Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 75: Punch-Out!!

Episode Date: September 26, 2016

While the majority of us nostalgia-heads remember Punch-Out!! most from its brief association with Mike Tyson, this humble little series has an interesting history outside of its noteworthiness as an all-time NES classic. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Chris Antista, and Dave Rudden as the crew explores the entire Punch-Out!! series, from its roots as a wannabe Laserdisc game to its current status as a means of beating up whimsical ethnic stereotypes. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

Attention, Retronauts listeners. If you'd like to meet us in person, and of course you would, we'll be doing a panel at this year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo in beautiful Portland, Oregon. On Sunday, October 23rd, we'll be holding the Retronaut's 10th anniversary panel at 3 o'clock p.m. and, of course, you will need to be an attendee of the Portland Retro Gaming Expo to attend. But it doesn't stop there. Later that night, from 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock p.m. will be holding a private Retronauts event at Quarterworld,

located at 4811 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland. Attendance will be free, not counting Quarterworld's cover charge, but to get in, you must print out a ticket from the event's Eventbrite page and bring it along with you. To find the Eventbrite page, head on over to Retronauts.com or a Facebook page at Facebook.com slash Retronauts. It will be pinned to the top until the day of the event. We hope to see you there, and remember,

you must ask before touching us because we are very sensitive. Boys. Remember that Sunday, October 23rd in Portland, be there or not be there. Hello, everybody. Those were the immortal words uttered from Mike Tyson towards Lennox Lewis about his children. They were never eaten, thank God. But Mike Tyson is the subject in a sort of way because today's episode is about punchout. This is Retronauts, of course. I'm your host, Bob Mackie for this one.

Please, person across the table, tell me who you are. I'm Jeremy Parrish, and I personally have no desire to eat children. children at all. Well, Jeremy, I have some surprising news for you, actually. Today, your name is something different. Today, you are... Mr. Sandman! Because you told me you were sleepy. That's why I chose that. I'm just on East Coast time, okay? Yes, I know. I'm not picking on you. Who is next to Jeremy? Chris Antista. Chris, I hate to be somewhat racist, but unfortunately, this is your name for the podcast. Pizza pasta! Pizza pasta! Yes, you are pizza pasta. Wonderful. And who else is

here today. I have another racial slur to throw out. Minor circuit champion, Dave Rudden. And Dave Rudden. Aaron Ryan! Yeah, let's hear that again. Aaron Ryan! Yes. Perhaps the most grotesque fighter in Super Punchout. I don't know...

I hit you with my boxing glove loaded with a horseshoe, man. They really hated the Irish in Super Punchout. I don't know why. They're equal opportunity offenders. That's true. I can only speculate that I think they said that they had some old perception of how Americans regarded the Irish. Yes.

They're probably like looking into like 1920s comics or something. But as for me, this is me. Because I say legalize it, don't criminalize it. Or criticize it, rather. Yes, so today's episode is all about punch out. It's going to be pretty silly because this is our 9 millionth podcast we're recording this weekend. There's no oxygen left in the studio. Did you guys say you're punched drunk?

A little bit, yes. In fact, I think that was my theme to be punched drunk for this episode. Did you know the following line that he said after the threat to eat Lennox's children? No. Praise B to Allah. Oh, what? Yes, that was the next line, and then he stopped off. I really think he's going to like that.

Are you being a joking jokester, Chris? I swear to God, I'm not. It's one of my favorite sports quotes. Okay, I didn't know he converted. Did he convert to Islam in prison? Okay, I thought so, yeah. Okay, so I'm learning a lot about Mike Tyson right now. Just right off the bat, I hate sports, but one of the best things I watched last year was a documentary

Chasing Tyson. If you want to see how huge he was, it does include a tiny bit of conversation about this game. Okay. And to show how big he is, the documentary is called Chasing Tyson, and it's about a Vanderfellie. Jesus. Who isn't even worthy of his own name in his own documentary. The funny thing is, we're going to talk a lot about Mike Tyson's Punchout, but Mike Tyson was existed in the Punch Out universe for three of its 33 years, I think, 32 years, but he's

still synonymous. The thing about Punch Out is I did a ton of research about it, and this series is strangely important, and it goes far beyond the NES version we're very knowledgeable about, and of course it's probably one of the more iconic games on the NES, but I did want to explore the roots of Punch Out that people are. behind Punchout, and I did a ton of research, and the key figure behind this is a man named Genio Takeda, who is a true Nintendo lifer. He joined the company in 1972.

He's still there, which means he's celebrating his 45th year of employment in 2016. He is sort of like the poster boy for Japanese, like, corporate employment. Like, you were literally a family member in Nintendo now, like, yes. So he was Nintendo's first video game designer, even before Gumpai Yoko. That's crazy, though. He created the Game Boy. I think he predated him by just a few years, actually. He was, he was, uh, Gumpet-Yokoi was at Nintendo before, before Takeda.

First video game, right. He didn't, he didn't create video games until I was. Exactly, yes. He was creating toys, but, um, he was on the video game train far before, uh, Yokoa was, in terms of design. 75? Well, Yokoa was making electromechanical toys. Yes.

Like the, um, the, um, Co-Sinju light gun toys and things like that. Right, right. This dips back into early Nintendo history in which I think Nintendo wants us to believe that they began making arcade games with Donkey Kong, but Nintendo has a long history of maybe some not-so-good arcade games, and their first one was called E-V-R Race, which is something that Takeda worked on in 1975. This is directly related to punch out

in case you're wondering why I'm bringing this out. I want to hope it's pronounced Ever Race, because it's such a cool name. Actually, E-V-R, Chris, stands for... It's an acronym. Electronic video recording, because this was a gambling game in which you placed the bet on whether your horse or car, depending on what, you know, video track was playing.

Which one would win? I'm not sure what you win, you would win if you, you know, placed a bet on the right horse or car. But it essentially worked by switching to a different randomized video track in which a different car or horse would never every time. And Nintendo did a lot of these games that involved live action footage. The first Wild Gunman, of course, was a light gun game in which you were shooting at live action footage of real, like, Western villains or whatever. I just never heard of EVR before. And I think you said your favorite episode of Laser Time this year was the one about dead media formats. Yeah, EVR was a slightly viable format.

at some point in time. How did this even happen? I wrapped my headphones around the headphones. Hold on, we can solve this. Yeah, the EVR was a thing. It was like, I forget how, we did that dead media formats thing. Did you mention EVR? No, I totally missed it.

It was like, it was like just extremely short-lived, and it was just this thing that was mainly used in these sorts of games, I think. Yeah, I think it was, it was somebody trying to make a home video format, and it was like a 10-year race to get to that. And this is one of those things. Japan, I mean, obviously leading the charge in terms of proprietary home media formats. Oh, yeah. And this was one of them.

And I just, yeah, I'd never heard. I'd never heard of it before. And not only I'd never heard of it, I didn't think Nintendo was banking on it so hard that it would create a video game around. EVR race was their first video game period, like their first electronic arcade unit period. Yeah, what you need to know about Nintendo in the 1970s is that they were a company defined by sheer reeking desperation. Yeah. They took a lot of gambols with their business and things that seemed like surefire bets did not pan out.

Before EVR racing in like 1972, there was this bowling fad in Japan. And then because it was a fad in Japan, it eventually went away and it went away hard. So there were all these empty bowling alleys. So Nintendo was like, what if we turned these into light gun shooting ranges? And they invented like the precursor of duck hunt.

And it was brilliant. it was amazing. It was really cool. There were lots of orders for them. And right as they were about to pull the trigger to start distributing these things that they had manufactured at great cost, the oil embargo happened, the OPEC oil embargo. And all of a sudden, these things became extremely expensive. The Japanese economy cratered because Japan gets 98% of its fuel from outside of Japan because there's just no gasoline, no fuel there. I never thought of that affecting Japan. So, yeah, it had a huge impact. And all of a sudden, Nintendo, like, they hadn't actually collected the money on these orders for the things that they had manufactured, and they were left holding the bag. And so for the next five or six years, they just scrambled desperately. And this is one of the things that came up. You know, they're moving to video games was... We've got to try everything. Yeah, they were just like, we've got to do something that we can, you know, repurpose some of our technology and, you know, find something that's going to be more profitable and more sustainable and get us out of this

because they just about went out of business because of OPEC. In terms of their history, like, video games are a fairly recent thing. Of course, video games were only fairly recently invented, but still, like, they were doing so much stuff. And I love this game because did you see the pictures of it? Which game, EBR race? EBR racing. It's so clumsy. It's huge.

It's the size of a craps table. It's gigantic, and I couldn't find any footage, but there's footage of wild gunmen and stuff like that. There's no footage of it online because it was so poorly made and hard to maintain. It went almost nowhere. Exactly, and that is what will lead to Punch Out. We'll get to that in a second. So I'll talk about Kitakeda. He directed Punchout, Super Punch Out for the Arcade, and Mike Tyson's Punch Out for the NES, and Star Tropic.

So basically, he was responsible for four games. Where's the overlap in the expertise? It's weird. I don't like Star Tropic. I want to like it, but you can hear that on another episode. The music is great. I love the theme and everything, but it's just so hard. So he worked alongside Masayuki Urimura in Nintendo's R&D2 division.

After a year, he moved on to the R&D3 division, now known as IRD. and at this point in time he was responsible for creating new chips for the NES and one of course I went into Mike Tyson's Punchout and other notable creations from Takeda are the backup battery the analog controller on the N64 and he was one of the key developers of the Wii and a lot of these things are reflected in what he wanted to do with Punch Out and we'll see that soon and I think this guy is extremely important

he's worked in Nintendo for so long the first game designer responsible for all these things that were vital to Nintendo's success and Punchout was one of those for sure. Any input on this Takeda guy? I really only knew him from like, oh, yeah, Punch Out and Star Tropic, that's it. But I had no idea. That he was like the Ubb Iworks, too. Exactly.

He was behind the scenes. I was going to say that, Chris, like, Miyamoto's Disney and this guy is like eyeworks or whatever. He was still there, helping him out technologically along the way. Without the enmity between them, I think, yeah. Takeda is very, his work strikes me as having been very focused on the Western market. I mean, Punchout was huge here. Star Tropic was made exclusively for the U.S. and all the, like, the memory mappers and the backup batteries,

those were created because we didn't get the Famicom disk system, which enabled all these extra things that, you know, the Famicom could do in Japan. We didn't get that system. So we had to have things like save batteries for Zelda because can you imagine a password for Zelda that would have been horrible? It would have destroyed the game. So, yeah, like I feel like he really was instrumental

in helping the NES. to be kind of like technically capable of surviving in the West. And is that a good segue into Punchout Arcade that it seems the sole reason it exists? We have one more guy to talk about Chris. We have Makota Wada, not as much about him, but he was the director of Super Punch Out, which a game I really like. Which is the high point of the entire series. I believe, I agree with you, Chris.

