Game #1092: Wade Hixton's Counter Punch

  Now this is a proper counter punch to Punch-Out

 Well, my time with Punch King was miserable, so my expectations were quite low before I played Wade Hixton's Counter Punch. Heck, screenshots make it look ugly, with those vectorized sprites you'd find in a PC game from the 90s. But color me surprised, this is probably one of the best games on the system, and that's coming from someone who doesn't like boxing games or Punch-Out

 The presentation, man, the presentation. Even if you're not a fan of the art-direction, the moment you see the game in motion... the animation is great, the characters are very well animated, considering their short frame-count, and the sprites are huge. It feels as if you are playing a cartoon, and it's probably one of the best looking Gameboy Advance games. The game has a single mode: Story Mode, which has Wade's car breaking down and him boxing people just because. There's a brief intro before each fight to add flavor to each character, as well as a briefer scene after you win or lose the fight. The first opponent is always the same, but after you beat him the town opens up, and you can select various locales and take on the rest of the boxers in a more open-ended order. Some, like Min Mel, only opens up after you defeat the first three, and the next bosses unlock in order, but still, you can tackle the first three in any order. You can also accept side missions, such as 'don't get hit' to get extra money, money which you can use to unlock new super moves. That said, the game is rather brief, there are 7-8 total bosses, and maybe to add some filler, super moves can be expensive, so you are encouraged to fight your enemies again to amass money. There's no difficulty option, which means if you are awful, like me, you'll have to get good if you want to proceed. But the game is so much fun that learning the enemies was fun.

 Just like Punch King, this is a Punch-Out clone. You play as a transparent Wade Hixton, with the camera locked behind him, and you have to sway left or right to avoid incoming attacks. The rule of thumb is that right punches are dodged to the left, and left punches are dodged to the right, but enemies have all sorts of special moves that require specific ways to dodge them. A and B are your punches, which can be low punches if coupled with down on the D-Pad. There's a stamina gauge, but it will ONLY go down if your attacks are blocked or dodged, so there's no penalty for attacking the enemy, unlike the much inferior Punch King. Landing hits without getting hit raises your super meter, which allows you to use super moves. Quite clearly, this is not your average boxing game, it's about learning an enemy's tells in order to properly avoid damage and counter-attack.

 Brilliant presentation, responsive and smooth controls as well as a whole lot of soul makes this game quite a treat. You can tell that the people that worked in this game cared about it, and it shows. There's not much content in the game, and I'm guessing that the game's budget was a bit on the lower end, but the game is a top-notch Punch-out clone, and, if you ask me, it might even be better.

 8.0