Pato Box Reviews

I think I paid about £1.90 for this game, and I think anyone who's a fan of Punch Out, arcade games, or ducks should play it. I really enjoyed my time with it, the difficulty is just right, it's got a good sense of humour, and it has great replay value if you want to go and S Rank bosses in the arcade mode. Would fully recommend to anyone.

The game is just poorly designed in general. The art style makes it impossible to dodge your opponent's attacks during fights, and the tank controls for movement outside of fights are frustrating to deal with. Everything between the fights feels like forced padding, and the fights themselves aren't very fun either.

Good punch-out inspired game. + Good presentation and humour. + Good and challenging fights, requiring you to memorize the patterns and react in time. I like how some of the enemies will fake out some attacks to keep you paying attention. + Classic punch-out formula was used in interesting new scenarios (chef fight is a highlight). - The parts where you are out of the ring are ok to add some variety but are easily the worst part of the experience, They can go from monotonous (sewer level) to bad platforming/timing challenges (chef level). - Disliked the last boss fight as well. My recommendation to anyone playing this is try the story mode first, if you end up not liking the parts where you are out of the ring and dont care about the story, then go play the arcade mode, it contains the bests parts of this game imo.

I want to start off and say that my reviews are judged on 'base price' of the game. In this case the current price is 15$. I say that yeah, I think this game would be worth 15$, however 'to who' is the question. Let me try to help any of you who are on the fence about this game right out the gate. I'll tell you a few things the game has that might attract or repel you. -The main character is a man with the head of a duck. -The main gameplay is reminiscent of 'Punch out' (And maybe a lil bit of 'Crossed Swords' in there) -There are 3rd person walk around sections in the 'story mode' version of the game (but there is also an arcade mode if you want to skip that) -The story is a Bizarre mix of typical Hollywood 'take down the big bad by fighting all his lieutenants and then the big bad himself' and 'We really like ducks a lot'. (The story was stupid IMO, but I enjoyed it's presentation and the ending had the right kind of charm to make me feel satisfied) -Everything is in black and white. Everything. -There's really only two actual boxing match opponents (3 if you count the boss. I don't) -The music is mostly dance music. (I loved the soundtrack) BUT MOST IMPORTANT. PAY ATTENTION. -The gameplay has very heavy trial and error elements to it. The last talking point there I just want to make sure you understand. Some of the early fights you get hints how to beat the bosses and they work pretty good. However there are two bosses in this game that are just 100% trial and error and nothing else. The +/- boss and the secret boss. Normally I abhor trial and error, but for this game it somehow felt fine. I think it was because of the music. The music is just so good that learning the fights was enjoyable because you keep hearing the soundtrack and learning more and more. If the music sucked I think I would've quit the game. In fact I think the music is the best part of the game really. The art style is pretty great and the controls are pretty responsive, but gameplay isn't exactly ground breaking. The 'man duck' thing is just sorta ok. Another thing that's odd about the gameplay is that your HP 'kind of' regenerates. The way it works is that you don't heal at all, but you'll eventually reach a point where your vision dims and the next hit K.O.s you, but if you live long enough then your HP goes back to full. This leads to really odd play decisions because if your vision dims and you get an opening on your opponent you can stun them. Then you just sit there and wait and delay till you're healed. Not only that, but if you are hurt (indicated by your character being beat up) it might be in your best interest to take hits right before an opening so you can stun them and delay their counter attacks until you've healed. It's really strange and I've never seen a health system like this before in any other game (I didn't play punch out ever). Finally, I don't know if this is how it's always been, but the game doesn't have tank controls. I saw a review saying it does. It really doesn't. I just wanted to mention this because it bothers me how terminology over the years is slowly being butchered to the point you can't really figure out what's what. Like how people use the term rogue-like incorrectly in spite of the fact the game just has procedural generation and permadeath elements. It just bothered me. And that's really it. While the game isn't huge, it's somehow filling for me. It was a unique experience that turned out to be way better than I thought it would. I got it on sale and definitely feel like I got my money's worth. I think this game gives me good reason to keep believing in my tastes and realizing that not many people share the same interests as me. I'm just really happy to have played this game.