This is a very controversial episode. But he joined Nintendo in 1996, and he first worked on Mike Tyson's Punchout as a character designer. And he is kind of a jack-of-all-trades, who does a little of everything. He reminds me of Yoshiyaki Koizumi from Nintendo, if you know who that is. This guy directed Star Tropic 2. He directed Pilot Wing 64. He directed Mario Kart DS, all very, very different games. And now he mainly does script writing on things like Animal Crossing.

Like he was a dude in charge of Animal Crossing's dialogue, you know, from the very beginning. He also did the story for Super Mario Sunshine. All right, that's fine. And Pikmin 3. So he mainly does, like, stories now for Nintendo, which is a pretty, seems like a pretty awesome job to me. But as long as he didn't write the cut scenes in Super Mario Sunshine. I think he was the guy, yeah, like, I'm in a prison now.

Oh, no. Yes. So. Atta cut. So we'll move on to punch out, this arcade version. So I'm going to be talking a lot about this game, if only because there is a fantastic Gawad asks about this. Yes.

In which, it's like an eight-page interview. They talk about this game for six pages, and like the other games get like two questions each. That's fun. That's fun. Whatever, who cares? I feel like... Somehow, after like half an hour of reading it, like,

oh, yeah, we're here to promote something. I love it when this happened. I just didn't know what happens. It was just like a bunch of dudes reminiscing and they're like, all right, we got to get to the target. Yeah. So, okay, so yes, please read that I Wada Ask. You might not need to read it after I talk about this

because I'm taking all that information from, all this information from I Wada Asked. I want some clarification on it, so I'm glad you guys are here. Oh, sure, sure. So, of course, Punch Out the arcade version. You should really look it up if you've never seen it. It was an amazing, impressive showcase of graphics, music, and design.

Look at any other video game in the arcade in 1984 and then look at Punch Out. And there is absolutely no computer. between Punch Out and anything else. It simply was gorgeous. And there's a reason for that. Basically, laser disks were thought to be the next big thing. Like, Dragonslayer games like that. Yes.

I mean, by 1983, it was like, this is the future of video games, of course. I mean, it was an evolutionary dead end, but people thought it was the next big thing. And what you said before, Chris, those EVR machines being hard to maintain, that is why Nintendo did not want to make a Laserdisc game. Because they're like, we don't want to maintain these things. We want to make them cheap. But we still want to have people be impressed by graphics and this visual showcase. So we're going to fake it.

That's what I couldn't believe. Because I thought the original punchout machine is two screens. Yes. And I thought like, this whole time, this is all Nintendo ever wanted was to be two screens. They've always loved this idea. Their rationale behind it was, it blew my mind. I'm sorry, you're about to get into it. But just like, you know, like a lot of DS games, it's really just superfluous information on the top screen.

Yes, exactly. Yes, it is. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Just put stuff in the corners. Yes. But that's why they didn't.

So their plan was, like, we're going to fake making a Laserdisc game by making these giant characters, these very, like, anime-looking figures, move around using just sheer gaming hardware, not pre-recorded video. And it's very similar to Donkey Kong country. Like, instead of using a CD-ROM format, we're going to take the graphics from what could conceivably be in a 3D game and shrink them down onto an S&ES card. Again, Nintendo always likes to do more with less. They want to find the cheapest solution that can still be fun. And the two monitors thing came from the fact that they had over-ordered monitors for Donkey Kong.

They're like, we've got all these monitors sitting around. And the demand was, please make an arcade game that we'll use two monitors because we want to get rid of some of these monitors. So it was a very, very practical decision in terms of why this game came into being. It's also like a very visually striking thing to be to go to an arcade and see a game with two screens up to each other. I walked up to it in a skating rink for that very reason. Like, what is this? Yeah. And the rationale for why it was there is just,

Because, like, we had to make so many visual sacrifices with the bottom gameplay screen. Exactly, yes. We thought we could confuse the player by showing them a high-res, non-moving picture on the top. And their brains would trick them into thinking they were seeing that character below. It's funny they had so much insecurity about that because the bottom screen still looks good. I just played Punch Out a year ago, the arcade version. I'm like, this looks good. Like, these graphics look good.

I can still play this. Yeah, like, I don't know what they were worried about, but it is a little rough from that top screen. So what happened was a primitive kind of scaling technology was invented that allowed Nintendo to basically like manipulate one sprite. They couldn't rotate the sprite, but they could make it move in and out of the screens conceivably, like in a way that was not quite 3D, but faked it. Instead of going for the more obvious idea, like a shooting game or a racing game, they made a boxing game out of this. And Miyamoto in that interview was complaining how he had to draw like every sprite of the barrel rolling. They couldn't just rotate the sprite. And they were like looking for a way to rotate sprites.

That was my takeaway from the interview that I never heard before, that I think Miyamoto said this is the first game they ever hired professional artists to design the characters. And then he would lay out on graph paper, like, because he was the guy who was designing the games, not necessarily the characters, and all characters had been designed by game designers, not necessarily artists.

Yeah, I mean, everything went through Miyamoto in terms of art at that point. Yeah, who was a good artist. We need things for flyers, we need things for marketing, we need things for instruction books, things like that. But it seems like there's a bunch of unnamed freelance manga people who ended up designing punch-out characters. They're actually named one of them. Are they? Yeah.

So, Miyamoto was the art guy, as he was at the time. And thinking about it, he was not up to the challenge. He's like, I believe in my skills, but I don't think I'm good enough to draw these giant sprites. So he brought the graphics he created, or the character designs he created, to someone who ran an anime studio. Let me find his name one second. Yes. He brought his designs to Takao Kozai, who essentially took Miyamoto's designs and created animation cells for every boxer. So this is really interesting.

Instead of creating animation, like pre-recorded animation, they got an anime artist to basically create animation cells to fake an anime boxing anime in front of you. So Nintendo then took those cells, broke them down into parts. Yes, exactly. Yes, and Nintendo essentially took those cells, broke them down into parts, and created the boxers. So that's how this came into being,

which is why I always associate punch out with, like, fighting anime because they have those big, super anime-looking characters. They are distinctly Japanese anime. And that's why I'm not as a fan of the Wii one. I'm sorry. It has to be anime, Chris. Anime or nothing. But it's still the same wonderful parade of stereotypes.

Yes, I agree. So if I can knock one thing about the character design in the Punch Out arcade game, Little Mac, or whoever, he's not even Little Mac in this game. No, he's just like, he's you. Yeah, he's put in your initials. Ugly. Yes. He's got this big, goofy, like, I'll save you, grin on his face. Yeah.

And he has a really dorky haircut. But Miyamoto in the interview was like, I feel bad because I drew the, I drew the, the hero boxers from the Sprite, and I don't like how it looks in comparison to the professional anime designs, which they didn't change at all for the S&S game. When he turns around holding the title, it's like, that's what it was?

Turn back around, sir. What a shocking ending. I'm playing this mutants. It's kind of a shades of Princess Peach at the end of Super Mario Brothers. I did not want to rescue this person. No, this was not a reward. I don't want to see something this ugly.

So it's important to remember that Ganyo Takeda, the director of this game, the driving force behind this game, he also was a main influence on the Wii and he wanted this game to have a boxing glove input device I'm not sure how that would play out but Miyamoto was like I do not want an ambiguous input device for this game which is funny because they eventually

had to embrace the Wii but let's try it once on every system we make but not right now the Wii wasn't ambiguous remote control was extremely intuitive I don't think so but you're free to think that way it was a glorified D-pad that you waved in the air yeah like it made total sense like people used it and grocked Wii sports right away I think he met like not on and off, you know, like it was, there, there could be some range of motion where the computer, the CPU could not conceivably read what you wanted to do. So, yes.

I'm blanking on the name, but there wasn't, there was a boxing arcade game. There's probably multiples, but like, where you would literally put your hands in like these two analog. Sonic Blast Man? No. No. It was a boxing game where you would like swing your, these analog games. That was a much later arcade game, but that eventually came to pass. This is like 84? This is 83 in Japan and early 84 in the United States. So really early arcade game, and it looks amazing. Yeah, I mean, keep in mind that the game that came out at the same time as Punch Out from Nintendo was Mario Brothers. Like, this was up against that. That's a huge difference. And we'll stand the test of time of being better. The original Mario Brothers, not a lot of love for that.

No, it's okay. Punch Out has held up very well. I don't know why Punch Out, if it was any other company who made it, it'd be a billion version on iOS. That's all those Infinity Blade games are. Yeah, essentially, it's an update of Punch Out. Yeah. So what's important to think about this, and we talked about Takeda making games for the West, Nintendo was heavily relying on Nintendo of America to get input on the game, which I'm going to go on a limb here and say that for as much as they stereotype many different cultures,

they were very safe around black boxers. They were not stereotyping the way that Japan sometimes stereotypes black people, and I think that was a very, very careful choice they made. Like, looking at the boxers in the game, you do not see the stereotypes, I will not mention them. You do not see the stereotypes you might think you would see from a... Japan in 1983. yes exactly yes so that's all I'll say about that but I feel like that input was important

and I do I just want to be an apologist for Nintendo Orientalism to that degree but that's what's so funny about it that's why the characters are like so memorable because I just chose from like every country and like let's yes a lot of cartoons and games

did that around this period and I there was some minor dust up over the recent punchout but I'm like I wouldn't sacrifice these characters for anything in the world they look great the important thing Chris is that I think the Orientalism and the whimsical, casual racism of the series is really limited to Mike Tyson's

Punchout and the Wii remake. In these games, the characters are from different countries, but it's not as communicated through how they move or talk or anything like that. There's Bear Huggers in there from the beginning, but the Wii one has him chugging maple syrup in his windscreen. The Wii one really plays it up. I mean,

the arcade game does have vodka drunken skis. That's true. That's true, but he's not. Maybe he was drinking a bottle. But we were at war with Russia at that point, so it's okay. They were the enemy at the time. They were just the different kind of white people, so it's fine. So, yes.

It was so long ago. So I do want to mention this. We brought this up on the history of voice acting, I think, episode. So the really impressive thing is that games talking to you was still novel. It just started to happen. This game has not a lot of speech, but enough speech to be very impressed at the people at the time. Essentially, it's narrating a play-by-play of your boxing, and I'll play a little clip of what it sounds like in action. It announces the boxer, and then it announces.

like, and it basically announces every move you make. And you probably have heard these noises before reference somewhere else. So here's what it sounds like. Canadian Bear Huggers. This is Bear Huggers entrance. Wow. Left, left, left, left, kick him. Right, right, knock him out.

