Within the vast library of verbs afforded to players in games, "to fight" is almost unilaterally prioritized. There are no doubt exceptions (entire genres of them) but the vast majority of games, as far as I know, expect the player to enact some form of violence within it. My dad routinely asks me, "Why are so many games about killing?" I ask him, "Why are so many movies about killing?" But this is usually an evasive maneuver, because the truth is, even compared to film, video games are dripping with violence. This is not intrinsically bad, obviously, but it does often lead to a want for games that explore a less violent verbset. There are so many things we can do in the world, so why must video games always boil down to fighting?
Super Punch-Out!!, meanwhile, is only about fighting. It's not about anything else. After all, it's a boxing game. (Sports video games, coincidentally, are perhaps the most popular non-violent genre.) Most games create elaborate contrivances (also known as "stories") to justify their universe of violence. Boxing needs no justification, because it is, by definition, bouts of unjustified punching.
I'll be honest: I've never really liked sports. It's not a matter of disrespect; it's a combination of personal history and personality. Something in my psychology doesn't really line up with it. (For the record, this extends to e-sports, too. I would love to be able to grok fighting games, but grok them I do not.) I just don't seem to have a competitive bone in my body, and if I do, it's probably broken. Boxing itself can be kind of frightening to me if I think about it too much. Super Punch-Out!! is not only a boxing game, but it's also themed more like professional wrestling, a hobby which unfortunately I cannot help but have an immediate revulsion towards. Li'l Mac's opponents are a rogue's gallery of cartoonish heels themed with mish-mashed stereotypes, ranging widely in degrees of offensiveness and cultural insensitivity.
Despite all that, I love Super Punch-Out!!. Maybe it helps that it's a single player game. I had enjoyed the NES Punch-Out!! as a pre-teen, though I don't think I ever got very far. The series' combat is unique, functioning almost more like a puzzle game. King Hippo, from the NES, is perhaps the best illustration of this; you deliver a well-timed smack to his gaping gob and punch his stomach when his pants are quite literally down. I think everyone who's played these games has one or two opponents that was their own mountain to conquer. For me, they were Macho Man, a tanned body builder from Malibu, and Heike Kagero, a kabuki boxer who attacks you with his hair. (Did I mention this game is basically professional wrestling?) It took me days to take them down, Macho Man with his massive one-hit-KO spins, Kagero with his hair whipping across the screen. Every win is hard fought, and every win is a flush of accomplishment hitting your system.
Again, fighting is literally the only thing you do in this game. Many games, even the most action-heavy, frame their combat within a worldspace, full of ancillary systems. Here, there is no exterior world to explore, nowhere to escape to. There's only boxing. As a result, the boxing of Super Punch-Out!! is actually pretty mechanically dense, especially for the time. The NES version was, comparitively, a bit repetitive and a bit flat, but compared to its contemporaries, it was an incredibly complex combat system. The SNES sequel deepens this further, returning to the depth exhibited in the original arcade game. The deck is completely stacked against you. Li'l Mac is a tiny little twink (albeit ripped), and everyone towers over him. You often end up taking chips off their healthbars while a single blow across your chin will decimate you. It's even got a time limit of three minutes, which means every punch pulled is another inch closer to loss. People sometimes talk about games where "every button press counts", but it really is true here. A single mistimed button press (or even leaving buttons unpressed) by a couple of frames can be the difference between you nailing him with an uppercut, or you finding yourself facedown on the canvas.
Super Punch-Out!! makes me a little embarrassed to be so skeptical of the verb "to fight." I will never stop looking for new kinds of play, but it reveals just how dynamic combat can be, not in spite of it being a game exclusively about fighting, but because of it. The fighting game community, I imagine, is already quite aware of this, and maybe this all seems laughably quaint if you're one of those Platinum game stans, but as a reminder, this game is almost 30 years old, and in the case of the arcade game, 40 years old. Most games, even these days, do not ask for anything close to the amount of mastery and attention Super Punch-Out!! does. It's a very demanding game where every little thing matters. It matters whether you throw a right hook or a left one. Whether you block high or low. Whether you try to hit their face or their chest. Whether you dodge left or right. You have to watch every move your opponent makes. Learn every tell. Know how to precisely counter each one. Get that download complete. Study all their moves. And after you've done all that? Punch them in the face.
