Category: Nintendo News

Nintendo’s Punch-Out!! was one of the most iconic arcade and console fixtures of the early ’80s, migrating from coin-op to the NES, where it was remoulded as Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and bestowed a Rocky-esque narrative around up-and-coming challenger Little Mac. Since Super Punch Out!! and the Wii’s original entry, however, it’s a series that, in stark contrast to its emphasis on fast footwork, has slouched for modern movement. And, with Nintendo reluctant to step back into the ring, Argentina’s Purple Tree Studio is now fixing to become the new victor of an undernourished franchise.

Thunder Ray’s musculature is cut and framed entirely around the Punch-Out!! formula, to the point that anyone claiming Nintendo’s cease-and-desist manoeuvres are overly aggressive might want to reconsider their stance; they’re still a far cry from toppling Capcom from the shutdown podium. There is little in the way of modern bonuses or extra modes here, just three difficulty settings to work through that save your progress and allow you to go back and revisit previously felled challengers. This works well if you’re struggling on a higher difficulty, allowing you to drop back to Rookie settings, for example, to learn the patterns more effectively.

The game’s presentation is superb, with a graphical style that really pops, flows, bobs, and weaves, full of artistic expression and stylistic grace. It combines its darker narrative with comical animation very effectively, and while some may feel the Flash in it, most will no doubt enjoy its thick, cartoon weight and ultra-violent affectation. The colours are rich and there’s a dab of filter grain added to the backgrounds to enhance the flavour. It’s bloody, too, Thunder Ray’s face pulping up, blood spattering the ring and screen extremities, and your adversaries literally exploding with Hokuto no Ken inspiration in a fountain of viscera.

The story goes, told through narration over pretty panel art, that Thunder Ray, an undefeated champion on Earth, is suddenly zapped across the universe to battle opponents in an intergalactic ring. The roster is drawn from champions across the galaxy, of all shapes and sizes, opening up a whole new creative angle on the Punch-Out!! formula. These foes don’t fight human-fair, rather using telekinetic powers, shields, and mighty powered-up supers to smash you into the countdown phase. It’s the Space Jam of the Punch-Out!! world, and more thematically accomplished with it. The structure of the game is as one would expect, except there are no bouts, as such, rather just a face-off that results in a knockout for either you or your opponent. Knock them down three times and victory is yours; see yourself toppled three times and it’s back to the title screen for another try.

The game expands on Punch-Out!! where controls are concerned by having four attack buttons: left and right low blows and left and right head punches. We’re yet to figure out why this was necessary, as most of the game revolves around the classic dodge and retaliate system, and, seeing as there isn’t much difference in which standard attack you choose, the four buttons instead of two overcomplicates things slightly. There’s also a charged punch which deals slightly more damage, but is slower to start up, engaged by holding a shoulder button. While these charged punches are useful for felling your opponent more quickly, they need more tactical strategy to land, and should be threaded between a volley rather than used constantly.

Directional controls allow you to dodge left and right, duck downwards, or block, each having use in avoiding damage from specific attacks. And, as is expected, each opponent is navigated by learning their attack repertoire, seeing the cues, and responding with the right defence. Successfully avoid a regular, mega, or mammoth attack, and there’s a window of opportunity to smash back, and, once your super bar is topped up, you can unleash a devastating finisher of your own. This super-attack gets stronger as you progress through the game, bolting on additional bars. Play a game of patience and skill, and you can charge up three in a row for a major face-buster.

Thunder Ray is a short game reflective of its very reasonable $14.99 price. It might seem tough, but considering your title is only eight fights deep, it’s over fairly quickly. What initially seems overly challenging actually reveals itself to be entirely less demanding with a little practice. Some matches, even halfway through, seem to buck the difficulty curve, and you can find yourself in surprise and unexpected victories. To this end, Thunder Ray is not a Nintendo game in execution: it doesn’t have the same kind of exactness. That’s not to say it’s not well-formed; Purple Tree Studio’s new twists work well; there’s just more leeway in it than with Punch-Out!!’s utterly clinical demands. The enemies are inventive and occasionally monstrously huge, requiring you to identify dodge openings and strategies, but they can also succumb to a fudged and cheap early win. This is, of course, less commonplace on Beast difficulty, the toughest of the three options.

