Beast Boxing Turbo (PC) (2013)

Beast Boxing Turbo (PC) (2013)


Relevant Links:
Beast Boxing Turbo (Steam Store Page)
Beast Boxing Turbo (PC) (MetaCritic.com)

Overview:
You are Char, a female human living in the slums who puts on a disguise and enters the world of beast boxing. Can you throw jabs, dodge, throw hooks, block, and uppercut your way to victory?

20151212:
Recently I've been using AStats to look for games to play and the next title that came up was Beast Boxing Turbo.


Getting into the game, I decided to start the game with the difficulty set to 'Normal' - the choices were 'Easy,' 'Medium,' and 'Hard.'

Doing so, it was easy enough to simply upgrade my statistics and get to the first Ultra League opponent without dying. While my choice to upgrade statistics over buying early game equipment was mostly based on intuition, I would stick with that choice because statistics stay with the character, while equipment will get swapped in and out based on needs. As such, it's better to wait until late game to assess which pieces of equipment will be necessary.

Victory!

In any case, after reaching the first Ultra League opponent, I loss several times and finally won when I figured out how to cheese the enemy AI:
How to Cheese the Opponent
Step 1: Build the combo bar by moving left, throw a single right cross, then move right, throw several left jabs.
Step 2: Repeat Step 1 until the combo bar is almost full.
Step 3: Move right, set off the combo bar with some left jabs and just spam the attack button because the energy bar does not deplete when Char is on fire.
Using that same cheese, I easily beat the game with the difficulty set to 'Hardcore.' (I have difficulty using this method on the sixth opponent on the 'New Game Plus' after 'Hardcore.')


After completing 'Hardcore,' I went for the 'By a Hair' Achievement. While difficult to achieve, I did it as follows:
'By a Hair' Achievement:
Step 1: Purchase health and defense-based equipment: Meat Totem +25% Health, Bone Wraps +5% Health, Temple Breaches +15% Def, +10% Health, Unidemon Shoulders +5 Def, +5% Health, Breastplate +18 Def.
Step 2: Improve Char's base health. Assuming the game rounds off the damage dealt by an opponent after damage reduction is applied so that Char's health is always an integer, then I would recommend upgrading Char's base health to 139. With the 45% health boost, this would give Char 201 hit points and three percent of 201 is 6.03.


Step 3: Enter an exhibition fight against Piglas and let him reduce Char's health. At some point, it becomes necessary to avoid Piglas's headbutt. Either dodge it or interrupt it with a jab. At a later point, it further becomes necessary to block Piglas's punches in order to take damage in smaller quantities.
Note: I watched how far the health bar decreased whenever he dealt about 6 damage with his jabs. I used this to approximate how low the health bar had to be.
Remark: In Step 2 I recommended a base health of 139. Under the same assumptions, the next cut-off would occur at 161 health: 162+45% = 234.9, 234*.03 = 7.02.

Stats and achievements when 

Steam: 3.7 hours (total game time)

Thoughts:
Pro:
+ Pretty good artwork
+ Decent (though not great) framework for fighting

Neutral:
~ Simple game
~ Decent story attached
~ Main Story was short - personally I didn't want the game to last longer, but others may find this a con

Coach Piglas gives Char some advice.

~ Somewhat replayable. The game continues to become harder with each 'New Game Plus.' There's also an endless mode (play with an ongoing health bar until you die).

Cons:
- There were times when the game felt as if the difficulty was suddenly increased
- While there are tutorials, the transition from tutorial to actual gameplay was not transparent

Recommendation:
After finishing the game on 'Hardcore' difficulty, I felt it had provided a below average experience. That, however, was likely due to the advantage I gave myself through first playing the game on 'Normal' difficulty.


Upon reaching the fifth and sixth opponents on the 'New Game Plus' difficulty, it became apparent that learning the mechanics could potentially be worth it (if the player's goal is to successfully progress in 'New Game Plus' via mechanics instead of via grinding).

In any case, my opinion of the game has slightly improved and the game might be worth playing if you like games where reading an opponent is the key to victory.

Remark: The game has been compared to Super Punch-Out!! (SNES) (1994), which I have yet to play.

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