the SNES version isn’t Little Mac either… he’s called whatever you name him.)
The saving grace is the flashy graphics, added animations, and audio.
There’s a little less of that here, and it looks more or less like the arcade title, but the game is still worth checking out if you’re doing the retro deal too.
