Punch-Out!! review: two screens, one boxer, and a tell in every eye

You see your boxer from behind, drawn as a see-through wireframe so the other fighter is never hidden. Across the ring stands Glass Joe, or Bald Bull, or Mr. Sandman, and above the ring a second screen shows the fighters' faces and stats. Put in your three initials, raise your guard, and watch his eyes.

The fight is in his eyes

Punch-Out!! could have been a button masher. Instead, every opponent gives a small warning before he attacks: the whites of his eyes flash yellow for an instant. Catch that flash and you can dodge, block, and counter. Miss it and you are on the mat.

That one idea changes the game completely. The fight is less about hitting and more about watching. Each boxer has his own rhythm and his own tricks, and beating one means learning him, then trusting what you learned when the pace goes up.

A simple panel with a big finish

The controls are a joystick and three buttons. The joystick raises and lowers your guard and dodges left or right. Two buttons throw left and right punches. The third, bigger button is saved for a knockout blow, and it only works when your KO meter is full. Land punches and it fills; take hits and it drains. So the big punch is a reward for patient, clean boxing, not something you can spam.

Your corner man narrates in a crackly digitized voice. When the meter is ready he shouts "Put him away!" When you lose, he pleads "Come on, Get up and fight!" and plenty of arcade kids heard that line in their sleep.

Punch-Out!! taught you that the best punch is the one you waited for.

What it meant back then

Punch-Out!! was the top-performing arcade game of 1984 in the United States, and the cabinet stood out from across the room. It had two monitors stacked one atop the other, which looked like nothing else in the mall arcade. The story behind that is wonderfully practical: Nintendo had too many video monitors on hand after its earlier hits and went looking for a game that could use two of them.

The characters became part of American childhood. Glass Joe was the punching bag everybody beat, Bald Bull was the wall everybody hit, and a small crowd always gathered to see how far the kid at the controls could get. It was also the first Nintendo project for composer Koji Kondo, which gives the music a certain retroactive glow.

Playing it now

Punch-Out!! is still a sharp, satisfying game once you stop swinging wildly. Watch for the flash in the eyes, dodge first, and count your counters. Save the big punch for when the meter is full and the opening is real. Every opponent is a puzzle, and solving one feels as good now as it did with a crowd at your back.