Victorious Boxers comes across as not your normal boxing game. It's based on a hit Japanese comic book called 'Hajime no Ippo', and tries to keep that same comic book spirit with its graphics. The graphics do look very nice, but nothing spectacular here. The fighting sequences look the best with the crowd being lively, and rowdy for all the big punches, or super-combos delivered. The punches look like they hurt as well, with a beautiful weight-distributed right cross virtually knocking the features off of your opponent's face. The knockdowns look the best. There's a multitude of knockdown animations, but my favorite is one where you get hit pretty nicely in the body, and your man (or the opponent) appears to do a chicken walk across the ring, and then falls down. That being said about the in-fight graphics, the cut scenes are mediocre at best. The faces look extremely odd in some of the cut scenes, with Ippo's (the first character you'll be) eyes looking somewhat zombie like. No emotion is evident on any of the characters' faces during the cut scenes. I know it's being picky, but seeing as you'll spend a good portion of the game following cut scenes to figure the story line out, eventually the characters will start grating on your graphical nerves.

The sound, on the other hand, is very well done. The ring side sounds are extremely realistic with the exception of a male baritone piping in 'stop' at the end of every round. The punches and hits sound collision-like, with the glove slapping the side of someone's cheek. The crowd sounds very good too, becoming more boisterous as you start laying the wood on your opponent's chin. The music is apt for the game, seeming to match the intensity of the fight at any given moment. There is no talking during the cut scenes, but that's fine, as the grammar is messed up in some spots, and I would hate to hear someone humiliate himself speaking bad grammar during the cut scenes. The sound team of ESP/Kodansha did an astounding job in making the sound of Victorious Boxers top notch.

Nothing too intricate here. You can play a 1 or 2 player Versus Mode, in which the characters are unlocked by defeating them in Story Mode. Story Mode will provide you with countless hours of entertainment, as you eventually play the role of four boxers each vying for the title in their respective divisions. All the main story revolves around Ippo in his quest to turn from a tussle-headed street rat into a boxing champion. You are given the basic arsenal of jab, cross, left/right hook, and some uppercuts. You are also given a special move in the beginning and can learn new special moves as you progress. Ippo and Co. also can duck, dodge, weave, etc. and trust me, you'll need to learn how to do these things real quick, or you're asking to become canvas fodder. As you defeat your enemies (which is no small task), then you'll unlock new characters for Versus Mode, and progress through Story Mode. Your goal is to beat everything thrown at you, 'til finally your gym is the most prominent, and you have unified all the championship belts. When it's all said and done, you'll have 43 playable characters including a grizzly bear!

Victorious Boxers is a patience-requiring game. It starts out easy, but gets extremely difficult if you don't take the time to learn the controller. At first it seems almost like you can go and bludgeon anyone you want, but enemies will get faster and stronger, dodging you like hot potatoes, and leaving a lick across your cheek that will take weeks to heal. Bobbing and weaving are very important, and punching off of defense as well. In the later matches, you'll have to have close to perfect matches because one mistake can knock you out for good. It seems like the higher-level fighters can easily outreach you, and can knock you down with a good combo of punches, while you have to essentially 'whittle' them down the whole fight with combo after combo, and if you're lucky, you can land a hook to their temple, and put them down. After all, luck is a part of boxing, and I got lucky more than a few times, oh and wait until you fight the grizzly bear!

The controls are very responsive, but more often than not, you're trying to punch someone and all of a sudden you're back is turned to them. 'WHAP' is what you get right in the back of your head. Another thing that was kind of nerve-wracking was that it seemed like I was lined up for a good hit, but would miss totally because of the camera angle. There are more than 15 camera angles, but I couldn't find one that was particularly enticing like the default angle, and still I couldn't hit my man sometimes. Other times, I would get behind the opponent, and swing at them and they would dodge every one of my punches with their back turned to me! That sounds like the AI might have some eyes in the back of its head to me! The manual touches upon everything you'll need to know basically, and Victorious Boxers takes up very little memory on the memory card.

Riot Rundown: VB is a very good boxing game, and fun if you like to have a lot of 2-player versus matches. If you're not into boxing, then the steep learning curve might be enough to chase folks away, but all in all, it's not a bad game. A bit on the difficult side, but a game that's very rewarding if you take the time to sit down with it. Please be forewarned, as the camera angles can drive Dracula to drink.