Victorious Boxers is a hard hitting arcade style boxer that is unfortunately saddled with some significant drawbacks.
1 The Good: Victorious Boxers contains a number of welcome elements that serve to further the development of the motion sensitive boxing genre. (a) The first added wrinkle is that of in ring movement which adds an extra level of available strategy. Despite complaints about the control system Swing Mode 2 provides a serviceable control scheme which allows for the rather smooth incorporation of in ring movement. By combining the familiar analog stick based movement with motion sensitive punch controls this particular control option provides smooth transitions from attack to defense to evasion which are a welcome change from relative immobility of Wii Boxing. The punch recognition is also somewhat improved and is much more reliable when it comes to consistently throwing power shots. (b) The graphical presentation provides a quality visual experience which compares favourably to the anime series on which it is based, right down to the hyperbolic muscle definition.
2. The Hmm: (a) The story mode in this game will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Hajime No Ippo or its English language counterpart Fighting Spirit. If you are a fan of the series you will probably get some level of enjoyment from the story as I certainly did. If you haven’t watched the show, however, the bits and pieces picked from the anime will likely seem very shallow. Add that to the fact that the graphical quality of the cut scenes is inexplicably worse than the actual matches and that the voice acting is laughable and the story becomes less than compelling. Essentially it will serve only to string the player along from one fight to the next providing a minimal amount of melodrama. (b) If you’re looking for a boxing simulation you won’t find it here. Things like establishing the jab and wearing down an opponent before going in for the kill will likely result in more losses that wins. If you want an arcade style brawler you’ll get exactly what you want. The action is fast paced and hard hitting with very few dull in ring moments. On the flip side it is also somewhat oversimplified. You’ll likely spend most of your initial time playing through the story mode as Ippo and Ippo is known for having a big right hand. Establish that big right early in the fight and you are basically going to bomb your way through most opponents. A few will be more evasive than others or have more powerful special moves but if you rock your opponent with a few big rights early on you will undoubtedly come out on top. 3. The Bad: (a) When designing Victorious Boxers the developers apparently forgot to include even the most basic sort of health system. There is a spirit meter which is based on a system of increasing or diminishing flames which governs your ability to throw haymakers but even that doesn’t always work logically and usually your opponent will have a full spirit meter despite the punishment you lay on him or how many times he uses his special. As a result of this absent health system knockdowns come out of nowhere. Usually a haymaker is a sure bet for getting the knockdown but otherwise there is little rhyme or reason as to why a fighter goes down and if he’ll get up. It is also next to impossible to actually knock your opponent out. You’ll get plenty of TKOs by knocking your opponent down multiple times in the same round but in an experiment I conducted with the knockdown limit turned off it took 12 knockdowns to put one of the weakest boxers down for the count. (b) In terms of controls the actual punch recognition is still far from perfect and it is necessary to adapt to the style of hand movements that will get the desired result instead of throwing jabs, crosses, hooks, etc. in a natural manner.
(c) The game basically has two game modes Story and Sparring. A more fleshed out multiplayer mode is desperately needed here to keep the game compelling after completing the story mode.
4. The Ugly: If there is one place where this game fails miserably it is in the area of camera positioning. The camera angle employed is the over the shoulder camera used in boxing games since time immemorial. However, unlike classics such as Super Punch Out it is next to impossible to keep your opponent in front of if he doesn’t want to be there. As a result most of the time you knock your opponent down you won’t even see the punch that did it until the replay. There are also some depth issues that make it difficult to tell if your punches are actually landing or if they are falling short. Since this is the only angle available in the game it takes almost all the satisfaction out of laying a beating on someone since you can’t actually see what you’re doing.
5. The Verdict: To sum up, if you want to play a boxing sim that will allow you to experience what it’s like to actually be in the ring this game will disappoint. On the other hand if you just want to be able to jump into the ring and throw hands and let the chips fall where they may Victorious Boxers has what you’re looking for.