Beast Boxing 3D review

When I was little, I used to play Punch Out!! for the NES. I played for hours… days… memorizing my opponent’s patterns, dodging and weaving, and watching Mario count to 10. Since then, I’ve played Super Punch Out!!, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, and the new Wii version. When I first opened this game and saw a more monstrous, creative, artistically updated version of Punch Out, I almost cried from the nostalgia punch in the nose. Beast Boxing 3D, created by Goodhustle Studios, is available on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for $2.99 and is also available in Lite.

Artistically, this is a fantastic depiction of the theme. You play a human disguised as a monster to take part in a monster boxing league. All the different enemies look absolutely great. Tree monsters, beautifully well done animal/human hybrids, and strange aliens are all wonderfully textured and they stick to their own themes of attacks, just like Punch Out!! I wished for more enemies however when I had to repeat matches in order to gather more money in preparation for big fights since there are only really about 9 or 10 enemy types. The 3D is extremely good and their animations are silky smooth. The backgrounds range from Photoshopped pictures to fantastic paintings, though most of the time it’s just a fuzzy blur of colors since your main focus is your opponent standing in the ring with you.

Combat feels tight and precise. You can dodge by tilting the iDevice, punch by tapping the screen, throw a hook by swiping your finger from left to right or vise-versa, and uppercut by swiping upwards. You block by holding both fingers on the screen and trust me; you’ll be doing this for a majority of your matches. This is essentially a Boxing RPG, so of course, you have levelable attributes for strength, speed, and defense. Gain money by beating the blue snot out of your opponents and get even stronger for championship bouts and challengers.

There is even an interesting storyline involving your slow climb up the circuits and championships. Combine the nice story with excellent gameplay, and you have yourself one heck of a contender. I really look forward to more enemies, maybe some different special attacks you can use, challenges mode, and maybe some customizable gloves so the player can improve damage against certain enemy types? There is less pattern memorization, a kid/non-gamer friendly ‘casual’ difficulty level, and extremely well done 3D design. Until now, I have never played a Punch Out inspired game for the iPhone, so I appreciate Beast Boxing that much more. Thanks for the trip back into the past.

Here is a video demo of the Beast Boxing 3D app on the iPhone

AppSafari Rating: 4.5/5

AppSafari review of Beast Boxing 3D was written by Joseph Ho on November 23rd, 2010 and categorized under Action, App Store, Fighter, Fun, Games, RPG. Page viewed 7040 times, 1 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.