Right, hook, right, right, right, and he's down, right now, right. One, two, three, get out, get out. Right. It's almost over. I'll listen to it forever. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So that's basically it.

It's like I'm hearing Howard Cosell. Yes. And in fact, in a very common thing, like, actually all the voices are done by NOA employees. So I'm not sure who did that. It does not sound like... It was Don James. I just found this out in the episode I recorded this morning about game ephemeral. Wait, who's Don James?

He's a, he's a Nintendo executive. He's currently the executive vice president. of operations for Nintendo of America. Oh, he still works there because I was like, I know Howard Phillips was there, but he was like 19. He was one of the early NOA employees. Oh, wow.

Okay. And, I mean, or Aracawa. Apparently, this was, this will be in another episode of Retronauts. Ooh. I don't know if it'll bring this at the table. Yeah, he, uh, apparently he and one other person, yeah, this is my one contribution.

Um, recorded different, you know, voice it takes and they went with the ones that sounded best. But yeah, you should also play some voice clips from like Intel a voice or, Kaliko, not Kaliko, from Ti-99-4A's voice synthesizer, that was what people expected from... Much more robotic, right?

It was like, crap, yeah, you know, you're comedy enemies. God. Get the humanoid. So again, like, encountering this as a child, it was just amazing, like this thing with two screens that talked to you, had these, frankly, terrifying enemies that you would fight.

Like, it was a very intimidating experience, because the enemies you would fight in other games were just literally like two inches tall on the screen, but in this game, they were almost the size of the screen. It was a terrifying experience if you were just a kid approaching this giant machine. And it's pretty astonishing how both like the ones that ended up in the NES punchout, like they look somewhat similar, but especially super punchout on the S&S. Like some of those like Bear Hugger looks almost exactly the same Dragon Chance.

Yes. Hearing him that at Wad-Ass, they talk about it like it's a straight port. And I still, it's, it can't be. It's an enhanced port, but if you look at things like Mr. Sandman and Bear Hugger, The drawings are identical, but they're very touched up. Like, it feels like an HD remake almost of Super Punch Out, yes. So one other important thing about this game, it's Koji Kondo's first role as composer. And maybe he was a little insecure and not trying very hard, but Dave Rudden actually uncovered this fact.

And the punchout theme, which I think is extremely, extremely catchy. I make up lyrics to it all the time. Sometimes they're dirty. But it was actually stolen from Gillette's Cavalcato Sports, which was a radio show from 1940s to the 1960s. You'll never guess who sponsored it. Yes, it's called the Look Sharp B-Sharp March. And I will play Kochi Kondo's theme alongside this, and you can see how it's just like, it's lawsuit time, buddy.

And apparently, maybe this is why this song was not in the Wii version. So here it is. So this is the original version you hear in the arcade. And Mike Tyson's punch up. Yeah. I've got to knock that. And here's Look Sharp B-sharp. That's right.

We return for more from Boxers on the move. If you watch the clip, which is on YouTube, it's exactly what you would think out of a like 1940s, 1950 show called Cadillacative Sport, which is like a pennant with the word sports on it and like football players with the old leather helmets. It's like, wow. So, yeah, I mean, this is...

Everything running at slightly the wrong speed. Yes, Babe Ruth is like super, super fast. So fast. Wow, no wonder it was such a great hitter. This is literally Koji Kondo's first. composition for Nintendo game. The first thing you hear out of it. Can we really call it his first composition? It was his first interpretation of another song. Yes, a legal adaptation. There's still the training theme in there, which is never not be beautiful. Well, that's in the NES game. That is an original track. I want to believe it's original, but that was not Koji

Kondo. There were three composers on that, and I couldn't tell who wrote what, so I didn't include that information. But if you're playing this game in the arcade, you're going to notice it's a lot different from the NES version. Instead of just hitting up to punch towards the face and not hitting anything to punch towards the stomach, you literally ship between two positions. You have to consciously move between positions, and you can throw two different kinds of punches, of course. And the objective is to build up a meter by continually landing hits

in order to launch more powerful attacks. And the uppercut button is this giant protruding thing that's so fun to hit. I love the upper cut button in the punch-out arcade game. And there are only six boxers in this game. These arcade games don't have a lot of boxers because I imagine it takes a lot of memory to just house these huge sprites and all the audio and everything moving. moving around. So there's Glass Show, Piston Hurricane, Bald Bull, Kid Quick is only appearance

in the series, and Pizza Pasta and Mr. Sandman. And the funny thing is, Chris, you'll be heartened to know that pizza pasta doesn't look like in a time. I mean, there's no, he's not like twirling dough in the air or anything. He just looks like a dude. I mean, I've got green hair. I always thought Don Flamenco was my guy until I got Wikipedia. Yeah. Jeez. So, again, the focus on ethnic humor really feels limited to the NES version. Despite the stereotypical names, they don't really send up the characters ethnicities much. I mean, they tell you where they're from, but it doesn't really matter. I mean, maybe it's funny that Glastrow is French and weak or whatever, because that's a joke.

I think that's the only real big sleight. Yeah, yeah. The first bad boxers from France. Yes. And I don't remember where Gabby Jay is from, but I was just thinking of today. I think also France. Yeah. Also France is like, his name is this close to Jabby Gay.

And which makes sense for a boxer you're trying to demean. I think he's Glass Joe's dad or uncle or whatever. He's really great. His little schoolyard thing was like, well, I think Gabby Jay is one victory, and it was always, or no, Splash Joe has one victory, and he always wrote, that it was like, oh, he beat Gabby Jay. That's when he left home to become a boxer. Yeah, I love Gabby Jay, but we have talked about the first Super Punchout first. There's not a lot to talk about. It's more of an expansion pack.

The game plays very similarly, I believe you can duck now, which is something that would be in Super Punch Out. But Takeda thought up the use of illegal moves, such as kicking as the logical progression to a follow-up. He wanted to use weapons, but they rolled it. out. Apparently he's a very whimsical guy and he has a lot of crazy ideas and he has to be like, you know, he has to be scolded. But these weapons would show up and Super Punch Out in the S&S version. There's a lot more cheating in that one. Yes, a lot more cheating. It seems like there was some, somebody at the top, like two people like, guys, this is not a wrestling game. I love wrestling more than boxing just like you. And Super Punch out in the S&S game, you fight a wrestler amazing way enough. It's just great. But it's from Japan and like in as well examine like it seems seemingly is built with America in mind because it always almost always. always came out here first as a series. That's true, yeah.

It's a ticketa game. I kind of wish it was a wrestling game. So the character's involved in this. It starts off much harder than the first game did. Bear Hugger's the first guy you fight. He's much harder. Then we have Dragon Chan, who is a Bruce Lee kind of ripoff. He kicks, he jumps from, like, rope to rope and kicks, you have to duck the kick.

There's vodka Drankinsky. He makes his glamorous appearance here, being a drunk Russian, of course. We also have Great Tiger. The Sikh, I believe, from India. the dude with the turban, and we have super macho man, who is this, like, kind of Rick Flair character, I want to think. Yeah, yes, just barely averting the eyes at WWE. How did that happen?

Yeah. Well, I think they, I think WVU is averting the eyes of village people, so. But I just remember as a kid, like, I watched wrestling a little bit by the time I first played Punch Out. I'm like, wait, there's a super macho man? Exactly. He's like, macho man, but he ate mushroom in is big. Macho Man needs to fight him.

Yeah, that's weird that they just used the name. I think macho man did exist by this point in time. I'm sure Dave would know. Yeah, 87, well, I'm not actually, wait. Yeah, 85, I think he was probably just starting. So, personally, I did see the punch-out arcade game in arcades, in pizza places, stuff like that. I never saw this, and I still haven't seen this. In my theory, is Nintendo was winding down their arcade, you know, manufacturing

because their last game would be arm wrestling, also at Takeda joint. And I feel like they did not want to produce as many because they were just trying to change their business to be a more console-focused thing. So I never saw this game. They shifted over to the versus system and the Play Choice 10. Yeah. So it was basically like souped up NES. Yeah. So like that no development went through for solely arcade games ever again.

Right. After around the punchout time. Arm wrestling is important to note. It is a, it's a game I've never seen in my life. I've seen videos of it. I've never seen the machine. But you do fight a lot of, well, you do fight at least one punchout guy. Is it a bald bull in a mask?

I think so, yeah. I did see that at the, what was it, Pistol Pizza? Oh, really? It was our local rip-off of Chucky Cheese. Was there like a clothed like? mouse instead of a rat? It has been 30 years. Don't ask me anything.

I just remember seeing it and that and punch out and being like, these look so amazing. Yes. Arm wrestling has some amazing, like, again, anime characters that arm wrestle you and bald bulls in it, like hidden, like is Mr. X or whatever. And also, like,

I just watched a day playthru of this today. Like, it's weird that's happening in an arm wrestling game, but like when you're like starting to overpower the other guy, their faces kind of get distorted like when you're punched drunk in, when they're punched drunken, when they're punched drunk in punch out like the whole like, like the whole

again it was trying to be like full I mean I don't know if it could fault anyone but it's sort of like you're watching animation this is not a video game you're actually watching animation and one last thing this game was completely ripped off by a Commodore 64 game called

Frank Bruno's boxing I'm so glad you brought this up they literally like just traced the graphics it was so shameless and they sold this to people I mean it was for Commodore 64 on European microcomputers I don't know if there was ever a lawsuit I don't know if Nintendo cared and you want to talk offensive

stereotypical nicknames Help us out here, Chris. Dragon Chan became Flinglong Chop. Oh, boy. Okay, okay, Jesus. For me, this is, I wanted to come in with this, my nickname, Ravioli Mafioso. Wow. For the Italian guy.

And of course, really? Yeah. You don't say. Well, you'll never guess what culture this person hails from. Frenchy France. Ooh, I want to say he is from Belgium. Belgium. And Arctic, maybe.

Frenchy France. Sounds like names that George W. Bush would have said at a press conference. It sounds like French of French. It's nicknames for his buddy. It sounds like a Brooklyn guy in the 80s would have yelled at someone wearing a beret down the street. Hey, we're going French-Frenching France. What's the raffioli guy's name again?

Mafioso. Mafiosa. The two things they knew about Italian. Jesus. So, yes, that exists. I can say that as an entist, I'm an Italian. As a true... I'm laughing at this.

As a true pizza pasta aficionado. So we're going to move on to So we're going to move on to obviously the highlight because we're all 80s Nintendo Kids or whatever. Only Mike Punching... Sorry, only Mike Tyson kids will get this one. It's Mike Tyson's punch out. It launched on the NES

on October 18th, 1987, a little bit later in Japan, once there was demand for it. So once again, we see a lot of technical mastery at hand here. Obviously, they cannot display the sprites at the same size of the arcade, but they make a concession in that

the hero is now much smaller, which necessitates him being named. He's Little Mac. And the boxers, again, they're still pretty big for an NES game. I don't think I've seen bigger sprites outside of, like, the Dragon and Mega Man. But he was sort of just like a background element.

