| Punch-Out!! | |
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North American Punch-Out!! arcade flyer. |
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| Developer(s) | Nintendo IRD (arcade)[1] Nintendo R&D1 (Game & Watch) |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Genyo Takeda (producer) |
| Composer(s) | Akito Nakatsuka Kenji Yamamoto Yukio Kaneoka |
| Platform(s) | arcade, Game & Watch |
| Release date(s) | February 1984 |
| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | One player |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system | CPU: Z80 3.072 MHz and a Namco 3-channel PSG for sounds. |
| Display | Two 19" raster horizontal monitors: standard resolution 224×288 |
Punch-Out!! (パンチアウト!! Panchi-Auto!!) is a 1983–1984 boxing arcade game by Nintendo. It was the first in a series of successful Punch-Out!! games that produced an arcade sequel known as Super Punch-Out!!, a spin-off of the series titled Arm Wrestling, a highly popular version for the NES originally known as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, and Super Punch-Out!! for the SNES. The arcade game introduced recurring video games characters such as Glass Joe, Piston Hurricane, Bald Bull, and Mr. Sandman.
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In the game, the player assumes the role of a green-haired boxer, known by three initials the player chooses when the game begins. During matches, the player's boxer is viewed from behind as a wireframe (so the opponents can be seen). The player must time his punches, dodges and blocks in order to defeat the opposing boxer. Hints are given as to the opponents next move by subtle eye changes (the white of the eyes turn from white to yellow), but the player must ultimately predict what moves the opponent will make and react appropriately.
Once the player defeats the last opponent, the opponents repeat. On each successive round the opponents are harder and quicker. The player only has one round to land a KO. Technically, there is no TKO element for multiple knockdowns, but the "3 knockdown rule" is utilized nonetheless; no boxer ever gets up from his third knockdown. Additionally, a win by decision is not possible; an automatic loss occurs if time runs out. In the event the player loses, the computer controlled victor will taunt the player and the corner man for the player will try to entice the player to play again ("Come on, stand up and fight!") via the game's distinctive digitized speech. Players are only allowed one continue per play through. Like many games made during the Golden Age of Arcade Games, there is no actual ending and continuously loops until the player loses.
The game is a modified upright, and was unusual in that it requires two monitors, one atop the other, for the game's display. The top monitor is used to display statistics while the bottom one is the main game display (similar to Nintendo's Multi-Screen Game & Watch titles and the Nintendo DS). Apart from this, the game is more or a less a standard upright. The game has a joystick and three buttons. Two buttons control left and right punches, one for each arm (denoted by "Left!", or "Right!" when hitting the head, or "body blow!" when hitting the body with either arm). A large button on the console is pressed to deliver an uppercut or right hook, though the blow can be delivered only if a certain number of normal punches are landed on the opponent, so that the "KO" indicator on the display reads full. When the indicator reads full, it flashes and the corner man's digitized speech encourages the player to either "Put him away!", or "Knock him out!".
Genyo Takeda from the Integrated Research & Development Division was the lead developer, and Shigeru Miyamoto designed the characters. It was released in 1983 when Nintendo was making several coin-operated arcade machines. Nintendo had an excessive number of televisions after the success of the Donkey Kong series, basing the purchases on the estimate for the demand for arcade games. They were offered a proposition to make an arcade game that uses two televisions. They chose to make a boxing game, which utilized the ability to zoom in and out of an object. This was a feature more commonly found in games that involve flying such as flight simulators, but chose boxing because they thought it would be a different way to use it.[2]
Miyamoto and Takeda discussed an earlier arcade game created by Takeda called EVR RACE, a horse racing game from 1975, which used a video tape. It was a mechanical game, and was hard to maintain after it was released and had many breakdowns. While they were developing Punch-Out!!, people were saying that laserdisc was the next big thing. However, the maintenance would be very big if they released them worldwide. Despite this, domestic sales people wanted something like laserdisc, so they tried to find if it could be done with semiconductors. Miyamoto explained that that's why they were interested in the substrate that could do zooming and show pictures at a similar size as a laserdisc. However, he called it a "rascal of a project", explaining that when he made Donkey Kong, he had to animate each rolling barrel pixel by pixel. When he asked if they could use processing on the hardware side to rotate the image, they said "it's not impossible", changing from "it can't be done."[2]
He stated that a lot of new things were being created, but most of it was still under development. They told Miyamoto that they could zoom in or rotate the image, but not both at once. They were planning on using the substrate as well as the two televisions, considering lining them up side by side and making a big racing game, but it was not powerful enough to accomplish this, only able to expand one of the images. Takeda stated that if they could only expand one image, it could be a person. This eventually allowed it to become a boxing game, with one opponent, deciding that one monitor was good enough for a boxing game. They were stuck at that point, but thought that a boxing arena has big lights and banners hanging from the ceiling with things like "World Heavyweight Title Match" written on them. The game would also feature several meters, so they thought it would be more fun to have two screens instead of one.[2]
During the same year, an arcade sequel to Punch-Out!! titled Super Punch-Out!! was developed and released by the same company, which has fewer, but tougher boxers to fight against. In 1985, a spin-off called Arm Wrestling was developed and released in the arcades only in North America by the same company, which is based on real arm wrestling. In 1987, the growing popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) caused the development and release of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! for the NES console to happen. Several elements, such as opponents and their names, were changed for this version. In particular, professional boxer Mike Tyson was added as the game's final boss to promote his success in becoming a champion. The home game's graphics and gameplay are also significantly different, to the point it cannot be considered a direct port of the arcade Punch-Out!!. In 1990, when the contract licensing the use of Mike Tyson's name in the console version expired, Nintendo replaced Mike Tyson with an original character name Mr. Dream, re-releasing it as Punch-Out!! (a.k.a. Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream). Like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream bore no further resemblance to the arcade version. During its release, the Game & Watch game called Boxing was re-released as "Punch-Out!!", which used the front box art of the Mr. Dream version as its package art. Sometimes it was released with different cover arts. In 1994, a Super Nintendo Entertainment System title, Super Punch-Out!! was developed and released. It was far more faithful to the arcade stand-up gameplay, however, it was not a direct port either.
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