It's a weird feeling to appreciate a glitch. But it's a worse feeling to actually be bombarded by glitches that cause that to be the case. I've always been a boxing fan, as many know. And I have followed a few boxing game franchises over the years. Back on the SNES, I played the Foreman Foreal game featuring George Foreman. I played some of the Knockout Kings series, which was, I believe the precursor to the Fight Night series. I really started playing Fight Night with the 3rd installment. That's the one that had Oscar De La Hoya on the cover. The combat system was tight, and exhibitions were able to be very exciting.
The last 2 installments of Fight Night- Round 4 and Champion, were where the series arrived. This is where the dual analog stick controls were set. Multiple fighting games began using this to this day. They were responsive, and allowed for very realistic matches. The character creation system was very in depth. This allowed gamers to create any fighters that were not already included in the game. The key aspect of it all, was the character differentiation, and accuracy of statistics. Characters like Marvin Hagler and Lennox Lewis, are exactly as they are in real life, from their power to they quickness, to their chin. This is the reason Fight Nights's main supporters are boxing fans.
Following up the series is something that just wasn't done. Games like Fight Night don't have support, being that most gamers are put off by boxing for various reasons. Fortunately, a company named Vivid games released Real Boxing for IOS, Android, and Playstation Vita. The game has the look, with great visuals and crisp textures. But the first thing I noticed about the game, was the punching technique. It is sloppily animated. This was off putting, but did not kill the game for me. The game has a tutorial set up to introduce you to the mechanics when you start, after the high quality opening movie. If you are familiar with the Fight Night series, you will yawn through the tutorial.
After starting the main game, you'll notice there is no story mode, as you may expect. There is a career mode, multiplayer, a gym, and a quick match mode. There aren't a great amount of options, but there is a store to purchase a limited supply of hairstyles, and tatoos. The first thing you will do, is jump into career mode, where you start as a rookie in Rooster Tournament. You have headgear in the outset, as you go through what amounts to the amateur phase of your career. These matches lead to an eventual amateur tournament, each phase of your career is like this, with an intermediate, and Legend phase to your career. Before each fight, you are given a random task, such as winning by uppercut by the second round, to be awarded an upgrade point and an extra 100 dollars. The money is a joke, but the point is very needed. After each match you are also awarded a fight purse. You take this to the gym to purchase points for your character, to upgrade strength, stamina, and speed. At the gym, you can also engage training sessions, such as jump rope, speed bag, and heavy back drills. These exercises build up Perk points, to unlock perks for your fighter to bring into a fight, such as a stamina bonus for jabs, assist with getting up, recovery between rounds etc. Only 2 perks can be equipped to bring into combat, but they can make a difference. Now onto the gameplay. Oh boy.....
Like I said, the gameplay mimmicks fight night. The controls are similar, but not the same. In Fight Night, you can parry a punch to the body or head, and block to the body or head. You could also load up on any shot you chose to, from a body or head hook,to an uppercut, to a straight. Not so in this game. You can get close to your opponent and slip shots to the head only, or block all shots by holding the right shoulder button. The Left shoulder button slips punches. Even the commentary refers to the right cross as a right jab, which is part of the problem. There is little to no differentiation between the punches. You can't throw harder shots at will. Every punch is weak, unless it's thrown after slipping, during the counter window. According to your stamina, each punch drains you and does less damage, the lower that your stamina is at the time. After sustaining enough damage, your fighter will be in a dazed state when near being knocked down. At this time, your opponent will have unlimited stamina as they pursue you, and you will have a limited opportunity to hold on, which initiates a minigame, with a lever, where you battle to regain some of your health as a prize. If knocked down, you press both shoulder buttons rapidly to rise to your feet. In the early outset, the game makes sense to a degree. Albeit the flawed system, I still began to enjoy it, especially as the matches began to get deep. But onto the issues.
As the game progresses, you will start to receive very stiff opposition in the latter stages of the intermediate tournament. This is when you will be briefly taken aback. This is when the glitches unveil themselves. To make the game challenging, the CPU becomes exceedingly strong, and completely abandons the limitations of stamina, while your remain in reality. One thing I like about this game, is that the flow of the fight feels very real, perhaps even more than some Fight Nights. In other boxing games, they do a bad job of managing life and stamina for 12 round fights. I often felt like every fight in Fight Night had to end in a KO, and it mostly did. However, if I can say one thing about Real Boxing, it is that fights can be short or long. It is flawed in the fact that you really can't get your opponent out in the very early rounds due to how it is set up. But it does feel like managing a championship level fight. Towards the end of your career, the KO's that you think will keep coming, just stop. First, you'll school a few fighters pretty easily in the Champions Bracket, but be unable to put them away, and then you'll begin surviving for 12 rounds and taking decisions against monsters. It is intimidating. Where the game fails yet again, is the fact that the CPU is incapable of outboxing you. They will box effectively in spurts, only to set up devastating offensive counter punches. If you can survive these later fights, you will assuredly win by decision, rarely, if ever, dropping a round. I would like to have had some close decisions where I had to worry. But in all honesty, only 1 or 2 of the Fight Night games ever achieved that. Most times, boxing games have an animal of a CPU who tries to keep it from going the distance, while boxing poorly and recklessly.
