Punch Club

 PC
User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 165 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 89 out of 165
  2. Mixed: 51 out of 165
  3. Negative: 25 out of 165

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  1. kuehnau
    Nov 27, 2016
    5
    I spent the weekend playing Punch Club. While the game starts off fairly fun, the amount of grinding involved in the game quicly becomes apparent and show's Punch Club's true nature.

    A "boxing sim" in the loosest terms possible. You are a struggling street fighter on a quest to avenge your murdered father. The game is pretty simple, work to earn money, use that money to buy food and    I spent the weekend playing Punch Club. While the game starts off fairly fun, the amount of grinding involved in the game quicly becomes apparent and show's Punch Club's true nature.

    A "boxing sim" in the loosest terms possible. You are a struggling street fighter on a quest to avenge your murdered father. The game is pretty simple, work to earn money, use that money to buy food and access to the local gym and train your stats.

    I wouldn't have nearly as many problems with Punch Club's level of grind if it weren't for the awful decision to include stat regression as a game mechanic. If you are not constantly training your character, their stats will decrease and by quite a bit. Even when you are TRAINING every new day your stats will decrease, so even if you spent 24 hours in the gym, the second it's a new day, you'll lose progress.

    This in itself wouldn't be such a big deal if you could continue to build your stats at a speedy pace, the issue with this game though, is while you will eventually have access to some limited new equipment to train, none of it is ever really better then the older stuff. You'd think as the game progresses, you'd be able to unlock better gear to really get into shape, but that isn't the reality.

    The game takes inspiration from classic movies like Rocky, even going as far as taking names and character concepts from the movies. There's even plot point that closely resembles the films. What the game actually lacks are the amazing movie training montages.

    I think that this was a real missed oppertunity for the developers. There should have been some sort of training montage mechanic that allowed you to really boost your stats. I don't know why they didn't include it, as it would have fit in really well.

    The game also misses the chance to grow your character in other ways. You'll never buy better clothes for yourself, or cars, or nicer homes. You'll always take the bus, or walk and while you may "move into" nice homes, they aren't yours and you get changed by your promoter to live there.

    In the end, while Punch Club has some cool ideas and concepts, it focuses too much on the numbers and not enough on fun and campiness of the actual movie genre they were trying to emulate. If they would have fleshed the game out a little more, added more for the player to do, it would have been much better.    … Expand
  2. Welkore
    Jan 17, 2016
    5
    Poor gameplay that ends in about 8 hours in game, lots of, I'm sorry, but insanely idiotic developer's decisions, no auto combats or force fight finish (that gives you tonns of annoying moments), lack of musics, bad skill system that never gives you that feel "Yeah, I've become more powerful", no in combat controls, a lot of bugs and... I don't really want to continue it, The game is just... meh.
  3. fzzywarbles
    Mar 14, 2016
    5
    This is a game that does so many things right, but what it does poorly is what I remember most. The simple gist is that you are a young fighter trying to rise up to the top of the ranks to find your fathers killer. If that sounds heavy, it's not. The game instead is littered with apt pop culture and movie references from things like Rocky, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and Teenage Mutant NinjaThis is a game that does so many things right, but what it does poorly is what I remember most. The simple gist is that you are a young fighter trying to rise up to the top of the ranks to find your fathers killer. If that sounds heavy, it's not. The game instead is littered with apt pop culture and movie references from things like Rocky, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to name a few. I found them to be cheesy but not unwelcomed. The problem is that those "references" become the story. Instead of meeting Tyler Durden in a cool easter egg like way, he is a quest giving NPC. By quest I mean he offers a ladder based set of fights to partake in. He is only one of many NPC's that offer the same. The fights themselves are kinda broken at least with the version I played back in January. It is far too easy to beat opponents once you learn to exploit simple game breaking mechanics. All in all you have to maintain 3 stats. Each of those stats has a talent tree, and each talent tree has abilities that you use in fights. Early on this was a very interesting system that seemed to offer quite a bit of diversity...After a 4-5 hours in though, you realize it really doesn't. This game is just simply poorly balanced. What held my attention though was not the fighting but the style. It sports a wonderful modern retro presentation with great 8-16 bit style graphics and the music to go with it. Neither are ground breaking, but for people that like those aesthetics it's a fun world to be in. The story though.....I wanted so much to enjoy this story. All the weird people you meet and work for. All the movie referenced scenes. All the zaniness that could have been so much more instead stay well past their welcome. The latter third especially. I honestly almost didn't complete it but I wanted to see the ending! The second to last section of this game is an infuriating waste of time. Having to balance funds, fame and stats to keep going. This is by far the most tedious portion of the game. The game is still lazily trying to be cute with its movie ties but I hated it for doing that while I was just being a robotic button pusher on the other side of the screen. Then I found the ending. Let's just sum it up to say - I wish Bob Newhart would just pop up and tell me it was all a dream. This is such a lazy non ending with absolutely 0% effort or care. It's not funny it's not clever. It's pure garbage and I spent 12 hours of my life to see it. 5/10… Expand
  4. RoccoSalvetti
    Jan 29, 2016
    5
    It reminds very much of Mafia Wars, it is a grinding game with a bit of humour about old action movies. I had kinda enjoyed playing but that is because it as it takes on the ocd side of me and this will not leave me with any nice memory for the future. I don't want to encourage anyone to develop this kind of games, you don't need to be intelligent to beat this management game.
  5. CyberusUK
    May 20, 2016
    5
    I’ve known about Punch Club for a while now, in fact I was one of the first to be able to make a video of it. I loved the idea from the first moment I heard about it, an 80’s/90’s influenced management sim about fighting. It sounded like Streets of Rage crossed with the Sims, to me this seemed like an amazing combination. But in reality I could sum this game up in one simple sentenceI’ve known about Punch Club for a while now, in fact I was one of the first to be able to make a video of it. I loved the idea from the first moment I heard about it, an 80’s/90’s influenced management sim about fighting. It sounded like Streets of Rage crossed with the Sims, to me this seemed like an amazing combination. But in reality I could sum this game up in one simple sentence “Failed to deliver on all the promise it held!” and that would be accurate.
    It would be unfair to say I hate the game, there really is a lot here to like. The visuals are gorgeous and really capture that retro feel, the characters look like who they so often parody and that’s not easy when you choose this 16bit style. The locations are colorful and interesting, again with a huge amount of homages to the films from the 80’s and 90’s.

