Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory

"A somewhat biased review coming from a major Hajime no Ippo fan."

The fact that it was based on Hajime no Ippo, one of my favourite anime and manga, was enough reason for me to overcome my resentment for boxing games, and try out Victorious Boxers.
So, was it worth it? Sadly enough I have to say: no.

Victorious Boxers has about as much to do with Hajime no Ippo as "Mary-Kate and Ashley's Sweet 16" has to do with "GTA".
Whereas Hajime no Ippo is entertaining on every front, addicting as heaven and good in all sorts of other ways, Victorious Boxers is frustrating as hell, no fun whatsoever and horrible in all sorts of ways.

Having Sendo break my face and donkey-punch me in the neck just because the CPU is too lazy to turn my ass around is NO FUN. Having 2 playable modes is TOO LITTLE, having nothing to do with HnI save for the characters/moves/arenas is NOT WHAT I HAD EXPECTED.

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But before we get to all that, lets look at the game from a less biased position, what is Hajime no Ippo?
Hajime no Ippo is Japanese manga created by Jyoji Morikawa. Having started in 1990, as of today no less than 73 volumes have been released.
I don't want to get into to much detail, but here's a summary of the story:
Makunouchi Ippo is always busy with his night fishing job, and gets bullied a lot. After some inspiration from magazines, videos, and boxers, he decided to take up boxing. Boxing changed Ippo's life, and now his dream is to become pro and fight in matches. (courtesy of animenewsnetwork.com)
Besides this absolutely fantastic manga, there's also an anime about HnI. Sadly enough it finished in 2002, with two OVA's released after that, but it stopped around volume 35.

Having immensely enjoyed both forms of HnI, I decided it might be a good idea to check out the games, thinking “lets see if the game can live up to the legend”.

But enough about me, lets get to this review already.

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Gameplay:
Arguably the most important part of any game is the gameplay. Logically, any game that has great gameplay is already beyond halfway through to being called a genuinely good game. So how about Victorious Boxers? Not having played any other boxing games besides (Super) Punch-Out, I can't compare it too games like Knockout Kings, or even Ready to Rumble. Despite this “handicap”, I can still say that while the idea behind the gameplay is great, the execution is very, very flawed, if only due to the single fact that the CPU lacking. It shouldn't be possible in any fighting game to be in such a position where the computer can blatantly kick your ass, while you're unable to turn around fast enough to do anything about it, and that's exactly what the main problem in Victorious Boxers is.

It all begins with the fact that you play as Ippo and while there's nothing wrong with that itself, hell, it's only logical, there's still the issue that Ippo himself is slow as ****. That too is only logical, and based on the original manga, but in this game it would appear he's even slower, and when fighting opponents who can get behind you in half a second that can't be good. Add to that that some opponents that are even faster for plot purposes (think someone with the nickname: “Speedstar”) and you're in for a world of hurt.
That itself is just one flaw, and as just one flaw, it can be looked over, however, pretty much every other gameplay aspect suffers under that flaw which is a huge shame because the system would truly work without it.
So, how does the rest work? As the manual puts it: “The power of a punch is the total power from your toes to your fist. Therefore, your stance before and after a punch is performed is directly proportional to the power of the punch. For example, if you perform a right hook directly after you sway to the right (performed by slightly moving the left analog stick down+right), the spin of the waist and the movement of the lower body will be strong, so strong the punch will be harder.
This holds true to pretty much everything there is to do in this game, it's the basic principle of the entire gameplay.
Sounds good doesn't it? It is, really, if not for the speed of the opponent.
Besides this somewhat technical aspect, it appears everything (besides clinching) a boxing game should have, VB has. Add to that the special moves each character (of noticeable significance to the story) has and the rest of the gameplay is, while nothing truly special, pretty good.
6/10
Would be 4/10, but since I can really see “hidden potential” which could raise it to an 8/10, I'll make it a 6.

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Graphics:
Right now it's August 14th 2005, this game was released in Japan late 2000, so the outdated graphics are forgivable. Even so, this game still looks pretty decent, a lot of the animations still appear pretty slick, as opposed to the few that look ridiculous. Facial designs are also pretty nice, albeit not so true to the manga/anime designs.
The menus are somewhat boring but that's just a minor gripe, especially since menus today still look boring in a lot of games.
6.5/10
At the time of release it was probably one of the prettier titles (7.5/10), but despite the fact that it aged good, the graphics are still out-dated

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Sound:
I'm one of those people that really pay attention to the SFX/music in games so I was pretty disappointed when I noticed that there aren't any vocal performances, or songs from the anime implemented in this game. The games music is pretty generic and nothing really memorable.
5

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Game modes:
This is where I was really pissed, there's only the Story Mode and the Versus Mode. No Training, no Create-a-Character, no NOTHING. Not even any “Time Attack”, which seems obligatory for every fighting game (even though I never play it). Obviously, the lack of choice not only makes the game seem rather “small”, if you will, it also automatically decreases the replay value immensely.
4/10

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Extras:
In any of my games, I always like to see extras, be it in the form of artwork, character-related FMVs, jokes, secret modes or anything. On this point too VB fails to deliver horribly, which is odd since they could've put in a lot of extras.
The only thing you can unlock are characters (of which over half you'll never use by the way, hell I didn't even know who “Naoya Ogawa” was until I realized he was from the Pro-Test), a couple of arenas and blue gloves for a couple of the old-skool boxers. Woop-dee-friggin'-doo.
Even so, despite the fact that I complain about the number of useless boxers, it was sort of considerate for the developers to implement pretty much everybody with a name, up to Sawamura in this game. It just feels that they were just making up for the lack of really useful fighters outside of the Kamogawa gym and Ippo's opponents.
One other thing though, the only way to progress in this game is by playing through the Story Mode. This forces you to go through a number of horrible matches (Speedstar comes to mind), which'll make you go mad like you've never gone mad before. I didn't even like Ippo/Speedstar in the manga…
There's always BEAR for compensation though.
4.5/10
Would be a 3.5, but I'll add 1 point simply for being able to fight (as) Bear.

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Summary of review for those of you too lazy to read the entire thing:

Gameplay: 6/10 for hidden potential
Graphics: 6.5/10 it aged well
Sound: 5/10 generic music and SFX
Game Modes: 4/10 Story and Versus mode weren't enough in 2000 either
Extras: 4.5/10 for Bear

Rent it if you must, don't buy it.
Now, to wait for (a review of) Victorious Boxers 2!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05