When playing Facebreaker, one is constantly bombarded with the uncanny feeling of deja vu. It isn’t just because the player might have played other boxing games in their time. It’s more because Facebreaker, in many ways, tries to channel the same kind of humor, lightheartedness, and above all accessibility as the classic fan favorite Punch Out. The similarities throughout are apparent from the get go. The visual style is undeniably similar, the control scheme is simple and easy to pick up, and the humor is grounded in an over the top aesthetic that can’t help but remind you at least little bit, of such foes as Bald Bull, King Hippo, or Super Macho Man. That being said, in the end it all falls short. The imitation doesn’t stand up to the classic, which poses a problem for a next-gen game when it’s being compared to an NES title.

The first thing that stands out most certainly is the game’s style. Facebreaker is loaded to the brim with a style that is unabashedly humorous. It takes nothing seriously and at the same time manages to illicit only a few laughs. There are some fun moments; the advice between rounds (”If you stun your opponent, beat the crap out of them”) is sometimes amusing, but all too often the game relies on over-the-top racial, national and gender stereotypes. You have a rather standard crew of opponents: there’s a Shaft-esque black guy, a ditzy girl, and a crazy Russian amongst others. The problem with them all is that beyond the trademarks of their type, these characters have little soul to endear themselves to the player. Their reliance on well-established jokes renders them none of the uniqueness of the characters that have permeated other games. They are good for maybe a quick laugh, but the depictions are so stale it’s hard to find them at all appealing in the long run. Furthermore the game’s style is inconsistent at times. Where the cartoon graphics depict what one might think a family friendly game, the presence of things like a busty, over-sexualized ring girl points in a contradictory direction. It’s a juxtaposition that many parents might not appreciate.

The style itself aside, the game isn’t quite horrible to play. The controls revolve around only a few primary buttons and combos are limited and simple. The problem is that while this control scheme is easy to pick up, the gameplay degrades its usefulness. The gameplay to some extent tries again to mirror that of Punch Out. It succeeds off and on. As in Punch Out, a number of the computer-controlled foes follow set rhythmic patterns that work well with the control scheme and can be dispatched with a little skill and patience. These however are punctuated by fights of maddening difficulty, in which you can never seem to dodge, parry, or even punch fast enough to match your opponent. These fights often leave the player mired in button mashing. If you lose consistently enough, the game will you give you a hint as how to defeat each opponent, but even these are of only limited use against the harder foes. There are some fun moments; scoring a titular face breaker is ceaselessly satisfying, but it is insubstantial and eventually, Facebreaker becomes just too frustrating to bother much with.

Exacerbating this problem is the fact that the game’s play modes are limited. You can jump from the title screen right into a quick fight if you want, or you can tackle the pseudo-career mode, but neither offer much bulk. Online modes of course extend things a bit, but the gameplay suffers from the same problems online that it does in the single player. Victory will often go to the person who can push the buttons fastest.