But the issue with the system that can really mislead you is the counter system. Many times, in combat, I would be boxing well and slip a punch perfectly, only to have my counter slipped, and then I was blasted for huge damage. Even when I managed to do what I call a "Re-counter," the CPU would just slip it again and blast me anyway. The only safe way to counter, I found was to go to the body, but that has much less effect, which sucks. Rarely, if there is a great stamina disparity between you and the computer, you can attempt a counter with a strong jab or short straight. But this is better used to set up the glitch as I will mention later. Then when the CPU decides to dial in for a KO, they walk you down and begin winging punches with no regard for stamina, which you supposedly calculated coming into the fight. Suddenly, you will be unable to block most of it even while holding the block button, which made no sense to me. Then, when you slip for a counter and go to throw, your fighter will whiff the punches each and every time when it's critical, sometimes even the ones to the body. It got so bad at a point, my character's arm contorted and folded back into his own body to avoid landing a counter punch when I was in danger. All of these glitches disgusted me, because they felt like a last ditch effort by the developers to make the game competitive. Then I found a savior..
There is a glitch that eluded the fools who developed the game. I call it the Shell Glitch. When engaging in exchanges, there is a technique to cause the CPU to shell up. You slip a head punch, then counter with a combination to the head, which has to be well timed, to avoid being blocked or ReCountered, finishing the combination with an uppercut. The uppercut is the only punch in the game the does some kind of consistent and significant damage. This has a percentage chance of causing the CPU to shell up, and if you jump back at this time, they will stay in the shell for the entire round. Honestly, with some of the monsters you face in the Legends bracket, I needed this glitch. Round after round, in this bracket, I would land an average of 5 punches to my opponents 1, while being economical with my energy and usually throwing less punches than my opponent. And all of this meant nothing. I would pepper my opponent with shots, and then eat one shot and be in serious trouble. That felt wrong, and it was wrong. Even the damage system didn't agree with the game. Usually around the 7th round, I would have hit my opponent so many times, their face would begin to show signs of serious damage, yet their health bar at times didn't move. One of the last opponents in the game actually healed as we fought. It's hilarious. I'll never forget the last boss, a jiggaboo named Jarvis Mayo. I still remember his blonde cornrows. He disgusted me. He had insane speed, and his health was god-like. Already, you are at a deficit going into most of the last fights. Each opponent at the tail end of the Legend circuit, has 97 or above stamina, strength, and speed. Even spending your money wisely and training your behind off, you just won't be in their league. I was at about 93-88-90 in the last stretch of the tournament. Most opponents, I tactically broke down for decisions, but could get their respect with combos. The best way to survive in a fight is to do some kind of damage, but when I faced Jarvis, I had a hard time because I couldn't damage him at all. Even though I never lost to him, in the 3 times we fought, he just bothered me due to how he emasculated me. Even when I rocked him, he would laugh and walk me down. Beating him felt good, because I completed the game, but it annoyed me that I couldn't knock him out.
After the career mode ends, some sponsors donate 50,000 dollars to you for your performance, and I used it to max out my character with one thing in mind. I met Jarvis again in an exhibition, and the game further proved what I said. Jarvis can not be knocked out in 12 rounds. The game has no 15 round option. When I faced him last, I was 100-100-100, and he is about 99-98-98. Somehow, he still did more damage than me and had me in incredible trouble in the later stages of the fight. In fact, he started doing the cheap counter so much, it kept me from pressing the action for a potential knockdown. I hate Jarvis, and I don't really like how incomplete the game is.
Soundtrack-wise there really isn't anything special about the game. There is one song that plays in the opening, and that's about it. It's a fun game to play and pass the time in all honesty, especially if you're in the mood to just KO someone. But as a complete boxing game, it is typical of a phone app, and I just wish developers would care to release a full fledged console boxer for the Vita. Here' hoping. Score 6.5/10
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