    The story while hugely cheesy is exactly right, it takes all the best bits of Rocky, The Godfather and many other familiar greats. Whether it be facing off against teenage mutant ninja crocodiles or finding yourself in trouble in little china it’s all here, everything you’d expect and probably lots you’ve forgotten if you were a child of the 80’s.
    This sounds amazing, what could be so bad? That’s probably what you’re asking yourself and it’s something I’ve been asking too, a game with great music, plot and concept could be bad? The answer of course is yes and it really all comes down to execution, you see the game is a huge grind and I don’t mean that figuratively. No, I mean you’ll spend all your time in the gym just to keep your stats up let alone improving them. There’s so much to see in the game but chances are you won’t as one unexpected trip can really put your progress back. If you want to master the game it’s really as simple as train, eat, work and fight, there really is little else if you wish to succeed.
    But it’s a management sim I hear you cry, that’s how they work and you would of course be right. But this game promised so much more, it could have spanned genres and made something amazing. Instead you have very little connection to the main character, not even being able to control them in fights and this is a travesty. A game that’s basis is really about unlocking fighting moves and skills, that gives you zero control of those moves but instead throws them in at random with you left to watch. A frustrating affair and a huge error by the developers if you ask me.
    That of course sum’s the game up, it really wouldn’t have taken a lot to make this a great game. Just make training more effective with less degeneration over time and give the player some control in fights, even if it was just a rock, paper, scissors affair it would have been something. But instead I’ve been left a little deflated at the whole experience, it’s not a terrible game but it’s not a great one. Maybe not even a good one, but passable and nothing more. It’s a shame as there are some great moments here and interesting plot lines, but it’s hard to enjoy as your always planning that next trip to the gym!    … Expand
  6. Izoeros
    Jul 5, 2022
    7
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  7. Mandulum
    Feb 18, 2018
    7
    Five Word Review: Little too grindy, mostly fun.
    Favorite Thing: I like the concept and the off-the-wall story and events.
    Least Favorite Thing: It's grindy. Really, really grindy.

    Date Completed: 2018-02-15
    Playtime: 10h
    Enjoyment: 7/10
    Recommendation: If you don't mind a little (or a lot) of grinding then yeah.
  8. tsakiym
    Jan 27, 2016
    6
    very cool game. on first ours of playing i felt very exited but after several ours i and up just trying to make the same things. (i think the work up decrease system its a litle unfair). love all the quotes of TMNT,Street fighter,HajimeNoIppo,Silent Bob... i think 6 is fair enough for a game that i will not play again
  9. Melgacius
    Apr 3, 2017
    6
    1 – GENERAL

    Punch Club is a Indie RPG, retro style fighting simulator. Seems a bit of a mesh of concepts but the final product is interesting. Sounds and music are very good. That traditional 80s environment very well made in this game, combined with sublime 16 bit graphics and a lot of pop culture elements added into the game. A huge rule in a RPG is a proper story, and in this    1 – GENERAL

    Punch Club is a Indie RPG, retro style fighting simulator. Seems a bit of a mesh of concepts but the final product is interesting.

