Showing posts tagged NES
Little Mac vs. Goliath: the Dual Themes of Punch Out
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, the classic NES game, has a rather clear theme to the core narrative that the player experiences. This theme is that of the underdog, the classic sort of David vs. Goliath theme that someone small can defeat someone that is much larger than them. But it also shares another theme with the David and Goliath tale, which is that intelligence trumps physical strength.
Now what is interesting about the underdog theme of Punch Out, is not so much the theme itself, but rather how the entire presentation of the game is based around reiterating it. Nearly every aspect of the game visually is about making the player feel small, and making the player’s opponents feel larger than life.
This is not just due to the size of Little Mac’s sprite compared to the sprite of the other boxers, but also in the amount of space they are able to move in. The visual language along with the game design decisions for Little Mac’s movement are about making the player feel confined, almost claustrophobically so, in order to make them feel smaller and weaker compared to their opponent.
For example as Little Mac you as the player have very little area to move around in, and very few options for what you can do in that area. Your only defensive moves are to either dodge to one side or the other or block. Visually when you dodge you don’t appear to move very much from where you are normally standing, so even when you dodge a punch it seems as if it is just missing you. If you choose to block, Little Mac puts his hands up to cover and protect his head. This gives him the appearance that he is almost cowering from his opponent.
In comparison the opposing boxers that you are fighting as Little Mac are not only much larger than your character, but they also use a lot more of the screen space. They often have moves that cause them to move around the ring a lot or use a lot of the ring space. This makes them not only more visually impressive, but also adds to the player’s feeling that they are much stronger than their boxer. Especially in comparison to what Little Mac can do.
Now the importance of all of these design choices that are there are to make the player feel like the underdog, which puts it in their mind that they are going to lose. This means that when the player does lose that it isn’t as big of a deal and so it doesn’t feel as punishing, but also makes it so that when the player succeeds in defeating a boxer that the elation and feeling of accomplishment is much higher.
Built on the foundation of this theme is the theme that brains beats brawn. In the story of David vs. Goliath it was David’s use of technology, (aka intelligence,) that defeats the giant warrior. In Punch Out the player doesn’t level up Little Macs stats to make him as strong as the other fighters. The player defeats their opponents by recognizing patterns in how their opponents fight, and finding ways to take advantage of that.
And even if the players themselves are not able to figure out the patterns, they are able to acquire that knowledge from others. Which back when the game came out meant either from one’s friends, or from a gaming magazine, but in either case it showed the power that knowledge has, because even getting a small clue about the way in which one of the boxers fought could make a fight with them much easier.
This version of Punch Out is the only version that is visually set up like this. All of the other games have you seeing the other boxer from the perspective of Little Mac. And the other boxers while still bigger than Little Mac, they are not as unnaturally large as they are in comparison to Little Mac in the NES version of the game.
And while the perspective is a visually interesting one, these other versions of the game don’t have as strong an underdog theme, because Little Mac feels more comparable to the other fighters since they look more like him. This in turn makes the successes less memorable and less enjoyable, while also making the defeats much more frustrating.