These guys are moving around. He had eyes that blinked. He didn't move. But these guys are moving around. And playing this recently for the show, like, Bald Bull is still huge and terrifying. Like, this is just a giant, like, expressive sprites. Did the Internet just discover how to beat Ball's Bull Super Move recently? Because my Facebook has been a wash with that.

It's always been, like, you always just, like, generally knew, like, after the second jump, just throw a punch. I didn't know the case. I didn't know. I never knew in my head the camera flash from the audience. Apparently there was a lot of, a lot of secret snuckie. by WADA who worked on this game. Some he still hasn't told us about. So that was one of them

that wasn't covered recently. Yeah, you mentioned the graphics, and it's important to note, I don't see this in your show notes anywhere, that this game runs on a mapper chip that is completely unique to Mike Tyson's punch out. The MMC2? The MMC2?

Yeah, I thought so. The Mickey Mouse Club with Ed Bagley in? Yes. It's the one with Britney Spears. So the thing about this chip, from what I understand, is, you know, the NES divided memory into program memory

and character memory. Character memory was the sprites. And this has, at the time, the unique ability to instantly allow people, programmers, to switch between two sets of sprites. So it could like basically toggle between, you'd have a set of sprites and memory and then instantly switch to a different bank. So that allowed them to have these big characters who had a lot of different animations because it was basically like tricking the NES into looking at for graphics in different places that a chip normally wouldn't be able to access. It was storing like glastio heads in another compartment and glastio legs in another compartment.

Yeah, it's really technical. I'm probably getting details wrong, but basically it allowed like this really quick paging through memory. Yeah, they're like cycling in sprites. Yeah, to enable these big sprites to exist. I mean, essentially just like four different bodies with different heads on them. That's true, yeah.

And they talk about like redrawing them for the NES and what they had to remove and like, maybe this guy doesn't need an entire elbow. It's taking up a lot of room. Yeah, Sue needs elbows. A boxing game. No one can see it. Originally, Mike Tyson was not going to be part of this game,

but the president of Neto of America Minoru Arakawa saw him fighting at the time at about. I don't know which one it was. But he was so impressed he insisted Tyson being this punch-out home port. And Tyson apparently signed this three-year deal before becoming the youngest heavyweight champion of the world at age 20 in November 86. So they really... I cannot believe that. They had great luck with this. But again, that's why I recommended that documentary if you want to see, like,

there hasn't been a boxer that famous before or since. that the guy who was better and held more championship titles isn't remembered as much as Mike Tyson. Because Mike Tyson is a little... Who he beat twice. Yes. So it's important to note, and I think people might have the wrong idea about this. The Tyson arrest for rape didn't happen until 1991. Presumably two years after his contract ended.

Apparently he had a three-year contract that was signed in 86. So even if he wasn't completely stable before then, they did not get rid of him because of the rape. But, I mean, I assume they did not want him back because of that. Yes. So, Nintendo re-released Punchout as Punch Out featuring Mr. Dream in 1990. So a year before Mike Tyson got in trouble, putting it lightly. I mean, like, the arrest and whatever was not the cause of the rebranding. It was Nintendo saying, like, we don't need him anymore.

People like Punch Out, let's just rebrand this as Punch Out and, you know, get on with our lives. And apparently, Mike Tyson played it for the first time of his life in 2013, and I'll snip in a bit of that here. Right. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay, get that side, get that side of this cat, y'all. Get that side, get that side. Oh, oh, this Glass Joe, right? Oh, come on, oh, come on.

Come on, come. Oh, whoa, whoa. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh, I was getting tired. Oh, I was going to get rid of mic. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, oh, boom, boom, boom. Come on, come on, glass, Joe. And I guess he was not very good at the game. Even though there's like a pole publicity photo of him as a young man holding a controller smiling at like playing

he was actually playing Mario. Yes, exactly. And he wanted to eat Mario's children. Yes. So, I mean, we've all played this game. It's a bit more complicated than the arcade version. Though it streamlines a lot of stuff, you're no longer having to move between up and down positions again. You just hit up when you want to punch, you know, towards their face and hit a button alongside that.

I didn't know. I hadn't played much of the arcade one. So I didn't know I didn't like this as much because I just loved it at the time and hadn't played the arcade one to compare it to. is you're kind of judged by how many hits you take rather than how well you hit because that meter comes back and super punch you out that you build up the better you do the more the close you get to a super punch

getting a super punch the NES one depended on luck and like trial and error to unlock that star yeah like I've played so much of this game like as a kid and as an adult and I still don't know exactly what constitutes earning a star it seems like like destabiling guys destabilizing guy right before a punch

Exactly, yeah. There are certain prescribed windows of time. They're usually before attacks or right after super attacks in which you will earn a star. And I can think of like a few instances where like this will always get you a star and I can get like a ton of stars. And you need stars to throw uppercuts, by the way. One of the few games I remember like the start button is a play button. It select does the uppercut, I believe. No, I think it's just, I thought it was start for me.

It's started. Is it select that you get the extra massage? Yeah, select is the, select as the, you hold down select and you, to, in between rounds you get help. Yeah, you'll like give you a harder massage. Yeah, select us the dedicated massage button in punchout. Yeah, happy or ending. Yeah. So, yes.

So this game. This game complicates things a little. Jeez. This game complicates things a little because there is a stamina system now. You are now penalized for blocking punches. Yeah. Where in the arcade version, you were not. You were expected to dodge punches.

I mean, sorry, block punches. So when you block punches and when you take punches, you lose stamina. When you lose all your stamina, you can no longer throw a punch. Like a baby in the cold. You turn purple. You turn purple and blue. I mean, it makes sense. Like, you shouldn't be able to just block willy-nilly.

It is true, because I think it might be better at teaching you the boxers tells because your goal is to be more defensive. But, like, I don't know, I enjoy the more offensive play. But it's also unrealistic in that a 110-pound man, no matter how strong, he can't block a Mike Tyson punch. No. Like, he puts his fist up in front of his face. His fists are just going to hit his arms. His arms would explode.

Yeah. We're avoiding a lot of Simpson's references here. Yeah, two broken wrists. Oh, we'll get to that, too. Okay, thank God. So I think this has the most personality of the series, which would be gone a little bit Super Punchout, one of the reasons I think I like Super Punch Out the best, but I wish that sort of light

narrative and the sort of character in this game was also in that game. So we have the edition of Doc, a very charismatic trainer who's always shouting tips at you and encouraging you, and he's helping you train in between the different circuits that you do with that, that great cutscene of you running in New York with all the multiple layers scrolling, it's so beautiful. And you're running in your pink hoodie, and Dave and I both are wearing pink hoodies today, although not in this 90-degree recording studio. A few pieces of game swag I save from my

girlfriend who just moved in the re-release, well, sorry, the 2009, the reboot, what do you call that, Punch Out 2009? It's just a remake reboot, yeah. Pink hoodie swag, I still have it, I can't wear it, it's too hot, but, uh, so let's go over the roster of fighters, including

some of the returning folks, we have Glass Show of course is from France, Don Flamenco's from Spain, Von Kaiser, ooh, he's from Germany, ooh, the Germans, and we also have Piston Honda from Japan, who would eventually be changed to Honda, and I say thumbs down to that buddy. A great Tiger, he is the Sikh guy from India.

Soto Poppensky, I wonder who he used to be. King Hippo from the Pacific Islands and Mr. Sandman, he's just a dude. I think he's like Venice Beach, California. I think so. Bodybuilder types. And super macho man, again, he is like sort of

the Rick Flair person in this game. And this game was originally released in Japan as a gold cartridge prize for the game Family Computer Golf U.S. course without Mike Tyson. Eventually, they released it in a regular form

maybe like a year or so later but there was demand for it but this used to be a prize in Japan this game was

never intended fully for a Japanese release and there is a game shop in Tokyo that has a copy in their

display case not for sale of the cartridge I can't remember if it's Nakano Broadway's Mondrake

Galaxy or if it's super potato but yeah there's somewhere you can see it and it's pretty cool

if you're wondering how you got this cartridge I think this came on a blue Famicom Disc system disc in which

you could actually put that disc in a fax machine of some sort, and it would fax your score to Nintendo. I heard there are a blue disc that you could actually use to fax scores and things on the disc. The blue discs were for the download kiosks. Okay. The yellow discs were prepackaged, like, there was a game on the yellow disc, and it had, like, a manual and a case and everything. The blue discs were rewritable,

and you would take them to kiosks at, like, you know, convenience stores, and you could download a game to them for, like, five bucks. And it could be pretty much any game. Maybe those kiosks could also fax in scores as well, Was that called Nintendo Power? Is that what that was? Later. Power, I think, was for Super NES or Game Boy.

But like a machine in public that would rewrite a drive for it. Right, right. But I don't think those were called Nintendo Power. I think that came along later. So Wada, the guy we talked about earlier who directed Super Punch Out, he snuck Mario in as a referee, and that's why Mario looks weird. And there was no real oversight as to where Mario... No, you're supposed to be fat, but that's way too fat.

He just looks really off model. In proportion, yeah, they're way off. Because he's, like, half the size of Little Mac, who is little, as his name applies. But, like, I don't know if it's just perspective, but when, like, Piston Honda gets knocked out and Mario comes out to count him, he has as big as his foot. Yeah. Like, his foot is the same side. Mario is played by Billy Barty. Mario hasn't had a mushroom yet.

That's true, yeah. It's a small guy. It's the only point where Bob Hoskins' casting makes total sense. See, they even model his back here. But not John Leguizamo ever. So, there's really good music in this game. Unfortunately, there are only three songs, but I feel like I don't know who wrote this music. It sounds like it was the guy who wrote the Zelda II music,

because there are certain kind of sounds or certain kind of vibe to this I get from this song. But, of course, it's pretty timeless, right? Yep. And this is the music you hear throughout the entire game. It has a sort of like, I don't want to say I have the tiger quality, but maybe I'm right. Yeah, it's like, it has that kind of like anime-fighting melodrama. Actually, I'm forgetting the legacy of Rocky at this time. because I didn't discover this movie

so way later but those were popular all over the world at this point and I feel like again the narrative of Punch Out is very rocky like and I believe

Little Mac is 17 for crying out loud like he's 17 I think he's from the Bronx yeah he's a very rocky style character and it's funny like upon knowing his age

when you when you keep winning you get these newspapers that like document your progress and there's like there's like a thing from your child like daddy come home I'm 17 what is this guy's life like is this like he's rising

from the streets after like a... Life is tough in the slums. I guess so. I kind of see what you mean about the Zoldo thing. Yeah, okay, so I could be right. Yeah, there are three composers on this. I'm not sure who did that music, but it does sound sort of like a Zelda II dungeon,

but with a rocky flare. So unlike Super Punch Out and Punch Out for the arcade, which I feel were very much like stamina-based games, like how long can you withstand these attacks and get in your own? This is essentially a puzzle game. The tells are huge.