Super Punch-Out!!, meanwhile, is only about fighting. It's not about anything else. After all, it's a boxing game. (Sports video games, coincidentally, are perhaps the most popular non-violent genre.) Most games create elaborate contrivances (also known as "stories") to justify their universe of violence. Boxing needs no justification, because it is, by definition, bouts of unjustified punching.
I'll be honest: I've never really liked sports. It's not a matter of disrespect; it's a combination of personal history and personality. Something in my psychology doesn't really line up with it. (For the record, this extends to e-sports, too. I would love to be able to grok fighting games, but grok them I do not.) I just don't seem to have a competitive bone in my body, and if I do, it's probably broken. Boxing itself can be kind of frightening to me if I think about it too much. Super Punch-Out!! is not only a boxing game, but it's also themed more like professional wrestling, a hobby which unfortunately I cannot help but have an immediate revulsion towards. Li'l Mac's opponents are a rogue's gallery of cartoonish heels themed with mish-mashed stereotypes, ranging widely in degrees of offensiveness and cultural insensitivity.
Despite all that, I love Super Punch-Out!!. Maybe it helps that it's a single player game. I had enjoyed the NES Punch-Out!! as a pre-teen, though I don't think I ever got very far. The series' combat is unique, functioning almost more like a puzzle game. King Hippo, from the NES, is perhaps the best illustration of this; you deliver a well-timed smack to his gaping gob and punch his stomach when his pants are quite literally down. I think everyone who's played these games has one or two opponents that was their own mountain to conquer. For me, they were Macho Man, a tanned body builder from Malibu, and Heike Kagero, a kabuki boxer who attacks you with his hair. (Did I mention this game is basically professional wrestling?) It took me days to take them down, Macho Man with his massive one-hit-KO spins, Kagero with his hair whipping across the screen. Every win is hard fought, and every win is a flush of accomplishment hitting your system.
Again, fighting is literally the only thing you do in this game. Many games, even the most action-heavy, frame their combat within a worldspace, full of ancillary systems. Here, there is no exterior world to explore, nowhere to escape to. There's only boxing. As a result, the boxing of Super Punch-Out!! is actually pretty mechanically dense, especially for the time. The NES version was, comparitively, a bit repetitive and a bit flat, but compared to its contemporaries, it was an incredibly complex combat system. The SNES sequel deepens this further, returning to the depth exhibited in the original arcade game. The deck is completely stacked against you. Li'l Mac is a tiny little twink (albeit ripped), and everyone towers over him. You often end up taking chips off their healthbars while a single blow across your chin will decimate you. It's even got a time limit of three minutes, which means every punch pulled is another inch closer to loss. People sometimes talk about games where "every button press counts", but it really is true here. A single mistimed button press (or even leaving buttons unpressed) by a couple of frames can be the difference between you nailing him with an uppercut, or you finding yourself facedown on the canvas.
Super Punch-Out!! makes me a little embarrassed to be so skeptical of the verb "to fight." I will never stop looking for new kinds of play, but it reveals just how dynamic combat can be, not in spite of it being a game exclusively about fighting, but because of it. The fighting game community, I imagine, is already quite aware of this, and maybe this all seems laughably quaint if you're one of those Platinum game stans, but as a reminder, this game is almost 30 years old, and in the case of the arcade game, 40 years old. Most games, even these days, do not ask for anything close to the amount of mastery and attention Super Punch-Out!! does. It's a very demanding game where every little thing matters. It matters whether you throw a right hook or a left one. Whether you block high or low. Whether you try to hit their face or their chest. Whether you dodge left or right. You have to watch every move your opponent makes. Learn every tell. Know how to precisely counter each one. Get that download complete. Study all their moves. And after you've done all that? Punch them in the face.