Champions Forever Boxing
System: TG-16
Release Date: October 1991
Developer: Distinctive Software
Publisher: NEC
Genre: Fighting
Put on the gloves and take on the greatest fighters of all time in Champions Forever Boxing! Foreman, Frazier, Holmes, Norton, and Ali are going to be your challengers in your fifteen year career. So float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Get your punches down and work on your footwork. Can you get the title and defend it until you retire?
Give your boxer a name and choose from three avatars. Then step into 1968 for the Trauma in Da Bahamas with George Foreman! Each fight is scheduled for 12 rounds, so get ready for the long haul, because these fights don’t finish quickly. You fight horizontally, but can move around the entire ring, switching sides as you, well, move around. There are two meters to keep your eye on. The strength meter drains as you get hit. The stamina meter drains as you throw punches and if it hits zero, you can’t punch. When your strength hits zero, you hit the mat.
Button II throws a jab. You can move around while throwing these. They don’t do much damage, but I found throwing a lot of them was good strategy. Other punches can be thrown by holding Button I and pressing different directions. Left and right throw hooks, up throws an uppercut, and down is a shot to the body. The hooks and the uppercut have really limited range, so I relied on the body shot. You can block by holding the Run button and up or down. Rounds are three minutes long, but time runs at one and a half speed, so it’s really 2 minutes in real time.
Between rounds you have two choices, refill your strength and stamina meters, or increase the power of a punch. This is why I threw a lot of jabs. They don’t drain stamina very much and you can avoid a lot of your opponent’s shots. If you don’t need to refill your strength, you get to zap theirs instead. I quickly settled into upgrading my jab and body shot. Dancing around the ring and landing punched won me every round I fought in. If I could get the timing right, my strategy was to land a couple jabs, move up, and as they follow, hit them with a body shot. Then move down and hit them again. Then back and forth while it worked.
Drain enough energy and they waste their between round powerup on the refill, while you get stronger. Knocking your opponent down refills your strength and stamina when they get up. Getting knocked down, you have to tap up repeatedly to get off the mat. You get some energy back, but not to full. I played seven years, winning the title in my fourth fight and defending it three times. There were eight more fights in my career, but I decided to move on instead.
Graphics: 2.5
It doesn’t look bad by any means. Is it great? No, but it’s good enough.
Sound: 2.5
The thuds and dings and voice samples are fine. The song between fights is fire.
Gameplay: 2.5
I don’t know if the hooks and uppercut are viable, and if not, that makes gameplay variety low.
Difficulty: 2.5
I don’t know if I figured out the winning strategy right away or if it’s hard to lose.
Fun Factor: 3.0
I liked beating up on all the legends and wouldn’t mind finishing my career to see if it got tougher.
Overall Rating: 2.6
Champions Forever Boxing earns a B-. This is a pretty entertaining boxing game that I can recommend. Give it a shot.