It's all about responding appropriately to patterns. And the game does a great job of steadily closing windows. of opportunity and allowing less room for error as fights progressed. So when you fight last Joe, you can basically hit them whenever you want. But as you continue progressing, there are more defenses against all of your attacks and you need to figure out the right windows of opportunity to land those attacks. I think unlike the other punchout gives you meet characters again who don't have the same

exploits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there are rematches in this game because obviously they need to reuse some characters. Sorry to take this back a little bit. that Zelda 2, The Adventure of Link, was composed by Akito Nakatska,

who also composed for Mike Tyson's punchout. Oh, so I could be right. I'm going to say I was right, so I'm going to give myself brownie points for that. So this game, I feel, has some very satisfying feedback in terms of the noises it makes, the animation it makes. It makes you feel good for knocking these giant sprites over. Just playing it again, like, nailing ball bowl with just one little hit when he comes running in. I can do it every time and every time.

It's so great. He makes a curly noise from the Three Stooges. Yeah, yeah, there's like, this game is much more cartoony than the sequel would be. It's super silly, it's super fun. They all kind of do like a strut when they're falling down. Yeah, they both, they do like their own little like dizzy dance before they fall down. Like some boxers aren't as exciting. I feel like King Hippo and Don Flamenco are really just kind of gimmicks in terms of like, how long can you withstand these attacks until you can launch your own, things like that.

And this is a pretty, if you, in a world where you didn't know how to beat King Hippo and you figure it out on your own or you hear about how to do it, it is mind blowing. Yes, because he is literally impossible unless you know the trick. Like, you have to punch him in the mouth while he flashes red. And the game tells you. The game tells you to do that. Yeah. It's inside the game itself. And just, I love that about him.

When Captain End, the Game Master came out, I'm sure you've never brought that up on Retronaut. It's never happened. But that's why the person representing the series is King Hippo. It's the most iconic person ever. And I believe one of the few things I am quoted on a, oh, on a wiki for it because I made fun of him for being fadden an article once. And for some reason, that was worth including on King Hippo's Wikipedia page. I have to be cited for something on Punch Out. So this was a huge game at the time, obviously, because the guy showed up in Captain N.

Everyone talked about it, I think. It was a very good playground discussion game because of all the potential secrets, and it was even reference in popular media. The Simpsons episode moaning Lisa, the subplot is Bart and Homer using a boxing game to work out their aggressions against each other. And it is directly Mike Tyson's punch out, not so much the arcade game. We talked about on Talking Simpsons that, like, it is the first mainstream video game reference we ever saw. I think it's, I think so, at least one that was faithful.

And it seemed like sort of like a, there was love behind it. Yeah, or like, or knowledge at least. And it was referencing a direct game that we were all playing. And like for that, it made, it's one of those things within three episodes that made me love the Simpsons even more. And even that episode from, what, like 1990, that looks more fun and two player than the punchout week. Yeah. I never tried that actually. It's not thinking.

So we're almost done. We're almost ready to take our break. There's a few other things I wanted to cover. Input lag is an issue with modern consoles, of course, especially when you're playing a game based around timing. I fortunately had no problems. I was playing the Wii version with a classic controller through a Wii moat. And I hit the wall at the same time I usually do around Poppinski, but I was pulling off all of the things I knew,

even with what I'm guessing, is a very slight delay in terms of input. If you're playing on Wii, you should be okay. I should be okay. The problem with input delay is with upscaling. Like if you're playing on an NES or even on a Wii on an HDTV, then there is upscaling for that signal, and it creates a few frames of delay. I assume the...

Wii U is HDMI out. It's already high definition, so it's fine. I assume the Bluetooth controller could possibly cause some sort of delay, but I'm not sure how important it would be. I mean, I don't think that's really much. Yeah, so if you're wanting to play this game, virtual console works as well. It'll be on that new little Nintendo that comes out. Yeah, that's right.

But without Mike Tyson, of course. Without Mike. Yes. So our last thing about this game, it's worth mentioning Power Punch 2, disingenuously named because it was originally supposed to be a punchout sequel starring Mike Tyson and Don King. and developed by Beam Software, and I have in parentheses why. Beam software was, they made Back to the Future for the NES, and that's all I have to say.

A fantastic game that will have to be here. All three seconds of that song are burnings on my head. Beam did make some pretty interesting games, but most of them were not good. Yes, Back to the Future is the worst thing they made. They made things that are better than that, but again, yeah. I mean, they eventually made Nightshade, and then from there they went to Shadow Run. I like Nightshade a lot, actually, yeah. Like, they got better, but they started out, like, a lot of European and Australian

American NES developers making garbage. Yes. So this game was renamed from Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch. It was meant to star Tyson, and I think... That's the beautiful... I've seen that... I'm trying to think of other games where they did that. They hire...

They licensed someone, a big celebrity being the game, but he's not there the whole time. And so if you think from Nintendo's perspective, most people who bought Mike Tyson's punchout never saw Mike Tyson. Exactly. And why did we pay for... So the second game is like, well, now you're going to play as Mike Tyson. And that makes all the sense in the universe. Because we're not selling, we're not paying for a little Mac license.

Yes, I mean, the story is, I couldn't find official word on this, but Nintendo did not like the quality. I mean, the final game just sucks. It's awful. It's terrible. Oh, it's bad. It's bad. It trades European stereotypes for aliens. Oh, God.

It's great. Oh, those gleepless. Some are good. So, yeah, they intend to wash their hands of this. And it was convenient for them. Then Mike, Mike Tyson went through his rape trial and was convicted and went to jail. And obviously, I mean, Don King was also not the best guy in the world. He's also a convicted murderer.

Only in America. Yes, only in the 60s can Don King kill a man and eventually become a millionaire twice. Twice. He's killed two people. Wow, wow. You heard of your first folks. He's that good. Yes. So I'll let you guys think about that.

We'll be right back after our commercial break. Please listen to these amazing announcements. Hello, everybody. This is Bob, once again, jumping in during this little commercial break. I'm hoping you're enjoying this episode. I did a ton of research, and I think it's going to provide everything you've ever wanted to know about the punchout series. And I just wanted to say hi to some of our newer listeners. I know our SNES and N64 podcast brought in a lot of new people, so welcome and please enjoy our extensive backlog. There's a lot to dig into over the past nearly 10 years now.

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I'll let you get back to this very, very fun episode and hopefully I will see you in Portland in October. So we're back, and I'm going to make a controversial statement that will get me thousands of tweets, maybe two, I guess. But I'm going to say that I actually prefer our next game we're talking about today's Super Punch-Out. For as much as I like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, I feel there's a lot more meat to Super Punch-Out. Really, it is a souped-up HD remake, HD as of, you know, SNES, of the original Super Punch-Out for the arcades. It's basically the logical conclusion of what the arcade was trying to do on a platform where it could do a lot more with the graphics, with the movements, with lots, lots, lots more boxers.

Transparencies are finally here, people. We finally reached that. Yes. As a society, we have transparencies. So again, I say this is the arcade game Nintendo wishes they could have made with the original punchout. And it really feels the same as the arcade game. It revolves around building up a meter. You can throw uppercuts and fast power punches as long as that meter is full.

So this entire game is about maintaining that meter. And there is something I only learned about. I played this game for like 20 years. I only found out about this now. The power-up mode is something that happens gradually over time in the game where at a certain point your gloves glow and your punches are more powerful. I had no idea that's just automatic. It just constantly happens.

And there's an option in the menu where you can make that manual. Like you can hit the X button to activate that manually. I don't know that. I had no idea until I did this research. That's why I'm here. And this game, I think, is one of the most beautiful 16-Big. games. Just watching those giant boxers move around. It is

like the arcade game, but with like so much more detail, so many more frames of animation. It is just glorious to watch. Even though Little Mac is like this bizarre grotesque anime Matt Damon. He's never called Little Mac. I think in retrospect they did call him Little Mac. In the

Fight Night, when he appears in Fight Night round two on the GameCube version of that game, he's modeled in 3D in that game and has the word Mac on his belt. Okay, yeah. So knowing Nintendo Big Mac. He's designated from, I think, Tokyo, Japan. That's not right.

Little Mac is from Bronx, New York. Oh, really? He said he's from Tokyo? Yeah. And they, yeah. I don't think it's the same guy, but, like, the only confirmation you have is his appearance. He's not. Little Mac, he's Macu.

I don't think he's ever named in the game. Again, I think they were going for the arcade feeling. Little Mac was created as, as, yeah. He's me. Yes, exactly. Little Mac was created, as we said, as a way to explain why this character is so small in the game why everyone else is it's so big. Now he's the same size as the boxers he's fighting,

so he's not Little Mac anymore. And again, I want to say, I just read that while researching this. That is an amazing adaptation. The idea that the guy is so small so you can see the characters in front of it. Because they couldn't do transparently. He just, like, had a real attitude change.

Died his hair, bulked up, dumped stock. Play it loud. He's got the classic 90s shroom cut. I think we all had in the 90s. Yes, exactly. So, yes, this has some real shades of the Play It Loud era. Again, Nintendo was trying to make this game for America, would not come out in Japan until 1998, and then only in a special way. The sound effects are much more brutal and far less cartooning.

You can really feel the impact of those punches. And the soundtrack isn't very good. I mean, it's okay. I can deal with it. There's lots of crunchy guitars, but there's too much guitars. And again, that NES song is so good. I'll play the... It's better suited for Genesis, all this music.

Yeah, I'll play a sample of this. We can talk over it, but it's not very good. It's a lot of... It sounds like beaves and butthead doing air guitar, basically. Yeah. Not nearly as catchy as an ES theme. Sting chameleon. Mega Man X takes on the box.

Exactly, yeah. I was thinking Mega Man X's... This has, like, that hardcore 90s butt rock style. Capcom loved on Super Nes. One music thing I did like is the intro screen where it's like him tightening the gloves and, like, tying his shoes. And it's like... With the heartbeat?

