Super Punch Patrol from Bertil Hörberg is a fun budget beat ‘em up on Nintendo Switch. Learn more in our Super Punch Patrol review!
In Super Punch Patrol from indie dev Bertil Hörberg, you will take on an old-school infused beat ‘em up presented with the same hand-drawn art style from the two Gunman Clive games. With crime and violence on the streets at an all-time high, Chief of Police Anders Punch decides to take extreme measures to bring some much-needed justice to the city before it’s too late. Do you have what it takes? You’ll have to punch and kick your way through this challenging beat ‘em up that pays homage to classics in the genre such as Final Fight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, Renegade, and Double Dragon.
For this action game, you’ll get to select between three different characters: Nils, Selma, and Anders. Nils and Selma play in a similar way, with Nils being the more balanced of the two, while Selma is a bit quicker on her feet, but deals a bit less damage with every punch and kick she lands. Chie of Police Punch Anders acts as the tank of the group, moving slowly around each area, but packing quite the punch. Oh, and he can grab enemies, jump into the air, and then piledrive them onto the ground!
You can play the game in one of four difficulty settings. For Practice, you will start with nine lives and nine credits to continue if you’re defeated, adding extra lives to your count by scoring 25,000 points. If you do select Practice, then your score won’t be added to the Rankings leaderboard. For Easy, you’ll only get four lives and five credits, and your score won’t be recorded in the Rankings. Normal lowers that to two lives and three credits, while Hard does it’s name justice since you start with no extra lives and a single credit, so you better work hard to get some extra lives by scoring a ton of points! At least in Normal and Hard, you’ll get a chance to show the rest of the world how good you really are by posting your score to the single-player or co-op online global leaderboards.
You’ll move your character with the left analog stick or the D-Pad. Press left or right twice, and you’ll dash, and if you then press the Y button, you’ll do a dash attack. You can also dodge attacks from your opponents by double-tapping up or down. Jumping is mapped to the B button. The Y button is for your main attack, and you can also use it when jumping. The X button unleashes a special attack, but you need to be careful since using it will spend some of your hit points. If you get close enough to an opponent, you’ be able to grab them, which will allow you to deal some extra damage before you throw them.
At the end of each stage, you will get to battle against a boss. If you want to stay alive, you’ll have to pay attention to each boss’ movement and attack patterns, since each one will be very different. Take, for example, the first boss of the game. It will be a guy who has a shark fin and a snorkel, since, for some reason, it actually likes to swim around the sewers before jumping into action! If you get too close, it will effortlessly lift you up and beat you down. If you’re not fast enough, it will do a twirl attack as it spins around, dealing a lot of damage with every hit.
Even though you probably won’t be able to finish the game during your first try – unless you’re playing in the Practice or Easy difficulty setting – you’ll at least be able to make some progress with every run you do, since your overall score will be used to unlock new costumes for Nils, Selma, and Anders. That means that if you want to 100% this one and unlock everything, you’re going to have to play it from start to finish – or as far away as you can manage to progress – more than once.
Super Punch Patrol was a nice surprise on Nintendo Switch. I’ve always loved playing beat ‘em ups, growing up playing games such as Final Fight, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, Double Dragon, or The Simpsons Arcade, so I was definitely up for taking this one for a spin on Nintendo’s console. It’s a budget release, and as such, it does have some repetition as far as its soundtrack and characters are concerned, but it does recycle previous bosses while dressing them up as new characters to spice things up – for example, that snorkel and shark fin boss ends up as a very creepy clown. Super Punch Patrol is a fun but challenging beat ‘em up that will test your skills every step of the way, and is out now on Nintendo Switch for a low $4.99, making it a must-have for fans of the genre.
Disclaimer
This Super Punch Patrol review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Bertil Hörberg.
