Live the life of a fighter in this simulator called Punch Club. You go through the rounds of being a small-time fighter, working your way up the ranks and being a crime fighter on the side.
General Gameplay
You play as a boxer who is working his way up from the low ranks to get to the top. It is a simulator to its core, in which you must earn money to buy food, equipment, and training to get ready for your fights. Also, while you’re training, you embark on solving mysteries around the city and fight to earn experience to get stronger, quicker, and have more stamina.
Audio
Audio in the game is aimed to be more retro in its style and Punch Club does a great job of it. The game has a mixture of some “Rocky” inspired themes throughout. As the game is poking light fun at other games, you may hear a tune or two from other games but not too much. The sound effects in the game are just basic grunts, punches, kicks and other things that you would hear in a game like this. We did our playtesting and did not hear anything that would be offensive to any gaming member in your gaming family. The game does not support 5.1 surround sound; hearing the game’s audio from a headset is just fine, but as always, parents, please use caution when allowing your gamer using headset for extended use.
Visuals
Punch Club is a retro style of game that borrows heavily from 80’s/90’s console games. The graphics are very pixelated but done in a artistic way to showcase the game and the in-game world. The game relies heavily on lighter colors to showcase its art. The game does not have anything that would be offensive, based on our playtesting. Also, the game does not support any type of colorblind mode, but from our testing it doesn’t need one as the graphics are easily seen. If anything, the game pokes fun in a tongue-in-cheek way with movies posters and other references from the 80s/90s era worked into the story.
Controls
The controls are very simple for the game. One button does almost every action in the game, from choosing item menus to locations on your world map. The other shoulder button allows you to go into the detailed menus in which you adjust your stats, add more abilities and move to other locations. At its roots, Punch Club is designed to be like more of a traditional RPG, so the controls are configured as such. In our playtesting and special needs playtesting, we did not see any need for a special controller to play the game. The keyboard and mouse are ok to use on the PC, and the game on the console is ok to be used with the standard controller.
“Punch Club is a great traditional style of RPG, but it misses too many punches with it hard difficulty and Stamina Drain”
Delivery
Punch Club is a unique game. It is part RPG, part sim and that is where the confusion starts. In our honest opinion it’s an RPG (Role Playing Game) but others would see it as a simulator as you only push the buttons to do the exercises, fights and general in-world actions; there are no combos to remember while you move the fighter during the boxing matches. The game is aimed at more serious RPG/Sim fan out there. The game is not for everyone as the difficulty can be very hard for newer gamers who are just learning the game. Also, the progression system is very punishing (more on this in our Family Friendly Section) and may turn off more casual gamers in your gaming family. If you are looking for a game that is part RPG and part Sim then Punch Club is that game for you, otherwise we might recommend passing on this for your digital library.
Family Friendly
One thing that we here at Family Gamer Review do in our game testing is also look at the fun factor that the gamer is experiencing when playing the game. We all want games that are fun to play and we are sad to say that Punch Club was not always fun to play. With any Sim/RPG, it’s to be expected that you’ll have to “grind” – to continually perform a set of actions/missions/fights to get better stats/experience/in-game-loot). With Punch Club, however, when you finally get one of your stats up, and the in-game day ends, the stat you worked so hard to build goes down the following in-game day. For example, you could work on building agility for your fighter and do a lot of exercises that get you from level 1 to level 2, but at the end of the in-game day, you will lose some of your progression and will have to work on building that up again. Some more hardcore Sim/RPG fans may be used to this, but it made the game unnecessarily harder to play as our play testers started to get bored and frustrated with the game. There is an “easy” mode in the game that prevents this, but it also disables most of the game rewards that would be normally be earned during a play through. The developer did state that for the sequel of the game, they would take out the “Stamina Drain”, but we feel that it should have never been there in the first place, or that at least the gamer should be able to play without the “Stamina Drain” (in easy mode) and still enjoy all of the achievements and rewards. One interesting thing to note is that during our special needs gaming testing, our gamers who have Autism played the game and did like it, but some got frustrated, saying that their progression was taken away after each in-game day passed. Another thing that they got frustrated with in the game was how easy it is to lose a fight, and how very hard it is to win a fight, when first starting off. They felt that it was too punishing, and after a while they just stopped playing the game. We also noticed that because of the very steep difficulty of the game, most casual gamers in our gaming family simply did not want to play it after a while because of it. This game is for gamers that are hardcore fans of games like Punch Club; they will better understand the in-game mechanics and better adjust their strategy, whereas casual and newer gamers may get frustrated. As charming the game is in its presentation, do not let it fool you into thinking that this is a game that everyone can get into; it’s best, if possible, to watch youtube.com videos and/or get a trial of the game to try it out.
Closing
Punch Club is a mix of old school Sim/RPG, but with its “Stamina Drain” and punishing difficulty, it misses too many punches to be a sure bet to recommend for your digital library.