Yeah. And then you get the, like, doodoo doodoo, it kind of sounds like that menu music is the only standout. Again, I am the anime fan here, and that, like, lacing up the boots and putting on the gloves is totally like an anime montage of the dude getting ready. I mean, isn't that pretty much just like an adaptation of the Rondo of Blood intro where Richter's, like, putting his headband on? Could be. I've never heard the song this long because I'm so good at Super Punchout. I like when it goes crazy like that. That made it better than any other punchout is what I think held it.

it kept it in my field of view for a lot longer than it should have been, is the time attack modes and the ability to not use a password and jump back in a circuit, it's a practice mode, that all of a sudden when we were 20, my friends and I would, like, if you sneak away, someone would try and beat your score. Or if you don't show up at the house on time, someone would try and beat.

Dude, Tyson just beat your score on Piss in Honda, 11 seconds. He got it in 10.9. Yeah, you can go back to every boxer and see who has the best time. You can have up to like eight names in the game playing against each other. The first three circuits I could beat everybody in under 10 seconds after a while. Like, we all could, like, because we study these boxers. Like, I don't know.

This game is great. Yeah, it is very much an endurance challenge. Like, again, as with the arcade game, the tells are not as broad. They are very, very subtle. Like, it'll be like a head movement. It'll be, like, a certain body animation. They don't, like, do huge wind-ups for attacks that you have to hit with one punch and knock them out. It's very much of that arcade endurance test.

Watch out if anybody pulls back from you, you're dead. Yeah. Yes, exactly. You're in for some trouble, especially when Aaron Ryan, the Irish vampire, comes in. I don't know what he's doing. I think he's just grabbing you, which is like, that's not very... Yeah, he's drawing power from your soul. Considering, like, what other characters do in this game, like, swing clubs and spit, like, mist in your face.

Yeah. Just grabbing the opponent is kind of, like, that happens in real boxing. It does, and they're eventually broken up. Nobody gets kicked in the face in general boxing. That's a dragon chance slam, and I won't hear it. So, as they was saying, they really doubled down on the weirdness of Super Punchout. We're like, we're going to make this the boxing slash wrestling game. So we have Dragon Chan returns.

He's doing the kicks from between the ropes or whatever. And we have a boxer. Mad clown. Yes, I mean a wrestler. Mad clown who does circus tricks during his fight. The lucha wrestler who does, like, he spits in your face. He head butts you, things like that. This little man with a cane, this kabuki fighter who hits you with his hair.

Hoy. Hoy, what's it? Hoy, Choirlo. Hoy, Hoylo is the little kung fu master guy. Hoy Carlo. I just love doing impressions of the game. Let me get this out of my system The countdown real fast

Oh yeah, wait I actually have this on my sample Let me see on matches up Okay One, two Three Four Five

Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Knock out That's almost perfect Chris I only have it up till six

But it's almost identical I feel like each of these Each of these numbers Was recorded in a different room In a different context Five is the best Five Yeah

One two Three Four Five Five six Seven Yeah, so I only had a six-count, but it is... It's alleged to be Charles Martinette doing the voices in this.

One thing I picked up on, on retrospect, the voice of Little Mac, all like three sound clips, is definitely the same guy did the voice of Fox McLeod and Star Fox. You can really hear it when he goes, pizza cake. Pizza cake. Yeah, so what's missing, I think, in this one, as much as I like, it feels, I mean, this game feels like the Platinum Games version of Punch Out, even though it's calling back to the arcade roots of the series. It's missing a little personality.

The boxers are crazy and over the top, and their personalities communicated. through their fighting style, but I really miss the light narrative of the NES game, as well as the between round banter. As with the arcade game, you just get three minutes. There's no end of the round where you talk to the guy and see him beaten up, you know, and more and more with every time you see him again. And I do

miss that. I mean, the boxers have a little quilt they tell you before you fight them, but that's essentially it. And it's weird that, like, all the, you hear corner men, but it's only for the, you don't hear the corner men. You see quotes for the corner men, but it's only the opponent's corner. That's right. Never your own. Doc abandoned Little Mac, wherever this guy is.

Let's be honest, Doc die. Infinity for chocolate. That's true. That came out in the Wii version. They invented that. It's like when they invented Marty McFly being, hating, being called chicken. The NES game invented it. Because, like, that's always said it's like, I love chocolate and please read Nintendo Fun Club.

Join the Nintendo Fun Club back. Man, I didn't realize the chocolate thing was so buried in Punch Out Lour. Yeah, it's from the first one. So I think Dave was saying, sorry. Oh, and instead of, so there are no in-between rounds. So, like, what made the game more dynamic is that you knock somebody out and you can match. the Y and B buttons to get some of your health back. That's right.

Yeah. So you're not only rooting for the guy to stay down as long as possible so you can win. And the sense of satisfaction is someone getting up and falling down at a punch day. That feels so good. It's still rare. It happens so rarely. I'm sure there's some AVQ guy who can make it happen on purpose. Like getting up at 8 and falling down at 9.

It feels really good. Yeah. So there's a lot more complexity to this, some that is not explained at all. So again, your defensive vocabulary is very important. You're not penalized for blocking attacks. So you need to block attacks because. Some enemies, when they launch into their super moves, they will not stop the move until you blocked all of them in a row. So blocking is very important.

You have an up block, a down block, and a duck, and you need to use all of those in concert, along with dodging left and right. Like, some attacks you need to duck at the right time. Some attacks you need to dodge the left or the right. Some you need to block. There are like five defensive moves incorporated into your strategies against fighting all of these boxers. It's a very complex game. And what makes it even more complex is there is a counterpunch system in this game that is not explained at all. Maybe the attract mode does something with it.

I forget. It's a useful but extremely important mechanic. You essentially match your enemy's attack before he can hit you. So if he's punching down to the right, you launch your down to the right attack. And when you hit him, you stun him, and then you can launch into all your attacks. That's how you beat everybody in 10 seconds. Exactly. I didn't know that I didn't have the words for it.

Yes. You have the tiniest window of time to launch these attacks. And if you do, you can conceivably beat every boxer within seconds. But this is, again, a hidden mechanic. I feel similar to the wall jump and Super Metroid, that it's always there. and you could use it but then eventually they tell you about it in this case they never tell you about it

but it's always there yeah see I've you know when I've played Super Punch Out my rounds have not gone that quickly and then I you know try to watch footage online and I'm like why are they winning in five seconds what don't I understand about this game that's what I don't understand

it requires you to be a lot more aggressive I feel Mike Tyson's punchout it's all about dodging in this game you have to attack when the enemy is attacking like if you're just dodging what did you say the date was on this This was 1994. Okay.

So, 98, Japan. This predates, you know, Street Fighter 3, with that's extremely technical parries. And that's exactly what it was about to bring up. Like, if you're someone who doesn't want to get the shit kicked out of you, by jumping the Street Fighter, this is a good way to train you for Street Fighter. Oh, really? Okay. Well, I mean, like, the idea that, like, if someone's coming at,

someone's throwing a low right at you that leaves their this side vulnerable. And the game generally plays it like that, that they can't block if they're throwing a punch on that side. Yeah. And I don't know. Like, I was able to understand. Street Fighter a little better after playing Punchout a lot. I'm not good at Street Fighter. This is a very complex game if you want it to be.

If you want to do high-level play, it's all about the counterpunches. And I feel like Mike Tyson's punchout, it's all about prepping yourself for that one or two special moves each boxer has. But in this one, it's like you need to know how to defend against those, but you also need to be very aggressive in hitting before they can hit you. And you will hit the wall by the third round of boxers if you don't master counter-punching and, you know, not just defending, but actually attacking before you, they can attack you. you.

So I feel this really throws people off. This is what makes people dislike this game. I hear a lot of trash being thrown out Super Punchout because it is so different than Mike Tyson's Punchout. But I feel like it's doing what it wants to do, and it's very good at that. It's not trying to do what Mike Tyson's Punchout did. Dave, I haven't heard you talk much about this. I know you're a fan of the game.

How do you compare it to Mike Tyson's Punchout? I think I like the original Mike Tyson's Punchout more. I mean, just because it does feel more like boxing because there are rounds where it's like you're desperately trying to knock a fighter out for the third time and get a TKO, but he just escapes the round and just little things like that. There's no decision if like you don't. There's decisions. Well, I don't know if there is in this.

I know, actually, you lose if you don't knock on the boxer. Yeah, there's no decision. I don't think. Yeah, there's not. Yeah, and the Mike Tyson's punchout, you could win by decision if you had a certain amount of points. And like just the, I like the special punch and the upper cut in the original punchout It feels a little bit, it's like a little bit more of a, like, an awesome weapon than in Super Punch Out when you get the Super Meter. It's literally just go to town.

You can keep using it. Like, why even bother using normal punches? Yeah. You're super powered until you're punched again. And your Super Punch leaves you pretty vulnerable in Mike Tyson's punchout. You have to know when to use it. It's so awesome. Like when you hit that on like.

Whatever that sound is. Yeah. So we, it's like a bomb hits them. So Dave was saying earlier, I forgot to mention it, but there's a new mechanic or whatever if you want to call it that. Which, instead of telling you through animations and, you know, visual tells, in some cases, the trainer will have words to say to the boxer that you're fighting. Like, that will prep you the player to, you know, know how to respond to that. So there's that feedback. In terms of people like Dragon Chan, it's depicted in Chinese, Chinese characters.

So the language barrier also is a factor because you won't be able to, you know, respond to things you can understand. And it might be the same for some other boxes. I forget if maybe some other nationalities communicate in their own language, but it's at least true for Dragon Chan. I know that for sure. And we have some returning boxers from the arcade game who look exactly at their arcade sprites, but very much cleaned up in the HD-a-fight or whatever you want to call it.

Bald Bull. Yes, he's back. I think all your favorites are back, except for Mike Tyson. We have Gabby Jay. These are new boxers, by the way. So Gabby Jay is the first guy you fight. Of course, he goes, Ney. Nick Browler.

We also have Mass Mussel, who's the Lucha wrestler. Bob Charlie. Charlie. He's the Bob Marley parody, believe it or not. So we have parodies of two dead celebrities in this game, Dragon Chan and Bob Charlie. We have Heikey Kegero. He's the Kabuki fighter, and he hits you with his hair. Aaron Ryan, the Irish fighter, and he is probably the most hideous boxer in this game.

I'm like, against, did someone just really hate the Irish on this project? I don't know, but he's got these bulbous wall eyes. Yeah. Well, he's like a true boxer. He's got, like, cauliflower ears. That's true, yeah. Looks like he's been punched in the face a lot. But he's ahead of the game in that he has an undercut.

So he's ready for 2016. Or 2015, I don't know if they're still in. Mad Clown, of course, uses circus tricks. A pre-skin of bear hugger. Exactly, yes. Narciss Prince, who I love, he's a narcissistic blonde fighter, and he gets really mad when you punch his beautiful face. He's sort of like a Vega character.

