Thunder Ray

I sincerely hope this reaches the team behind Thunder Ray. I’m writing this as someone who has wanted a new entry in the Punch Out series since I was a kid. There’s clearly a lot of ambition here, and I truly believe the game has MASSIVE potential. However, in its current state, it falls far short of what it could be, and that’s incredibly frustrating to experience as a player. I came in excited, but ultimately, I walked away really disappointed. This feels like a project that would have benefited enormously from more playtesting and refinement before release. To start with some of the smaller issues: The voice acting raised some concerns for me. I don’t want to spread misinformation on the web, but from what I’ve heard, it sounds very much like AI-generated audio. If that’s the case, it’s honestly quite distracting, please get rid of it, I'd rather have no voice acting than have the TikTok TTS coaching me. Visually, the game can also be overwhelming in ways that don’t enhance gameplay at all. There are excessive flashing lights and photosensitive effects that feel unnecessary and, at times, make this game frustrating to stare at for long periods of time. Especially the effec…

This game has an interesting concept, as the boxing boss rush is something new, but there are some flaws, which I'll mention. 1. The game is too short. It took me 2.5 hours to play, which is incredibly short for a game that costs $14. For this amount of content, the price is too high. 2. The combat system is quite unusual, especially for a boss rush, but it has two major problems. The first problem is the types of attacks our character uses. On paper, it looks cool because you can hit the stomach or the head, but this system doesn't really exist. You can hit the head or the body, but it has absolutely no effect. There is one boss who is only vulnerable to head attacks because he hovers over the main character. You can beat the game by spamming Y on the Xbox controller or triangle on the PS controller. The second combat problem is that the enemy attacks are terribly unclear and blend together when there are many of them. It's not a huge problem, but it is annoying. Often, you simply have to guess what the boss will do, which would make sense in, for example, Souls-like games, where bosses have predetermined combos, but in this game, the enemy attacks with random attacks in random …

Visually, it looks great. Gameplay-wise, it's just kind of frustrating and un-rewarding. As far as I can tell, the opponents will always go through the same sequence of moves each time unless they're performing a counter. The attack visual cues of the opponents do not give you any real hint as to how you're supposed to avoid them, so it really is just trial and error. The tutorial doesn't make this easier, as it tells you that you can duck or press up to block to avoid "high attacks" but there are several attacks where only one will work, and other attacks still where you block by pressing no buttons, something the tutorial doesn't explain. I'm also fairly certain they're using some sort of text-to-speech, AI voice. While that's not a complete dealbreaker, it's a bit disappointing considering they clearly put time into the art and animation.

cool game

The problem is that the enemy attacks are terribly unclear and blend together when there are many of them.

This is a “Simon Says” type game. You need to “read” your opponent’s moves to react properly. The challenge is that recognizing those moves is a trial-and-error learning process, since each enemy telegraphs their attacks differently. I’ve never really played a “Punch-Out” style of game before, and I can say it’s not my cup of tea. It’s not specifically a problem with this game, I just don’t enjoy this genre. I can’t seem to find the fun in it.