A Button Masher's Dream Game
This is clearly one of those games that when you win, you feel no satisfaction, but when you lose, you feel very cheated. Mostly due to the way the standard rules are set for the game. For one, you have three bouts of 90 second matches, in which either fails to get three knockdowns in that manner, a sudden death becomes the fourth match in which the winner is declared on that specific bout.
What's frustrating about this particular rule set is that the very short time limit combined with the agressive opponents never give you any opportunity to win a round with your control. In other words, in every match I've won, I never once felt like I've earned my knockout. Every facebreaker I've pulled off or any combo I landed made me feel like I was cheating to win.
Sadly, it's the only way to succeed in this game. You can wail on your opponent until his health meter turns red, but since it replenishes each time you don't land any hits, you're forced to resort to every cheap tactic in the fighting game book to get a win in such a short manner.
But, then there's the sudden death round if you fail to knock your opponent down three times. In this round, it's all about who gets lucky first. Imagine the disgust one would feel when during all three rounds he was the dominating force, two knockdowns, in good condition, only to lose the entire match because he got knocked down once during the last round.
Brawl For It All, the game's "career mode," seems pointless. Opponents seem more agressive than normal, one loss can lead the player restarting from the top of the ladder to the bottom again, and offers no real rewards unless they really want new venues that bad. New fighters can be obtained by simply playing exibition matches over and over, and seems to be the only way of ejoying this game. Here, you can customize the speed of punches, the time limit, and the number of bouts. The Fight Night rules seem to be the best, mostly because it's the only mode that makes this game actually feel like a boxing game.
With the cartoony violence and toddler friendly controls, it's one of those games I bring with me when I have to watch over kids. I am seriously confident that I can pop this game in and put the controller in their hands, and they won't once bother me with questions on how to play the game. Because the only enjoyment I can see out of Facebreaker is two people goofing off together trying to see who can annoy each other the most.
Honestly, with the meager content and shallow gameplay, Facebreaker just feels like it should have been a $20 Live Arcade or PSN download instead of a full priced game. If you've played the demo, you've just about played everything the entire game has to offer without warranting such a regretful purchase.