Yeah, the Street Fighter comparisons just keep rolling. Yeah. It just occurred to me. Super Street Fighter had a very clear Bruce Lee impersonation, and also a Jamaican guy. Yeah. He wasn't quite Bob Charlie. No, but, I mean,

There's still that kind of like that spirit going on there. For sure, yeah. Like they're referencing popular entertainers and artists and things like that. They landed on kind of the same specific things to parody. I feel like Bruce Lee's a pretty easy choice, but maybe not Bob Marley for your fighting game. Well, I think from what I've heard. I think of combat and fighting, I think Bob Marley is a message of peace and understanding. We read into it as stereotypes, but I think they were looking at where those games were being played.

What territories those games were being played. where those territories were being played more, they made characters who represent those regions. I feel like Overwatch does that too. Yeah. Like, Overwatch, I feel like, is the modern punchout. It's a different game, but it has someone from every conceivable ethnicity, not everyone, of course, but the more popular ethnicities, wait, what am I saying?

I don't know what I'm saying. It has someone from the, I don't know, you know what I'm saying. It has many ethnicities represented. At least the top 15 ethnicity. Yes, the best ones. Look for it next week. But if you're from, if you're from. Speed, all in gifts.

Yes. Look for my article on U.S. Gamer. We're changing our focus soon. But I'm said, there's a Korean person, there's a Japanese person, there's a British person, there's an Australian person. But they're not represented through stereotypes or represented through, like, more sincere ways, I think. And this game does not really tap into the ethnicities as much as Mike Tyson's punch out. Because I think most of these guys, their personalities aren't really based on where they come from. Wait, what ethnicity is Mad Clown?

Mad Clown is Canadian. He's from hell. I would say he's from the French school of clownery. Yes, maybe. hilarious. Yes. Like Darius. So we have two more, Hoy Karlo, which is the tiny kung fu guy.

And then Nick and Rick Bruiser are the final characters. And these are just like these terrifying muscle mutants who look like they were grown in a lab. They look like they'd be more home in that muscle game. I forget what it's called in Japan. Mass muscle? It's just called muscle. It's all like... Like muscle things?

Canuckuman? Canucan. That's what I'm thinking of. Or Keniku man. Caniqo Man, yeah. He looks like the Kenyku Man guy with the fin on his head, basically. They're just like these big pink muscle guys.

Yeah, they look like the Venture Brothers before they get hair and clothes. Like you saw the first, that's a dumb reference, but still, it's a great show people. No, you're right. Like, the final boxer is as scary as Mike Tyson because instead of having like an intro animation, his back has turned to you,

and then when he fights, he just turns around and just like stomps towards you. So it's really, it's really intimidating. He's a really hard fighter, too. So what else to say about this? Again, this could be my perspective, But I feel like this game doesn't get a lot of love, of course, because Mike Tyson's Punchout was a much more important game

in terms of when it was released and who played it. And the Mike Tyson connection is very iconic, of course. I still think we don't have enough of these because it didn't fly very well in Japan. And just that, a what-ass interview was just like, yeah, America wouldn't shut up about punchouts. So we thought, why don't, yeah, why not? Who cares? Like, let's just make a new one. Fine.

America wants one. This was released in 1998. I didn't know that until I saw your notes that I thought it was a typo. Like, that's insane that took that. Yeah. I think it was that Nintendo Power System in which they put the game on a blank card, was at it. Yeah, so that was like Wrecking Crew 98 and ExciteBite. But there's already PlayStation and N64.

They left it on the Vine 2 die. No, the Excite Byte games were part of the BS Satellibu system. Oh, really? Okay, yeah. They were like Bun Bun Mario Stadium. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there were some people holding onto their, there was like a Fire Emblem game in 1998 for the Super Famicom.

Yeah, so like there had to be a market at that point. So God, God help you if you didn't move on. but if you didn't, they were there for you. And Dave pointed this out. I totally forgot that the entire Super Punchout is hidden in the GameCube version of 2005's Fight Night Round 2. And I don't think Virtual Console did not exist by that point, so you couldn't play it. And also... Right at the cusp of Animal Crossing.

Yes. Yeah, Animal Crossing was out for a while. But, like, I was more into playing Punchout in Animal Crossing, even though... Did you have to hack Animal Crossing to get Punch Out? I thought it was like, that is Super Mario Brothers. I don't know. I think here... There were a couple of other games.

ever hackney. Oh, really? Yeah, I think they were... Zelda was one of the hack games. Oh, really? I thought it was Super Mario Brothers and Punchup, but I know two games were only accessible by cheat devices

because they were maybe intended to be like a contest thing in Japan. I forget what it was. But yeah, so if you have a GameCube version of Fight 9 2005, you can play, I'm guessing, an okay version of Super Punchup. I'm dying to see an HD version of it, so please let me know.

This was during this awkward period where Nintendo was not like, their versions of EA games did not have online play. So they needed something to boost them. So like NBA Street, volume three, had a Mario team. Yeah, had a Mario team, but it's like, you know what?

I'd rather just play online. Sorry. This is not a Lincoln Soul Calibre situation where that overrides the fact that the other systems would be there. No Yoda? There's no equivalent of NECRid in sports games. Oh, Todd McFarlane. Oh, boy. So we're going to move on to some other stuff.

So we're going to move on to some other stuff. I didn't take a lot of notes. I have this game. I brought it home a while ago, but I only played a few rounds. The 2009 Wii reboot, I believe, is it next level games that made this? Yeah. My own dumb story is like I think a year or two ago. I was like you guys, I worked in an

office where all the games flooded in and I played my fill of this game inside of an office didn't own it. And then of course, like with every Nintendo game that's not mega popular, it disappears and you can't buy it for less than $800 from eBay Scalper and I find it in Tallahassee, Florida used at Games for Less. That is a page.

blood, by the way. Please check them out. Wait, the Wii punchout is really expensive now? It was for a second, for a hot second. It was released like in 2012 or something like that. I bought it for $30, two years ago with no manual unsealed in a box just to have it because I really did like the game. And the second I get

home to put it in, Nintendo announces, yeah, it's one of four Wii games that were going to release on Wii, which they just gave up on. Oh, I do that a lot. That's how I got it. Actually came into one up and no one wanted it, so took it home and there's something and I hate to sound like a wee-a-boop

because I am but there's something about Punch-out that I associate so much with that kind of fighting anime look that the 3D

is not so much as a put-off as the sort of reinterpretations of the characters which to be fair are still pretty faithful but

there's something about that crisp anime art style that is essential for Punch-out to me and it could be something I can't get over it could be my own problem

but I think they did a good job with this game I really like it put it up there with the original it works And I remember our buddy, Brett Elston, he just, like, if you think Punch Out is simplistic,

and he just did a chart in arrows of all the moves, Little Mac can make. Yeah. Like, how many, like, there's a stunning movement and ability in a punchout game that you're not even looking at. Yeah, in each situation, there's, like, one perfect thing to do. Yes. But then there are, like, you know, a couple things you can do. You can still recover from. This one you can't recover from.

One really cool thing this game did, which I have not been able to access because I haven't finished it yet, is when you replay it, of course, Punchout is famous for having your rematch boxers, and they seal off the weak points. Like, Glass Joe's chin is guarded now. They put armor on them. So it locks out certain, like, certain windows of opportunity for you, which is really cool. It's insane that, like, when you finish the game the first time

and you face Glass Joe again for the first time, you will likely lose to him, which is insane that happens. And if you, that I want to ask is sort of like, well, America keeps asking for one. Next level games wants to do it. And they almost say, like, and we don't care. So they said, just do whatever you, one. And they made a very one

on the surface, it's a very authentic punchout game. It was super authentic to the original experience and then added a ton of new stuff in it. Yeah, I really like it. I hope we get another one someday. The one cameo that they get is like from the we don't care. Take dog gun. He's your the American platform guy. It was originally supposed to be

Princess Peach. And then they were like maybe we shouldn't have you beating up Princess. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not a good idea. They had the foresight to change that to Donkey Kong. I bet K1 does it next year. I hope not. So is there anything else about this game? I mean, I feel like I should give it more of a chance.

It's very faithful to the NES version. I love the music in it. The music is all ethnic remixes, respect of the characters you're fighting. Remixes of the original amazing punch-out theme. Very sexy. I'll definitely put some of that in here. And I think it's somewhat interesting that they really doubled down on the Orientalism, as you were saying, Chris. Like, when you knock out the box, or doesn't like the food their countries associated with fly out of them?

I had of Glassios and spin around them like birds and stars. I feel like we always turn to food first

when we stereotype other cultures. It's like the easiest short time. Because it's true. You can't even deny it.

Watching old Warner Brothers cartoons, they don't know how to insult Germans because they're basically white people so they just sort of say schnitzel.

Yeah, things like that. And then we have Doc Lewis's punch out and Dave, can you know what this is?

Yes. So this was originally a Club Nintendo Nintendo Platinum Reward thing. I think it was

the same year as like a Mario hat. So, like, I was really on the fence about it. And I was so frustrated. I wish you would have got it. I was so frustrated that I did this. So I was working at GamePro at the time.

And this is, like, the morning that the codes were available. I'm like, oh, I'll just, I'll bring in, like, my whatever, SD card. And I will load it. I will use our game pros, we, and download it, and we can capture video. And then I can take that home and play it on mine. And then I'll be like, no. Diabolical. It was stuck on that system, and I wasn't able to play the game again.

for years until they had a fire sale at the end of Club Nintendo. Oh, do they sell it again? Well, they did at the end of Club Nintendo when the, you know, it was going to say that that file is lost forever if you don't have it. Yeah, well, I was able to get it for this, at the very end of the end.

It's sort of like Tingles, uh, balloon trip or whatever. I forget that was a prize for Nintendo Club or whatever, I think. Not only the biggest, uh, fight we've had over grammar in the, uh, games radar offices with Microoparas, because I made this, I'm like, yes, Doc Lewis has punch it. You get to play a, If we didn't say, you get to play as Doc Lewis, the big trainer on the bike. Is it every fight?

Is it just the few or what? Yeah, it's basically like a punch-out demo where you're playing as a character. Okay, got it. You can never play it. I did have that same, like, angst when I went to see the New Ghostbusters movie, started to put a time to this, but, like, they had a preview for Bridget Jones's, whatever next. But it's Joneses S, apostrophe S, and I'm like, eh. Yeah, I would freak out.

I would have to leave. So, like, I made, I just made this giant pan of Doc Lewis's as, as, Nintendo spells it on their website, L-O-U-I-S-A-S. I understand. Michael could not... It's Doc Louise. Like, how could you do that?

