For those who are familiar with Punch-Out, or they have at least heard of it once or twice in their lives, they would know that the series is primarily centered around boxing. After all, that is what most of the games are based on, and that is the primary gameplay that every single game is centered around, which makes sense, considering how much it has worked across all of the games. However, what many average Punch-Out fans probably don’t know is that not all of the games are centered around boxing. There was one game that was released near the beginning of the series, one that many fans have forgotten, or one that many haven’t heard of, that has absolutely nothing to do with boxing whatsoever. That game would be… Arm Wrestling. Wow, what an enticing title. I mean, Punch-Out sounds exciting, it gets you pumped, it gets you ready to punch the nearest Glass Joe right in his glass jaw! But here, it’s just… Arm Wrestling… they really didn’t give a shit, didn’t they?

Like many Punch-Out fans, I had no idea that this game existed until once I started reviewing the Punch-Out games on this website. After posting the review of the original game, I went to see what else this franchise had that I hadn’t known about, and I saw this game, which immediately caught my curiosity. I mean, again, everyone knows Punch-Out solely for boxing, so could the series really veer off into another sport and make it work? Well, I mean… sort of. It is a very appealing game, and one that I had a good time with, but at the same time, it is one that I wouldn’t recommend the hardcore Punch-Out fans to drop everything they are doing to check it out. It’s not bad by any means, but for those who liked the simple, yet complex gameplay that Punch-Out gave them, then you probably aren’t gonna find this to be that enjoyable.

The graphics, of course, are fantastic, and I would argue that, out of all the arcade Punch-Out games, this one looks the best of them all, there really isn’t any music tracks at all in the game that are original, but there are plenty more voice lines to be heard, and they sound great for the time, the control is pretty simple, yet it can get a bit to get used to it, especially when they stop telling you how to react to enemy patterns, and the gameplay is also pretty simple, but it is too simple for its own good.

The game is… well, it’s an arm wrestling game. You try to slam down your opponents arm onto the table before they can slam yours down, but there is a little more thrown in make it somewhat more interesting, such as needing to react to certain enemy movements to faze them to get an advantage over them. Like with the Punch-Out games, this game doesn’t really do anything to reinvent the sport of arm wrestling, aside from the small changes it does implement. Also like with Punch-Out though is what ultimately draws you into the game as a whole would be the personality it has.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is without a doubt the best looking of the arcade Punch-Out games, and it also is the most expressive. The colors that can be seen everywhere, the characters that you face, the expressions they make, the sounds they make, it is all very appealing and it gets you sucked in to taking them all down… for the most part. And speaking of characters, this is probably the most bizarre bunch of characters that we have seen in any of the Punch-Out games, which is saying a lot, considering a lot of the characters are already pretty “out there”. Of course, you have your typical big, buff, racial stereotypes, which come with every Punch-Out game, but then you have the last two opponents, with one of them being a girl with a robotic ape, and even Frankenstien… no, I am not joking. I’m not exactly sure who at Nintendo thought up these characters to put in an arm wrestling game, but either way, I’m glad they did, because they gave me a good laugh, though I am not sure how well they gel with the rest of the characters in the series.

That, however, doesn’t really concern me as much as my main gripe with the game: the gameplay. It’s not necessarily bad, and like with Punch-Out, you won’t be playing for very long if you know what you’re doing, but the problem is that it is overall extremely mindless. Yes, the gameplay for Punch-Out isn’t that complicated, but there is at least some strategy in there: making sure to dodge correctly, which direction to dodge, when to land hits, WHERE to land hits, reacting to special moves, it is a lot more complex then you would think. Of course, with this game, there is a level of complexity to the matches, but they really aren’t anything all that complicated, and most of it just devolves into you constantly mashing the left button, hitting the right button every so often, and maybe hitting another button when the game wants you to. Once again, this isn’t flat out terrible, and I did have a good amount of fun with it, but after a couple of matches (especially when you lose), you start to get sick of it.

Overall, despite having a colorful cast of challengers, the character and graphics that Punch-Out thrives on, and not too much of a playtime to feel like you wasted your time, Arm Wrestling just feels like a mindless, not well-fleshed out attempt at taking the series to another sport. It can be fun for a little bit, but if I am ever going to go back to any Punch-Out game, it is definitely not gonna be this one. I would recommend that die-hard Punch-Out fans give this game a shot, but for those who are just casual fans of the series, then there is nothing here to see. So, with that all being said, I know they will never bring Punch-Out back ever again, but if they do, what other sport could they implement it in? Wrestling? Foot racing? Ball-related sports? There’s so much potential here, the possibilities are endless!

Game #315