Victorious Boxers was a relatively quiet release back in the ghastly first 9 months of the PlayStation 2's existence, and while it was released to critical acclaim, nobody really played it. As it turns out, Victorious Boxers was a localisation of the first Hajime no Ippo game, which carried the subtitle of the subsequent localisation. Now, courtesy of Xplosiv, PAL gamers have been treated to Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit, which follows Ippo's exploits over a number of years of the manga, as well as serving up a reasonably good boxing game.
Funnily enough, this is actually the third Ippo game, which was known as Hajime no Ippo All Stars. Press releases for Victorious Boxers 2 advertised the game as being the second Ippo game; Hajime no Ippo: Victorious Road, which featured a rather awesome looking boxer management and training system (and was better received by the Japanese gaming mags), which we'll never experience unless this writer gets back to learning Japanese.
Ippo takes on long-time rival Takeshi Sendo
The unfortunate thing about Victorious Boxers 2 is that it arrived just a little bit too late. After the rather amazing Fight Night: Round 2, Victorious Boxers 2 seems a little anemic in what it has to offer, but does offer up some cool little touches that EA's Chicago studio should take note of. You see, Victorious Boxers 2 features absolutely no on screen display whatsoever – players must gauge the health of their fighter from the number of blows they've taken and the speed at which they're punching. It's a pretty good idea, but falls a little short of what a player might want due to the lack of any sort of damage recognition system – well, that we noticed - the pace of the fights is very fast, as the game mostly deals with featherweights, lightweights and middleweights. Players will find that the game's AI is only going to fight out about three rounds at maximum unless they go for the hardest difficulty, which can be quite soul crushing in its brutality.
The flow of the fights is quite good. Controlling your boxer is done via the analogue stick, though we recommend switching the movement method to expert immediately, as it is much more cohesive than the default setting. Punch selection is done via the face buttons, with the top two controlling straights and the bottom two controlling hooks. More complex moves such as the uppercuts and specials require the trigger buttons to be held in. Blocking is done via the L1 button, though it seems a little odd as the fighter rarely moves his hands into a blocking position – the impact sound seems to be the only thing that changes. Ducking and weaving has no default button assignment, which is absolutely ludicrous, but once rectified, the movement becomes a major weapon in one's arsenal – the player just needs to hold in the button and most the stick in their desired direction. The movement of your fighter has a lot to do with the punch used – if you hit a straight while dashing in towards your opponent, your fighter will execute a rather severe body blow. The ropes play a much larger part in Victorious Boxers 2 than in any other boxing game, with fighters being able to lean back on the ropes to propel blows or absorb their opponents punches. When a fighter takes a knockdown and falls back near the ropes, they will actually be affected, sliding down the ropes or being propelled to another part of the ring.
No on screen meters means you'll have to pay closer attention to your boxer's performance
Boxers have a lot of differentiating features, from the types of punches used normally, to the types of special punches they have. For example, Ippo uses a peak-a-boo style and has a wide variety of special punches, including the game breaking Dempsey Roll which is just a bit too agile and powerful for its own good, while Mashiba uses his Hitman style with flicker jabs, Aoki uses his completely ridiculous unorthodox style of fighting with silly moves, and the more competent technical boxers like Miyata and Takamura have moves which let them slow things down to bullet time speed for delivering that all important counter blow.
The big downfall of Victorious Boxers 2 is the lack of modes, with only Exhibition, Tournament and Story modes selectable. Story Mode takes place over 6 acts which are carefully chosen from the manga over its 15 year run, starting from Ippo's recruitment, running all the way up to his fight with Miyata for the Pacific Rim championship, as well as fights involving Ippo's friends Kimura, Aoki, Takamura, and Itagaki, as well as his rivals Sendo, Volg and Miyata. A lot of the story from the manga is eliminated from the manga to keep the focus on boxing – so important parts of the story such as the relationship between Kumi (Ippo's love interest), Mashiba and Ippo is not present, yet earlier on, parts of the story that aren't really relevant have been kept in the game, namely the story surrounding Ippo's opponent in his pro debut. The Story Mode scenes are actually really quite annoying – while they tell a good story, they're painfully slow, and the fast forward function actually speeds up the music and any voices, which is quite stupid. There are a few spelling mistakes and jokes lost in translation (Keromichi was subtly nicknamed Geromichi because he pukes a lot, yet was named Barfbag, which is…less than subtle). There are about 50 fights all up, unevenly distributed across the acts. As you progress through certain chapters and change the events of the story, you'll get certain passwords which can unlock more fights in the career mode, as well 70 different fighters. Don't expect the six acts to last you more than about 10 hours, though.
Takamura's brutish, perverted personality doesn't come through as much in this game as we'd have liked
Visual presentation isn't the strongest point of Victorious Boxers 2. While the player models do a good job of representing their manga and anime equivalents, they look a little cheap on detail, with no recognisable damage system, and some pixelisation on the trunks and in the mouth region. It would have been nicer to see cel-shaded character models, but that's asking a little much. The arenas are really disappointing, especially Koraken Hall, which looks dilapidated, lacking the bright lights and capacity seen in the anime. The game features a pretty catchy soundtrack, and some limited voice work, which is limited to the two announcers, one of which frequently makes pronunciation errors (“Ippo MakinoOOchi”). Victorious Boxers 2 features a 60Hz mode.
Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit is a reasonably good boxing package, let down by a few silly gameplay errors and poor presentation. Had the game arrived before Fight Night: Round 2 it might have gained a little more respect, as it offers some features that we'd love to see in EA's games. However, if you've got $29.95 burning a hole in your pocket and need a quick boxing fix, or just like Fighting Spirit in its anime or manga form, then it's worth a look.
its anime or manga form, then it's worth a look.
Loading...