    Sounds and music are very good. That traditional 80s environment very well made in this game, combined with sublime 16 bit graphics and a lot of pop culture elements added into the game.

    A huge rule in a RPG is a proper story, and in this case I cannot go that far. The story is good enough, but nothing fancy. It gets the job done, and that is more than enough.

    2 – GAMEPLAY

    When you start playing you will be very excited with every new action or achievement that you got. You have to manage when to train, sleep, eat, work, and that seems simple and balanced enough. At this point you do not have many strategical choices when fighting, but you don't care, you are having fun. But then you start progressing, and you get into underground fights, being a hero, having friends and a girlfriend, you have to save to built a gym, and you are always being mugged when you have money in your pocket.

    Then you start to get bored with so much grind. When you start to get annoyed you realize that probably you have made some bad choices when building your skilltree. And at this point I can talk a bit about the replay value. On paper it has a lot. New skills, new fighting styles, new training options... but will you play the game again knowing that you have to grind all the way through all over again?

    3 – CONCLUSION

    So, are you a grinder? Are you ready to work hard to progress very slowly? If yes, I have to say that all that grind makes the game very realistic, but I want to have fun in a game, and at some point Punch Club becomes a full time job, and that's too much for me.    … Expand
  10. mifay
    Jun 29, 2018
    5
    Steam achievements aren't supported in LINUX Ubuntu for this game. In addition, some bug graphics are present for GNU-LINUX.
  11. Soullex
    Nov 30, 2022
    7
    Evet aynı şeyleri tekrar tekrar yapıyorsun ama dövüş kazandığında ne kadar tatmin edici oluyor.
  12. AvtoS
    Sep 11, 2020
    6
    Its an ok game overall with charming old school graphics but its pretty repetitive.
  13. Nekellor_Met
    Aug 1, 2020
    6
    Интересно ровно на одно прохождение. На 2, желание полностью отбивает гринд.
  14. Relenea
    Aug 9, 2022
    6
    Size bir dövüşçü olma imkanı sunan Punch Club, dövüşçü olma yolundaki maceranızı hikayesiyle destekleyerek, çeşitli yapımlara göndermeleri ve oynanış tarzıyla güzel bir deneyim sunmayı başarıyor.
  15. Umur
    Jul 25, 2023
    6
    It has a retro atmosphere to it. Very interesting game play bit boring after 3 hours because o always do the same thing eat, sleep, train.
  16. pkody337
    Jul 16, 2023
    6
    I had a fun first few hours in this game. The retro pixel art style is appealing and clean. Making progress with my fighter was addicting for the first couple hours but eventually it started to feel like a bit of a grind. Especially since stats go down if you don't train them. I would recommend trying this game and seeing if it is for you. For me it was mediocre but I will most likelyI had a fun first few hours in this game. The retro pixel art style is appealing and clean. Making progress with my fighter was addicting for the first couple hours but eventually it started to feel like a bit of a grind. Especially since stats go down if you don't train them. I would recommend trying this game and seeing if it is for you. For me it was mediocre but I will most likely check out the sequel.… Expand
  17. I_am_Nekellor
    Jul 21, 2022
    6
    6/10. Со второго прохождение, расстроился, что в игре, только одна концовка и понял, что игра могла обойтись и даже без минимального гринда.
  18. Hyperfailure
    Apr 29, 2023
    7
    For something I got for free as part of a bundle, this game kept my interest far longer than it had the right to. To the point I completed it 100% on steam.
  19. Noggu
    May 19, 2023
    6
    The game isn't quite delivering, always training and trying to secure your skill points for the day.
    I started a few saves but my interest begin to drop quickly in each of them.

Awards & Rankings

79
#79 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 30
  3. Negative: 1 out of 30
  1. High-Def Digest
    Apr 10, 2016
    60
    While it makes a few missteps in some critical areas, for fans of life sims or boxing movies, this is definitely worth checking out.
    Read full review
  2. Eurogamer Italy
    Apr 6, 2016
    80
    Punch Club is not a game for everyone. Fans of the genre will love it, but a certain repetitiveness makes it not recommended to those looking for adrenaline and action in a videogame.
    Read full review
  3. IGN Denmark
    Apr 6, 2016
    70
    25% point-and-click and 75% sports manager that starts out light-footed and turns into a heavy slugger towards the end.
    Read full review
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