Punch Club Review (PC)

good
key review info
  • Game: Punch Club
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Punch Club ring action

Punch Club might be interpreted as a sly commentary on the difficulty of sticking to a long-term gym schedule on the complex decisions that a fighter needs to make when he steps into the ring with a new opponent.

The protagonist is driven by his need for revenge to live in a crap apartment and to consort with some unsavory characters while spending most of his time either earning money through low-level jobs or moving between activities that make him more powerful when it comes to brawls.

The actual fights in Punch Club are both complex and often frustrating, but they do manage to offer plenty of interesting choices for those players who are willing to spend the time to try out the various combinations and find the best mix to take out their opponents.

Punch Club was created by Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild and is offered on the PC and mobile devices.

Story

Punch Club tells the story of a fighter who has seen his father murdered by a shadowy figure and is now trying to balance the complexity of life with the need to train hard to become good enough to avenge that monstrous act.

Fight Club, The Teenage Mutant Turtles, Rocky and more are referenced as the narrative progresses, but the development team is wise enough never to focus on any of the classic movies, instead taking small bits from each of them to enhance the atmosphere and the motivation for progress.

Punch Club does not feature very well-developed characters or complex decisions for the protagonist, but the simplicity of the universe it creates means that it's very easy to focus on the gameplay and on the various goals that the main character has, like getting to the top of a ranking or securing enough funds to make sure that he can create a gym inside his home.

Punch Club strike
Punch Club strike

I would have liked a little more in the way of options when it comes to interactions and dialogue, but the experience manages to push a lot of nostalgia buttons, and that makes the title especially appealing to children of the '80s.

Players should make sure that they check out the special mission offered by the pizza place for one of the most interesting cameos in the game as well as a very challenging battle.

Gameplay

Punch Club is a management game at its core, but it also has a relatively complex turn-based combat system, encouraging the player to try a variety of strategies to overcome the various challenges.

There are two major resources that players will have to juggle at first: money and time, with the protagonist having to work for days at a time to secure currency that he can use to procure food, which in turn will fuel his workouts.

These take place inside a gym that also features the link to the local professional fighting circuit and players will have to get into the ring as quickly as possible to push the story forward and find out who took out their father.

Punch Club also features an alternate dirty fighting option, a Fight Club that takes place in the back of a bar and a shady mafia boss that offers alternative missions, all of them centered around hand-to-hand combat.

The protagonist needs to develop his strength, stamina, and agility by training for long stretches of time and each fight he takes part in, regardless of whether it is won or lost, generates experience points that can be used to open up new moves or special traits.

The training needs to be varied and executed when the character is, at least, a little happy with his existence to be effective, and it's pretty hard to make money, upgrade characteristics and even engage in the limited romantic side plot.

When a fight, either sanctioned or not, takes place, each of the involved characters can deploy some moves, based on their core abilities, and some modifiers for each of them.

Both hit points and energy are important and a successful fighter takes into account both his unique skills and the way the enemy is prepared to tackle the fight, with a pause offered after each round to allow players to make adjustments.

I chose to initially focus on strength and the Way of the Bear style, which increases delivered damage and can be used to lower the stamina of the opponent in order to make him less able to execute his attacks.

There are also options to focus on agility or stamina, and they open up unique approaches, although regardless of the initial choice, gamers will feel some frustration because some opponents are clearly overpowered when it comes to their abilities, modifiers, and perk combination.

I found that the best way to approach combat is to target an opponent's energy reserves early on, to limit his options when it comes to attacks and special modifiers.

An empty bar means that the character will be easy to knock down and more predisposed to combos, making it relatively easy for the player to then focus on hit point depletion to win the fight.

The biggest problem with Punch Club is the three-day space between fights, which is too short and forces the player to make limited progress on his stats if he also wants to eat, make a bit of money or interact with some of the cast of characters.

It would have been great for the developers to offer a slider to move the time between battles from 3 to 4 or even five games, making the entire progression a little faster and limiting the amount of grinding that's required.

Played in small bites, Punch Club is engaging and challenging, but the frustration it can generate during longer sessions means that replayability is somewhat limited.

Graphics and audio

Punch Club uses very retro graphics, with limited details for the characters and the environments and a focus on making the user interface relatively easy to understand and to use.

The world of the game is small, and the locations each have a unique character and some defining uses, with the gym being the place where most gamers will spend the most time, watching the same fitness enthusiasts execute the same moves as the protagonist tries to enhance his stats.

When it comes to customizing character powers before an actual fight, the developers do a good job at organizing them and showing players how each is influenced by the development path chosen for a character, while also offering plenty of details about the opponent's capabilities.

The music is also designed to evoke the soundtrack of movies from the '80s and to resemble that of classic arcade brawlers, and it manages to underline the fights very well, although it can become a little repetitive for gamers who spend enough time with Punch Club.


The Good

  • Fight management
  • Pop culture references

The Bad

  • Cam become repetitive
  • Frustration associated with the fights

Conclusion

Punch Club is yet another example of how small teams focusing on engaging gameplay can offer interesting long-term experiences even if they do not feature impressive graphics or stories.

Lazy Bear Games has succeeded in creating an experience that at first seems a little barren and relatively easy to understand and to game, but the various limits imposed by the team means that it quickly becomes hard to increase stats in a consistent manner and to make progress.

The fights, which initially feature only three moves and almost no strategy, also evolve into complicated beats that require gamers to study the abilities of each opponent and to find counter-strategies that can take him down with minimal loss of hit points and energy.

Punch Club can become repetitive when played for hours at a time, but the experience works well for gamers who want to solve the combat puzzles and create the best possible fighter.

story 6
gameplay 7
concept 9
graphics 7
audio 7
multiplayer 0
final rating 7.5
Editor's review
good
 
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