And he's like, and I come back to my desk and I'm getting yelled at about grammar rules. I just, I get to send them, dude, this is the official website. You take it up with Nintendo. Take it up with Nintendo. But you don't spell Final Fantasy in all caps, even though that's how Squarinix spells it. Unless you're talking about prototype, because then I always use the brackets every single time. I always put the underscore in watchdogs Because it annoys people

Little Big Planet is also another one that I hate And no, speaking of grammatical rules I forgot to point out completely that like This double exclamation point thing In Punch out, it's part of the name It's something I only see in Japanese games Punch, I feel like you either go For double exclamation points

Yeah, two. I feel like you only see these two exclamation points in Japanese things like you Americans either go for one or three But never two, two is the same with X There's no double X here Double X? That's true, yeah Well, yeah, there's no, there's no, There's just one or three.

That's all we have. But I do like... Double X, I don't know. I do like in Doc Luce's punchout, it takes place in like the dusty gym that you train in. So it feels like the end of Rocky... Was it, Rocky 3? Yeah. When Carl Weathers and Rocky Bowl will have that like a...

But it's gone... I want to say during this promotional campaign, they had live action punchout commercials. And the person who played Doc Lewis was Senator Stubbs from the Wire. She... Why wasn't he, Carl Winslow? I mean, come on. He has, what's his name? Reginald-Hel Johnson.

He's alive. He's still alive. Yeah, but he's not on, he doesn't seem to have a public face, and I'm guessing there's a reason why. I always mixed him up with the dad from the Fresh Pins of Bel Air, and I think producers knew this because on one episode of Family Matters, James Avery showed up, and everyone freaked out. It was like the two large dads from television that weren't John Goodman.

So I wasn't alone in that. So, why, how did we get on this? I don't know. Doc Lewis's punch out. Yes, exactly. It's technically your newest punchout game. You'll never play it if you haven't played it. Then you can't play it and there'll probably never be another one.

It's the PT of Punchout. Oh, yeah. Oh, geez. Ouch. Ouch. It still hurts. Because if it was anything that was available for the original Wii, I believe, that was hosted on game spy servers. So it is gone forever.

Oh, my God. They had their fingers in so many pies. That's crazy. No, no, no, no, no, no. The game spy stuff was only for DS connectivity, Wii connectivity. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, you can still go to the Wii shop and buy stuff.

You can? Yeah. I thought, to my knowledge, well, I think maybe third-party stuff is, was hosted on GameSpy, and it's gone, and no one bothered to host it anywhere else. I don't know what is it. This is a job for the game detectives. Oh, my God, the Wii game detectives. No one will hire you. This is the only thing we go ahead of the game.

We're so hungry. All right, so we have one more game one I want to talk about. It's unrelated, but I feel like it is the most competent punch-out clone of which there aren't many. It's Wade Hickston's Counterpunch, 2004 Game Boy Advance. I never played it. I watched a video of it. It seems pretty faithful to. the idea of like fighting cartoons.

I had to look this up. Wade Hickston was a real boxer. Really? Was he? I think so. Are you kidding me? I believe he is. I wanted to mention that when you opened up your Nintendo and like here all the,

here all the new games that are coming out. And it was like, Sugar Ray Lewis's Buster Douglas, the man who is only famous for beating Mike Tyson once. On accident. On accident, had his own NES game. Yeah. And like all of these boxers had their own NES game for a while. Chris, I hate to break it to you.

Wade Hickston is not real? Unless he's got really terrible SEO and his game is the only thing that exists. He's not concerned with his hashtag brand. Again, there's no way to play this outside of the original card or if you rom it up. But it looks okay. I mean, it is very of the era in that you fight a pimp.

So if you have, I think that's hilarious, I guess go for it. But very expressive cartoony graphics. It looks more like a French style of cartooniness. I think it might be like a Dutch game or something. So Bear Hugger was replaced by Huggy Bear. You fight the triplets of Belleville in other words. I'm just old enough to get that. The son of the guy who played.

Huggy bear. Huggy bear? Yeah. So that's it for Punchout. And I just want to ask you guys before we leave. I hope not. I mean, that's it for our discussion, but my question has to deal with if it could be it for Punch Out. How can Punch Out be relevant today?

I feel that the way punch out, is a much smarter. a much more approachable version of representing people based on where they're from. And I feel like Punchout could thrive if it made that approach again. And I would really love to see Super Punch Out be updated. I feel like they will keep returning to the NES well because that's what Nintendo does.

But I feel like we can still have a punchout. I feel like maybe VR would be the place for Punchout. Who knows? Like, that's my... That was called Telero Boxer and it was crap. Oh, you're right, yeah. I mean, what about Wii boxing? I feel like that was like a step towards that.

It's very bad. But I feel like that is what the original Punchout could have been. if they went through that boxing club, you know, input. So, like... There is a two-player version. I don't know if it was, yeah. I never played it.

I don't know if there was, like, a mandate for Punchout on Wii, but you could play that with, with, by moving the, uh, the Wii remote and the thumbstick and also... Nunchuk, we call it. And then Chuck, sorry, and also going on the balance board to dodge. It's like, no, this is... A balance board, yeah. Nobody has that level of, like... That's right.

I assume, like, 80 million people had the Wii fit balance board, so they're like, we need some other way to use this. I think Punchout was a game was probably very special. Character design, unique characters and there's a way to do that and there's not a lot of places to do that other than a game

where you fight people briefly. And the idea that the Wii Punchout didn't change arenas ever. So if this is a fighting game, make new stages. Like just give me some kind of eye candy because you're not really designing that much. Again, like Overwatch, like Street Fighter,

make the arenas reflect the country fighting in, something like that. I think that would be a good idea. Jeremy, how do you feel about Punch Out in the future? Do you think this is a series that could come back? I feel like we just saw, to date this episode, we just saw Nintendo announce the NES Mini, which, again, Nintendo always goes back to the NES well,

and Punch Out is going to be relevant again. Everyone wants to play it again. And I feel like there's always a chance for more. How do you feel about that? I think they need to look to Takeda's ideas for Super Punch Out that were cut, you know, like the kicking and the weapons. They need to make Super Punch Out,

like maybe not call it Super Punch Out but make an MMA game where it's like, you know, actually you know, get that, you know, the gymnastics and martial arts and stuff in there and create more diversity than just punching. I feel like not only

would that be a more complex game but also probably more appealing because MMA is a lot more popular than boxing. It's really popular. I was at a bar last night and it was on. I was like, oh, I guess people care about this. I forgot. And how about a three-player mode where one of you plays the referee and the other place

have to sneak stuff past him. That sounds like... He's got a Kendo stick in his shirt. That sounds like a rusty slugger thing. You know, like now you're the referee, now you're the glove, now you're the shoe, all these mini-games.

Yeah, let's see a rusty slugger version of Punch out. I'll do that. I see legacy of Punch Out every time I play Monster Hunter. Monster Hunter, to me, it's one of the unsung, I think, inspirations for the game. You are a tiny character

up against a giant character who in one move can wipe you out completely. But you have to learn to read his tells, learn how to dodge almost anything he can do, and it takes some trial and error. That explains why I like Monster Hunter, I think. No, I think it has a little street fight,

a lot of Street Fighter mixed in there as well, but, like, Monster Hunter is essentially a punchout game where you craft things. That's a great way to sell it to people in this modern age. It's never worked, so let's give it a shot. Even though Punch Out will probably always be more popular than Monster Hunter, regardless of the year in America.

I don't know if we're going to see any more of Punch Out. Like, I don't think the new one did well enough on Wii, and, you know, we have Little Mac in the new Smash Pop. Name a popular brand invented by Nintendo in the last 10 years. I'll give you Excite truck. You can have that. Maybe Nintendo dogs, but I think they have no choice but to go back and re-evaluate everything, which they seem to do from time to time.

So I hope so as well. Well, I am hopeful too. But thanks so much for discussing this with me today, guys. I think we had a fruitful discussion. I was worried that we would not be able to speak long enough about this, but we all came with Punch Out Love. These games are surprisingly complex for being, like, somewhat superficially simple on the surface. Surface?

The surface. So as for contact info You can find out how to support the show If you listen to our commercial break And I probably threw a cool anime song under my voice You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo I also write for something awful And of course USgamer.net

Which also helps host this podcast And you can listen to my other podcast talking Simpsons It's a chronological exploration of the Simpsons I do with Chris and sometimes Dave And every episode of the show Is a different episode of The Simpsons We're doing an order by this time We should be in season four

And it's a lot of fun if you like the Simpsons You'll like to hear us talk about it Presumably I hope so This is Peak Simpsons In, what, like, three or four years, you'll finally do the Homer boxing episode? Oh, yeah, the Homer they fall. Season 8, it's still good, still good. It's still good. It's season eight, it's still good.

So, Dave, where can we find you? Yeah, I also write and podcast and do video stuff for Lasertime. Hey. Yeah. Now you'll know what I'm referencing every time I do something well in a stream. I still do super punch outlines. Got him. Piece of cake.

I prefer pizza cake. That's what I'm doing. Pizza cake. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Laser time, Bob, you've been on there a couple times recently. We have a big show with you coming up. It might have been up. It might be up at the time of this post.

But also, 30-20-10, I wanted to plug that, because if you're interested in things, let's say, that are not just video games. That's impossible. That's impossible. Takes a look at things that happened 30 years ago, 20 years ago, and 10 years ago from that week. And it's really interesting because we're in 86 at this point. And not a lot is happening with the NES, but over on the Famicom. A bunch of new stuff is coming out. Like, Zelda's, at this point, is way out in Japan, but America has no idea what it is.

It's great. By the time this episode launches, I think you guys will be talking about Alf finally. Yes, we'll be talking about Alf, the Nintendo 64 will have launched, like, all that good stuff. 30-2010 is my new favorite jam, and I just happen to be on it. Where does Mr. Belvedere follow that rubric? Was it? He's like 85. I think, I think, yeah, it was like 84 to like 90 or something like that.

Yeah, you guys talked about it before, but it wasn't the debut. There was a very special episode about, was it abortion or, like, overeating? And for some reason, I think... Those are two different things. Are you sure? I'm a man. I'm a positive. But all I know is for some reason, everyone I know knows that Mr. Belvedere knocked himself

out once by sitting on his balls. He did. And I don't know how we all know that, but we do. It's nodding their head. Legends of Brock Toon. Yes. Wait, that was a point, a plot point in the show, or it happened to the actor. The actor actually sat on his own testicles and knocked himself out.

Let's go edit the wikki and make it both, please. Inspired by real life of that. That's the weirdest way to knock somebody out and punch out. Make them sit on their bench wrong. You wouldn't stop sitting on his balls. Oh, boy. So, Jeremy, after that tasteful conversation, let us know where to find you. I don't want anyone to find me now.

You're part of this. I'm sorry, you're part of this. You can look for me on Twitter as Gamsbyte at usgamer.net and curating gameboy. World. Yes. So thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week with a brand new mini episode. Hope you enjoyed it.

You know, I'm sorry.