We went back to the original NES Punch-Out!! for comparison. While the movement there is knife-edge taut, allowing you to land a blow and almost instantaneously dodge with a sense of blistering speed, Thunder Ray’s animation frames are more elongated and don’t allow for frame-cancelling. That means when you’ve thrown one to the head, you need to wait a split second to return to neutral before making your dodge. Now, this isn’t being overly critical, or even critical at all: it all still holds together very well in its assembly; but, if you’re wondering why it doesn’t have quite the same snap, this is the culprit. The enemy attack animations allow plenty of time for you to dodge, the only issue is knowing when that is, especially with very drawn-out animations. It’s not always clear, for example, when Mr. Pega, the sixth combatant, will actually strike after he coils up like a spring, expands and rotates, and flops in your direction. To that end, it’s quite a different dodging experience to the likes of Piston Honda’s flurries or Nick Bruiser laying a sudden smackdown on you. Additionally, while it’s heavy hitting, your super attacks don’t feel as solid or satisfying, somehow, as those in Super Punch-Out!!, when the jaw felt truly busted by that charged-up gunshot blow.

Finally, when your energy is low, the screen zooms in and the colours bleach to signify your fading energy. During this state your health slowly regenerates and you can come back out of the daze if you can hold out for long enough. It’s a novel idea, but we’re not convinced the zoom-in entirely works. It brings dramatic tension, but the cropping of the screen and the whiteout of the colours make it altogether more difficult to make a comeback. Unless you know your opponent’s movements down-pat (and, if you do, it’s unlikely you’ll be in this state at all), it can be hard to make a recovery from this position later in the game.

Conclusion

Thunder Ray isn’t perfect, but it is very good. The feel of the blows and the creativity of your opponents are very nicely executed. It’s missing the minute precision of Punch-Out!!, but it’s close enough, and while you can occasionally win matches at higher difficulties with a certain amount of luck, you’ll get the most from the experience by mastering each opponent and earning a true sense of boxing accomplishment. Being able to toggle between difficulties and going back to previous opponents is great, and the entire thing feels polished and flashy. It could have been more elaborate, featuring more modes, and bonuses, but, as it stands, it’s a brief but solid tribute for fans of Punch-Out!! to enjoy knocking into next week.

Your character wakes up in a sarcophagus. At first blush, you seem alone as you guide your cloaked character, wandering through gorgeously rendered arches and passageways. At last, you chance upon another person. Finally! A chance to absorb some exposition about what the heck’s going on. Maybe you’ll even get a quest!

Not quite.

They say… something before pointing to a nearby lever. It’s not that you don’t understand what they’re saying, in fact, you’re pretty sure they’re asking you to pull the lever, but you can’t read what they’re saying. Then a subtle UI flair at the top of the screen prompts you to press ‘X,’ where these foreign characters pop up in a neat row. You write down what you think these characters mean, but still don’t feel absolutely certain. After another exchange, your character pulls out a journal with drawings that confirm your suspicions; now you just need to line up the drawings with the characters. Maybe it takes a try or two, but you put what seems to mean ‘open’ next to a drawing that shows an open door, and the other two characters with their respective drawings. Suddenly the characters in Sennaar’s journal flicker and change color with a satisfying chime, confirming your suspicions.

It’s a deceptively intricate magic trick that never loses its novelty through Chants of Sennaar‘s runtime (19 hours for us) that makes you feel like an archaeologist or anthropologist piecing together the building blocks of a forgotten language. While it hinges on other environmental puzzles and interactions, Chants of Sennaar shines in its ability to essentially teach you a new language through almost nothing but context clues.

Chants of Sennaar is an impressive, if steadfast, adventure through a richly defined, stunning world whose languages, cultures, and secrets are the key to uniting five peoples divided by an evil force. Instead of just figuring out which switches to press in the proper order or pushing a box in the right direction to open a door or bypass a set of obstacles, you’ll be tasked with deciphering a foreign language in order to determine which switches to flip or crates to move. It’s an impressive exercise in anthropological puzzle design that’s also seriously challenging and often frustrating.

While it’s difficult to discuss the premise of the game without diving into its sudden, plot-heavy third act, suffice it to say that you’ll find yourself exploring five different civilizations in Chants of Sennaar. Each civilization has its own defining traits, cultures, and characteristics. One might be orderly and strict while another might be simpler, but staunchly devoted to its religion. They all have their own art, music (all of which is excellent), fashion, architecture, and sense of purpose. Most importantly, though, they each have their own language. Each civilization’s language reveals a lot about its culture; the alchemists might have individual words for specific elements, while artists have words for more abstract concepts.

