AMN’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews
What the Game’s About
For anime fans, this is the best version of the Fighting Spirit anime boxing game you’re going to find. But for those of us who dislike anime, this is the first Wii boxing game that makes use of the motion sensing ability since Wii Boxing. And it’s much better than Wii boxing in that regard.
What’s Hot
For the Anime fans, you’re going to find this game takes you farther than the previous game, Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit in the story of the main character Ippo. It goes all the way up to his fight with Jimmy Sisfa, which is about volume 72 of the manga series. The art style is very reminiscent of the anime and manga, even showing the pencil shading lines you find on manga pages.
For those who don’t like anime, this is the best boxing game you’re going to find on your Wii right now. It’s not as simplistic as Wii Boxing, nor as complex as a Final Fight Wii would be (if it existed, that is). Victorious Boxers: Revolution offers a diverse set of control styles, two of which use the GameCube or Wii classic controllers. Of course, the best option (and our favorite), is Control Set #2, which uses the analog stick for movement and buttons for defense, but swinging motions for various punch types. Jabs, straights, hooks, and uppercuts can all be pulled out at the proper moment easily. Various anime style super punches can also be summoned with special motion button combinations that are a snap to pull off, so there is a great variety in fighter movements. You will get a workout, especially on the later fights, as they can be intense and exhausting.
What’s Not
If this game has a major failing, it’s the atrocious voice acting. And we do mean atrocious. These people didn’t just phone in their work — the phone line was broken and there was tape over the receiver. To top it off, this game must have started life as a PS2 game then got ported over late in the development cycle. While the controls are fine, the graphics are terrible. The character models, which are designed to look like anime pages, are fine, but everything else looks as poor as aPS2 game, and it all looks especially awful on a much more powerful system like the Wii. Thankfully, you can skip over any cut-scene and get straight to the action. A minor sin, though a forgivable one, is the lack of online play. Sure you can play one on one on the same Wii, but it can get annoying that you can seek out other Wii fighters and test your skill. Its default difficulty is not that challenging, but putting it on hard should make up for it. Matches can also be annoyingly short, even later on, as neither fighter can last more than four rounds.
Final Word
Victorious Boxers: Revolution is just the kind of game the Wii was made for. It’s surprisingly fun and easy to play, provided you skip the cut-scenes. Just grab a copy, invite some friends over, and waste more than a few afternoons mastering the sweet boxing science — Japanese style. Just don’t expect it to the be the definitively boxing game for the Wii, but rather think of it as a solid game to hold you over until that game comes out.
