Ring King: 1HN Smashfest

In the late 80s, my friend Ed and I both had 8-bit NES consoles and we used to trade games from time to time. If you've read some of my past reviews, you're probably familiar with Ed. Anyway, one game I acquired in a trade with Ed was Ring King, which was an unusual boxing simulation at the time. Ring King was published by Data East for the NES, and unlike Nintendo's in-house Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Ring King had two features that stood out: after every victory, you received points that you could allocate between Speed, Punch, and Stamina; and, it had a password system that lets you continue where you stopped during a previous gaming session. Of course, because of the infamy of Mike Tyson and the rosiness of nostalgia, Punch Out is much more widely hailed as a classic, while Ring King has slipped into obscurity.

Despite being overshadowed, Ring King is a nice little gem in the rough for the NES. The beauty of sports games on the NES was that all you needed to learn was the D-pad and the two buttons -- that's it. Ring King was no exception: one button punches, the other button dodges, and the D-pad moves your boxer. Double-tapping the D-pad toward your opponent causes your boxer to rush forward, and pressing toward your opponent for a couple seconds causes the boxes to clench so that they can gain a bit of energy back.

In Ring King, there were two basic in-fight strategies: either back away and rush in with a few punches before backing away again, or stand toe-to-toe and mash buttons until someone falls. The key point was how you allocated your points before a fight. If you put most of your points on Speed, you could land flurries of punches, but with little effect; if you put most of your points on Punch, your blows would do serious damage, but would land rather occasionally; and, if you concentrated points on Stamina, you could take a lot of punishment, but not dole out much. Ring King compelled the player to spread his or her points wisely and a balanced approach was often well-rewarded.

There was nothing much to Ring King but that, yet it is light entertainment that won't fail to amuse and frustrate. Pay particular attention to the animation when a punch lands; it's almost as if the opponent's (or your boxer's) face is smushed before elastically springing back into shape. Okay, okay, boxing is a violent sport, but that animation is quite funny, actually. Can I think that?