Final Fight. Double Dragon. Captain Commando. TMNT. Vendetta. Some of the best co-op brawlers aka beat’em ups in the annals of gaming are still enjoyable to play today with friends. When you don’t have a lot of time to play, and you just want to jump into a game that’s accessible and instantly gratifying, the brawler genre is hard to top. These types of games aren’t nearly as common as they used to be in the late 80s and early 90s, but it’s good to see there are still developers out there who appreciate the genre.
Last year, Team2Bit released Fist Puncher to the masses on several platforms, and just last month, the title hit the Ouya. Fist Puncher is both respectful and proudly representative of the past brawlers, and forward-looking in as far as it has way more playable characters (19!) and RPG elements, too. As with all of the good ole side-scrolling brawlers, there are a few caveats: it’s not a very fun game to play alone, expect plenty of repetition, and a couple of hours per play session is probably about all you will want to spend before the repetition sinks in.
So should you even bother? Absolutely. As long as you have one, two, or even three locals buddies to play Fist Puncher with, you’re in for some enjoyment. Most folks don’t have an Ouya, much less more than one controller, but with support for the Dualshock3 it’s not too hard to round up a few controllers. Fist Puncher offers multiple difficulty settings and four unique characters to play as, with another fifteen that are unlockable. Dr. Karate wears his uniform out in public and he can shoot fireballs, while The Beekeeper, my favorite of the initial selection, can send a bunch of burst of po’ed bees at multiple foes, causing lots of extra damage. Controlling each character feels similar, but they all have unique special moves that are generally executed by pressing L2 and one of the face buttons. Each character can also pick up objects — depending on their strength — as well as get enemies in headlocks and stomp on them while they’re on the ground.
At the root of all of this violence is the kidnapping of several ladies who were attending a beauty pageant being held at your master’s dojo. The Milkman, the crime lord of the city, is behind it, and he dares Dr. Karate and the others to stage a rescue. And so, over the course of fifty or so levels, many of which I have not yet played, it’s up to you and your friends to beat the crap out of hundreds of foes all across town. Locations and enemy appearance vary wildly, from the classic street environments to subways to beaches, a graveyard, hell there’s even an ostrich farm. Cultists, biker dudes, undead, and general street-toughs intend to put the hurt on you under the orders of Milkman. Each stage features a few dozen of these enemies, often with eight to ten foes on screen at once, and then a boss character who has a large head and a goofy name.
Indeed, within a couple of hours of playing Fist Puncher, there was a lot to smirk at, as the game is constantly offering both tributes to previous brawlers and plenty of humor, too. Some things will leave you grimacing, too, especially if you play the game by yourself — it gets pretty tough, and the balance of fun vs frustration get tipped in the wrong direction quickly. Fortunately, there are checkpoints, so if you’re constantly getting beat by a boss, the good news is an insta-load checkpoint puts you right back, at full health, to where you encounter the boss. Obviously, the sense of frustration dissipates considerably if playing with a friend or two. Also of note, you can revive a fallen comrade by pressing a button next to them.
Fist Puncher’s level progression gives the player some choice; after a few initial levels, a city map opens up and you can take the fight in a few different directions, including replaying previously beaten levels, which is nice. Even cooler is the leveling system that each character has. The profiles of each character are saved on a per character basis, too, which encourages you try them all and use them enough to earn their own XP and Perks. At most level-up junctures, the player also gets a Perk point to spend. Each character has a list of perks, more of which unlock as you level them up, to enhance their abilities, either with offense or with defensive abilities, like healing. Some Perks are common amongst the characters. Being able to transfer your Special Meter energy to your HP Meter just by holding the triggers down in the middle of a fight saved me on plenty of occasions. Alternatively, I could have chosen to unlock a new special attack move. Perks are unlocked just once, but leveling up character stats, like Strength and Defense (reduces damage sustained), can be leveled up multiple times. Given the number of unique characters and the variety of Perks, there is a very nice amount of depth available here for creating a hell of a team.
In terms of the brawling action, well, I wouldn’t put Fist Puncher up there with the best of the genre, but it is fun in spurts. The amount of attacks for each character, and the clear differences between them, do a lot in the way of repealing some of the inherent repetition in a game like this. Still, no matter which character I used, there were a handful of times where the collision detection seemed a bit off. For example in fighting one of the bosses, they would sometimes hit me on a diagonally oriented jump kick that I didn’t think they had any business connecting. However, just like in Final Fight, sometimes you can use this sort of vertical staggering of character alignment to your advantage; you won’t automatically get them in a headlock like Final Fight, but you can mash the punch button and things will regularly go in your favor. I also thought double-tapping for sprint and consistently controlling a jump kick wasn’t always smooth, but, certainly for the most part the collision detection, control response, and general feel of the game was familiar and pleasing for this brawler fan.
So Team2Bit decided to go pretty extremely retro with their presentation, and while I always value fun factor over anything else when I judge a game, I’ll admit the graphics of Fist Puncher took some getting used to. On the technical side of things, I liked that the framerate was smooth, the animations were fast, and I didn’t experience any tech issues, always a plus. But from the art direction standpoint, the overly pixelated look didn’t strike a chord with me; the retro gameplay did, but not the presentation.
And with that, let’s get to the summary…