Each language has its own distinct feel but follows its own rules. Not in the grammatical sense, but in the actual design of each word. Words for person, warrior, and priest may all be variations on one specific shape or outline because they’re all related to people. Verbs might all be anchored by an underline or curve. Developer Rundisc clearly went to great lengths to not only create languages and cultures that added context to these mysterious runes but to make them follow their own rules.

Outside of its anthropological puzzle-solving, there’s also some pretty standard puzzling here; it’s not bad, but nothing we haven’t seen dozens of times over. Press a switch at the right time, turn a statue to face the right direction, and so on. That stuff normally wouldn’t be very interesting, but slowly uncovering how and where to solve these puzzles by learning a language breathes new life into even the most rote puzzle idea.

The problem is Chants of Sennaar’s ability to thread the needle properly. This game makes very few affordances in its design and, therefore, can force you to spin your wheels for a long time before you’re rewarded for your effort. If you misread even one context clue, that can throw stuff off later on, which can really undermine its sense of play and progression. On the other hand, many of these moments feel more like a deliberate choice motivated by artistic vision rather than a qualitative fault that might prove divisive. That said, its quality of life offerings don’t lay the proper foundation to reliably bolster Chants’ lofty—sometimes top-heavy—aspirations.

This sensibility permeates its gameplay. Trying to assign an abstract idea like the word ‘not’ to a drawing sounds easier than it actually is. Words like ‘fear,’ ‘you,’ or ‘transform’ make for difficult translations, which can tack on a lot of trial and error (and backtracking) to something that should be brief because the context of a situation can be so subjective. It’s one thing when a person points at a lever and says “Open door,” but when someone says, “Can I help you?” it’s not always as simple as it might sound to parse that out in the broader context of a conversation or environment.

Sometimes it’s a small touch; like the lack of permanently accessible maps for any of the game’s levels, for example. While Chants does present the player with maps in the context of its respective levels, you can’t pick them up and carry them with you. So, unless you memorize every room in every level, you’re going to be running back and forth between your destination and rooms with maps in them. Considering the game has a bespoke mechanic for picking up and examining items, the lack of something as simple as a paper map is frustrating. Plus, Sennaar always has their journal on hand, so the lack of a drawn map as you progress is questionable.

That frustration compounds in Chants’ endgame, where intimate knowledge of its various levels and areas is non-negotiable. There are dozens of such rigidities in Chants of Sennaar. While the map issue is one of its most pointed and significant, other small issues come from its highly bespoke sense of puzzle-solving that prioritizes narrative, world-building, and immersion over play. There’s no log containing recent conversations, so if you need more context to better suss out what a specific character means, you need to find the sign, NPC, or book where you initially encountered it, which means you need to backtrack to do so.

This is all in service of Chants of Sennaar’s impressive, dogmatic dedication to putting you in its world without making compromises. In trying to put you in this world, Chants might push some players too far. But those who persevere are going to be rewarded for busting their brains. It operates on a similar push and pull that you could expect from classic adventure games like Grim Fandango or The Secret of Monkey Island. It can be really frustrating, especially if the game’s rigid logic doesn’t click with you. In that regard, it’s a great option for a more low-key co-op game. Sitting down to play in a new session might enlighten you to new ways to approach a particularly difficult translation, so introducing a completely new mind to the mix might add some interesting depth.

The only hindrance that doesn’t feel deliberate is its home on Switch. Because you’re encouraged to take notes on each character you encounter to try and guess what it might mean, you’re likely to spend a lot of time using the Switch’s native keyboard. While there are some ways to bypass the frustrating aspects of typing on the Switch (or any console), it’s annoying to constantly have to deal with the constraints of typing with a controller unless you’re playing in handheld.

Conclusion

Chants of Sennaar is as defined by its peaks as its valleys. For every moment of mind-blowing, brilliant puzzle design comes an inversely frustrating moment stymied by ’90s adventure game logic. The game’s ability to teach a player aspects of a language is awe-inspiring, and its way of guiding players along with as little information as possible is intensely rewarding—when it works. Even though it isn’t for everyone (or consistently excellent), it’s constantly impressive. If you’re interested, we recommend checking out the free demo for the game that’s available on the eShop, which will help let you know whether or not this game might be up your alley.