Review: Funky Punch

Developer: Solus Games

Publisher: Solus Games

One of the Minis platform launch titles, Funky Punch is a 3d Beat-em-up sim, and the only one on the platform which resembles something akin to Tekken or Street Fighter in a remote way (at the time of going to print). Although it looks quite pleasing on the outside, it’s a huge let-down once you actually consider you just bought it.

It’s not actually a bad game, it just suffers from awkward and laggy controls, awful graphics, uninspired music and sound effects; poor, stereotypical and mildly offensive characters; terrible gameplay and a ridiculous level of difficulty.  Oh no, wait, I’m getting mixed up, it IS a bad game.  Incredibly bad.

It’s like a very bad joke: the graphics look like a cheap, early PS1 rip-off, the animations are jerky, uninspired and most of them don’t even exist (the characters just seem to float around, standing stock still, unless they’re flailing wildly in a vain attempt at a pathetic combo against an enemy just out of reach), and at best seems like a pre-alpha test code for something that should be a whole lot better.

The stages feel too small, as the characters move unbelievably quickly, so you find yourself at an invisible wall within seconds.  Add to this the unusually large character models for something which is based off the Japanese Anime/Manga subculture, Chibi-style, and you feel incredibly boxed in and longing to escape as quickly as possible.

The “Funky” part of the game seems to come from all over: the vaguely funky-jazzy hip-hop “soundtrack”, the racially stereotyped characters, the bad odour that wafts up 30 seconds into the game, the incredibly poor execution, god-awful effects, and the control scheme which is flimsy, difficult, awkward and only works half the time; in short it’s not a classic arcade-style beat-em-up.

It promises much, but ultimately fails to deliver on account of it sucking so much on so many levels.  Though, praise must be given for the general idea: it’s not a bad premise; some kind of music-based superentity bestowing “powers” to 12 poster-children for “out-there” urban ideals.  What you actually get is a very poor cookie-cutter mishmash of the beat-em-up paradigms, and four of the characters are the exact same looks, with other character’s powers. Talk about lazy.

Shockingly bad, Funky Punch should come with a warning label: Unfit For Human Consumption, Avoid At All Costs.  Worst of all, it’s just not fun.  At all.  Even kids will hate it (and I’m assuming that it’s aimed at kids, because it’s pretty brainless – not that I’m saying kids are brainless, just that devs and publishers seem to think they are and treat them as such).  Even for a mini, it feels like you’ve been cheated when you play it, it’s terrible.