Contrary to popular belief or a well-written Nintendo Switch eShop summary, Boxing Champs IS just a boxing game – a really poor one, even, although I’d give it the slightest of hat tips for its relatively ingenious control scheme that goes by the name of “full punch control”. It’s not, however, the Nintendo Switch boxing game we have all been waiting for. This is not to say that you couldn’t find a moderate level of enjoyment fighting your friends in two-player mode, but the career mode is plain boring and does little to add to the experience as a whole.

Developer: Raz Games

Publisher: Raz Games

1 Hour Played // Review Copy Provided //$14.50

In Boxing Champs, you are able to play in two different modes: two-player and career mode. In career mode, you will find yourself fighting a wide variety of boxers as you climb a ranked-style ladder. Winning a fight in career mode awards you with skill points which can be allocated among six different boxer attributes. This part of Boxing Champs is done fairly well. It gave me the opportunity to customize my boxer how I wanted. There are, however, a few quirks that I found surprisingly bad for the player experience, which I’ll cover shortly.

You get a quick view at boxer stats before each fight. Good luck with this one mate!

Upon first starting the game I created my own boxer. I found there’s quite a large variety of hairstyles, names, and colors to choose from. There’s no possibility for typing your own name, though; you’re only allowed to choose from a large list of predefined names. After I assembled my perfect boxer I was surprised that Boxing Champs lets you max out all the boxer stats. As it turns out, you can only use your personally-created boxer in two-player matches and can’t bring them into career mode. This was the first but not the last disappointing aspect I found in Boxing Champs.

Meet ‘Big Daddy’.

Boxing Champs ranked mode is nothing more than a series of fights on a ranked-style ladder. The only addition is when you get to the top where you’ll have to fight through four different titled boxing champions. The ranked ladder maintains a career-style record so each loss is going to count against your hopes and dreams of becoming an undefeated champion. It comes off as rather boring and simple with little deviation from single-player solo fights.

The flurries of punches feel more like guessing and mashing than actual strategy.

To accomplish your hopes and dreams of knocking out the boxing greats you’ll have to master Boxing Champs‘ unique controls. This is the best aspect to Boxing Champs, hands down. To punch other players in the face you simply use the right stick. Each direction on the stick is a different type of swing. This makes combining one of the 6 different punch types for a quick flurry of punches quite easy. Everything from left and right jabs, hooks, and the all-powerful uppercut can be thrown here. There’s even a block button for those moments when you don’t want to get punched in the face yourself.

You just got knocked the F#@# out!

Boxing Champs looks like a lot of fun and there’s no doubt a few of you out there who might find enjoyment in this title. I’m just not one of those people. There’s simply not enough substance in Boxing Champs; you might even say that this boxer doesn’t have enough stamina to go the distance. The world of the Nintendo Switch eShop is a competitive one and a straightjacket simple game such as Boxing Champs will get buried beneath actually good games with swaths of content. You’ll likely see this one sitting in the sale pile soon enough. Consider it at your own peril but don’t say Nindie Nexus didn’t warn you.

If you’re a Discord user be sure to stop on by our Nindie Nexus Discord server. We talk about a lot of things, not just Nindie titles. I’ve written nearly 40 reviews here on NindieNexus.net. You can check all of those reviews out right here. Maybe you want to see why My Friend Pedro is so badass?? We have a review for that as well.