RETRO REBOOT - Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road To Glory (PlayStation 2)

I had a weird relationship with this game. When I first played it years ago, I thought it was one of the most unappealing titles ever. I suppose it was the closest to a mean-spirited edgelord I ever was, or trying to say things to be funny. Then I revisited it not too long ago when going over my collection of video games based on anime. Hajime no Ippo, I liked okay enough back in the day, but shonen was out of my regular rotation of anime viewing by 2002. Generally, most games based on anime for the longest time teetered between an average novelty or a really lame cash-in on a property. Victorious Boxers is somewhere in between, but I'll give it some slack for being a very early generation PS2 game.

Developed by New Corporation and published by Empire Games for its worldwide release, Victorious Boxers was initially released in December of 2000. The plot of the game is loosely based on some story arcs in the manga. In Story Mode, you play as the eponymous hero Ippo Makunouchi, who's frsh into the beginnings of his boxing career. It starts out with a sparring match with rival Ichiro Miyata, a scene that takes place in the manga, to learn some of the basics about the game's mechanics. In this single player mode, you play through as Ippo, switching between several characters, Mamarou Takamura and Masaru Aoki, unlocking a roster of 44 playable boxers from the series as you progress. If you're a Hajime no Ippo fan, you'll be pleased to see many of the faces. 

Around the PS2 era of gaming, anime games can generally dodge a few of the graphical shortcomings just because of a series' respectful art style. Victorious Boxers is...not one of those games. It looks pretty bad, though I'm confident devs were still figuring out the secret sauce of the PS2's architecture. The character models look good enough, but they're devoid of animation. The textures also seem to bleed a little, giving off a very smudged and messy look when they do closeups.

Victorious Boxers is also notorious for one of my more annoying pet peeves from sixth generation video games. That blur effect. I remember it being all over The Bouncer, in some of the early EA Sports games like both Madden and NBA Live 2001, and it's a stubborn nuisance here. I don't have great eyesight, and it's only gotten naturally worse over time, but even back then, this made my head hurt whenever action picks up. It feels like someone laced my drink with acid. If this was supposed to be a gimmick to make games appear more cinematic, it backfired. If I can replicate this by rubbing a thin layer of Vaseline on the bottom of a pickle jar and point it at the television, it's not an advancement. Even upscaling it on a modern TV makes it worse. There also isn't a great deal of detail in the backgrounds, the crowds are 2D sprites with gradients. From a distance, it's passable at best. But it's a pretty fugly game. This period just looks worse, with only a few outliers.

The controls are pretty interesting. You can bob, weave, and punch in all eight directions using the analog sticks. It's pretty progressive, I'll give it credit, boy do I remember hating trying to grasp the nuances of this back in the day. What gets annoying is the controls feel similar to Resident Evil tank controls. That would be fine, if the camera didn't orient itself, which doesn't pull the controls along with it. It's a touch frustrating when trying to position yourself for effective offense.

Not having a guard button makes it feel a touch arcadey, but it tries its hand at making a serious boxing game with its dodging philosophy. Instead, well-timed dodges are how you avoid getting clobbered in seconds. It takes me a little bit of getting used to, and I can adopt a more read-and-react mentality. The punches feel like they don't have much stopping power, and without a life bar, so you have to pay attention to the bruises and wear on your opponent's face to get a read on how much damage they've sustained. Playing this as a much older and patient individual, I can respect what they were trying to go for. The Fighting Spirit manga is very technical and pays a decent amount of respect to the art of boxing, the game easily could've had you Jolt Countering everyone into dust, but the effort to develop a grounded vs boxing title in an age where Ready 2 Rumble and Contender were more fleeting forms of entertainment. 

For players who may be unfamiliar with the source material, I think you'd find an adequate boxing game, depending on if some of the anime themes jives with you. It's rough around the edges, but as far as a game goes, it's better than I initially gave it credit. Teeters on average, as the learning curve is a touch awkward and the difficulty has occasional spikes, but Victorious Boxers has a decent amount of unlockables to make up for the tedious challenge.

Views: 450

Comment

You need to be a member of Game Fix to add comments!

Join Game Fix

facebooktwitterinstagramyoutube

PODCAST

Events

FRIENDS OF THE SHOW


© 2024   Created by Verlane.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service