‘Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions’ Review (Nintendo Switch)
Developed by the team who brought us Creed: Rise to Glory for VR platforms, Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions is the second collaboration between Survios and MGM Studios Inc., and brings the Rocky/Creed franchise bang up to date in a brand-new knockout arcade experience that sees players fight as one of 20 iconic characters from the Creed and Rocky movies.
I have to make the distinction between Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions and Fight Night as this game feels less like a traditional boxing game – one you might be a fan of – and more like an old-school 3D beat ’em-up like Tekken, Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter. A real pick up and play affair rather than the sim-like nature of Fight Night. Which I’m totally fine with TBH, give me something I can jump right into and I’m a happy bunny!
Speaking of jumping in, that’s definitely something you can do with Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions – so much so that the first time I played the game I intuitively knew what to do, how things worked etc. The developers have clearly learned a lot from other fighting games and so, if you have experience with the genre, getting started and – more importantly – enjoying Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions will be a breeze. Well, I say that… Given how intuitive the controls were and my previous experience with the fight game genre, PLUS the great way the game eases you into its control system, I ploughed through the game easily. TOO easily it seems. I got all the way to a showdown with Drago in the game without even taking much damage injury or being defeated. That fact I got so far on the first go had me worried. But then…
Woah. It’s as if Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions was lulling players into a false sense of security. The difficulty level when facing Drago seems to ramp up 100-fold and he beat me quickly in the first round before I figured how to counter/move against his attacks in the second, picking up the win. Then… it felt like Drago had LEARNED from what I had done in the second round and once again gave me a hard time; ultimately giving me my first defeat. My first defeat in the very first time I’d played the game mind you!
Now I might have made Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions sound too easy. Don’t get me wrong, this is not the type of fighting game where button mashing will win the day. Oh no. As I said earlier, the game does ease you into the control system – which involves not just using various punches but also dodges, blocks, dashes and even super-punch style moves (told you this was more like a fighting game) and some of the moves also cleverly COUNTER your opponents move: for example, a super-punch can counter, nay even stop, your opponents super punch if timed perfectly! What’s also cool about Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions is the fact combos feel so, so satisfying. Especially when you’ve used a combination of button presses and joy/d-pad moves to do so!
Where Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions does have issues is in the difficulty. As I stated previously, I ploughed through this game with ease until Drago. However, my first thought was to increase the games difficulty level so that getting to Drago was harder, would afford me more experience with the combat system etc.; because I found it incredibly easy to learn how to defeat opponents by spamming the same move over and over on a lot of occasions. NOPE. Instead ramping up the difficulty took all the fun out of the game. There’s a HUGE jump between difficulty levels, even between the “easier” settings, that made me go back to the difficulty I actually found TOO easy, instead making the game harder for myself by changing my own way of playing rather than relying on changes to the AI.
As if the play style wasn’t different enough from boxing sims like the aforementioned Fight Night, the graphical style is too. Gone is any realism and in have come caricatures, cartoon-like representations of the characters from the films like Rocky, Drago and Creed. What’s funny about playing Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions on the Nintendo Switch is that it feels very much like another famous Nintendo boxing game, Punch Out! Not a bad thing really…
Ultimately Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions is a decent, if sometimes difficult, boxing game that is easy to play but, as the cliche goes, hard to master. If you’re willing to learn all the moves, perfect your fighting style and up the difficulty, there’s a lot of game here for your money but more casual gamers might want to wait till the game drops in price or is in an eShop sale!
*** 3/5
Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions is available now.