Warning, before you buy this game, a bug that's happening with me personally, in Vorutki fight it's impossible to punch all 3 grenades if your fps isn't locked at 60 keep that in mind if you are going for 100% this game, now for the review. This game is such an underrated gem, it is a worthy spiritual successor from Punch-Out and innovates in almost everything although i would like an option to play without health regen, it can be rage inducing in some parts but if you are willing to have pacience and learn enemy patterns Pato Box will not be ultra difficult for you. As for its story Pato Box is a masterpiece, the game does great presenting a narrative and backstory of the Deathflock Elites in terms of who are you fighting against and why, it makes me think where all the reviews or video essays of people analysing this game story and all of these characters? there is literally a goldmine here. Congratulations to Bromio and 2think! this was an amazing adventure :D

UPDATED AS OF 4/16 It's got some Punchout blood running in it's veins. But it goes a step beyond, and not only offers a story, explorable maps ( with hidden goodies along the way ) the fighting itself is a huge evolution to the Punchout formula. You attack left, right - upper / lower , you can dodge left and right , and block . Sounds about right, and then you fight a boss that has you dodging lasars, destroying machines and all the while, actually still boxing against the foe. One of the bosses has you fighting a Chef, requiring you to hit food / objects at him - in the pot, etc. Lots of neat little interactions in the battles ( which are quite hard ) UPDATED- The devs have added windowed options, and resolution options. The exploring segments are a bit slow, as Pato Box has a slow move speed. It's not the focus, but it can be a little wearying. Pros - The visual style is very neat- A Film Noire- esque style, with bold contrasting lines and shadowing. The fighting is very , very fun. The bosses are all inventive, and they all have a rematch feature - you'll want to play against them more - they are genuinely fun to fight. The humor is on-point, the story is pretty outlandish - and it's charming as hell.

I got to the casino and the struggle for 300 coins alone was enough to drop the game. Call me bad but that's what happened. If there's a way to easily get 300 I'll try it again for the boxing but even then that's not the greatest. The overworld brings it all down and the boxing lacks Punch-Out's charm and especially audio telegraphs, fighters could stand out from the background (and Pato) more...it has potential but it ain't there.

Goddammit I wish I liked this more, but unfortunately visual clarity and fluid animation are very important when it comes to this kind of game. Fighting a boss that randomly decides to go into the background and hit me for 30 seconds with an attack I can't counterpunch with no reward afterward, only for RNG to give that attack twice in a row is not fun. The fights aren't particularly fun, and then the secondary puzzle sections aren't either. I wish it had focused more on one or the other.

Just not fun. Really disappointing because I've been interested in it since it came out. It's unique and obviously the developers put some thought and effort into it. I gave it an honest chance. Unfortunately the gameplay is poorly executed, and it's just not fun.

What the duck? Pato Box starts off with a lot of charm. Monochrome comic book aesthetics and a player character that is literally a duck head on a boxer. It's beautiful. 5 stars. Then the gameplay starts. Pato box alternates between two styles of gameplay: a boxing game loosely paying homage to Nintendo's Punch-out, and a 3D exploration type mode. The boxing gamemode has potential but comes across as just annoying in practice. Backgrounds are distracting, high-damage moves are poorly telegraphed and often require special responses that aren't told to the player. This inevitably turns what would be fairly thrilling fights into trial and error without any enthusiasm or tension. I stopped enjoying these pretty fast. The exploration gameplay is just flat-out not fun. the Monochrome 2-D sprites in a 3-D void only made comprehensible as a maze pulled straight from a doom level by white line detailing, all complimented by music that gave me a headache. You're forced to navigate using behind-the-back unresponsive tank controls, which while tolerable in exploration and story-building become insufferable when these segments become filled with traps and hazards. True to its spirit as a boxing game, Pato Box made me want to send my fist straight through my monitor. I hate to say it for a game with so much clear potential, but this isn't a match worth betting money on.