2nd most influential fighting game of all time, what game beats it? Read on to find out.
Besides the characters the best feature of this game has got to be the play control, the punches and movements of your character "little Mac" are spot on perfect which is important due to the difficulty you will run into later in the game, in fact the control in this game is so good Nintendo could not follow up with as good a quality in the sequel "Super Punchout" (I did a side by side comparison tonight and it was no contest).
The game has an almost magical feeling to it as your character is about half as tall as his smallest foe, I cannot describe the joyous feeling you have as your short 85 pound character beats the living stuffing out of his foes, you can almost feel the upper cuts and hooks being thrown left and right and all this is unmatched in 20 years of fighting games regarding how fighting games were influenced save for one title, that honor is retained by the legendary Street Fighter 2 Arcade, but that is another story.
The Graphics look dated by todays standards but you will barely notice halfway into your first fight, the sounds are good by the standards set 20 years ago and the music is classic and immediately recognizable by anyone who has ever played this game, the controls are very simplistic, one button for left punches and one for right, holding back on the control causes Little Mac to block and holding forward allows you to make upper face punches, you can also dodge from left to right, although simple in theory the nature of your opponents causes you to use all movements at your disposal to keep in the fight.
I would rate this game only behind Super Mario Brothers 3 for my all time favorite game on the NES, if you have not played this game look for a copy of it online as well as an old Nintendo, you will be glad you did.