VB2 or FN2?

[Money99]

For those that own both, how does FN Rd2 stack up against VB2?

From what I've been reading the Haymaker is killing this game. I was going to buy this game outright but after reading about how the Haymaker is killing the game I'm going to rent it first.
But that's typical EA. Introduce a new gimmic and then not test it properly. But for next years game I'm sure they'll tone it down and then bring in something equally shotty and dumb.

[grunt]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

For those that own both, how does FN Rd2 stack up against VB2?

From what I've been reading the Haymaker is killing this game. I was going to buy this game outright but after reading about how the Haymaker is killing the game I'm going to rent it first.
But that's typical EA. Introduce a new gimmic and then not test it properly. But for next years game I'm sure they'll tone it down and then bring in something equally shotty and dumb.

I own both games. I think that VB2 is a better overall game. The training potion of the game is one of the deepest ever in any game. From diet to how often you train. You can over train your boxer and you can tell how sluggish he is in the next fight. If you keep fighting your fighter every few weeks he get sluggish also.

When you have to make wieght you have to hold your breath. If your fighter diet isnt right you will eat him out of his division. I like FN2 but for an overall boxing experience I think VB2 gets the nod.

Hope this help.

[grunt]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

For those that own both, how does FN Rd2 stack up against VB2?

From what I've been reading the Haymaker is killing this game. I was going to buy this game outright but after reading about how the Haymaker is killing the game I'm going to rent it first.
But that's typical EA. Introduce a new gimmic and then not test it properly. But for next years game I'm sure they'll tone it down and then bring in something equally shotty and dumb.

I own both games. I think that VB2 is a better overall game. The training potion of the game is one of the deepest ever in any game. From diet to how often you train. You can over train your boxer and you can tell how sluggish he is in the next fight. If you keep fighting your fighter every few weeks he get sluggish also.

When you have to make wieght you have to hold your breath. If your fighter diet isnt right you will eat him out of his division. I like FN2 but for an overall boxing experience I think VB2 gets the nod.

Hope this help.

[Money99]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

I own both games. I think that VB2 is a better overall game. The training potion of the game is one of the deepest ever in any game. From diet to how often you train. You can over train your boxer and you can tell how sluggish he is in the next fight. If you keep fighting your fighter every few weeks he get sluggish also.

When you have to make wieght you have to hold your breath. If your fighter diet isnt right you will eat him out of his division. I like FN2 but for an overall boxing experience I think VB2 gets the nod.

Hope this help.

Thanks grunt!

[Money99]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

I own both games. I think that VB2 is a better overall game. The training potion of the game is one of the deepest ever in any game. From diet to how often you train. You can over train your boxer and you can tell how sluggish he is in the next fight. If you keep fighting your fighter every few weeks he get sluggish also.

When you have to make wieght you have to hold your breath. If your fighter diet isnt right you will eat him out of his division. I like FN2 but for an overall boxing experience I think VB2 gets the nod.

Hope this help.

Thanks grunt!

[Zlax45]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Did VB2 ever come out in the USA?

[Zlax45]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Did VB2 ever come out in the USA?

[Money99]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Did VB2 ever come out in the USA?

Sadly, no. And I don't think it will VB1 sold very poorly in the US despite great reviews.
However, I just read on the IGN boards that a European version is slated for release in the near future.

[Money99]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Did VB2 ever come out in the USA?

Sadly, no. And I don't think it will VB1 sold very poorly in the US despite great reviews.
However, I just read on the IGN boards that a European version is slated for release in the near future.

[Zlax45]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Sadly, no. And I don't think it will VB1 sold very poorly in the US despite great reviews.
However, I just read on the IGN boards that a European version is slated for release in the near future.

there is some hope if it is getting released in europe...even though the hope is small...Can anyone find the original anymore?

[Zlax45]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Sadly, no. And I don't think it will VB1 sold very poorly in the US despite great reviews.
However, I just read on the IGN boards that a European version is slated for release in the near future.

there is some hope if it is getting released in europe...even though the hope is small...Can anyone find the original anymore?

[grunt]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Here is a review from gamefaqs. Its kind of long but a good read.

A year in the life of a victorious boxer (well…not so victorious)

I created a middleweight from Mexico training out of the west coast. I trained him for 4 months before my pro-test. Gave him a strict diet of basically protein and water with just a hint of glucose, no fat. After passing my pro-test, I scheduled my first fight with a 1-4 scrub. I chose to train for 60 days before the fight. I stayed with my routine until a week before the fight. Then I turned on my weight coach and let him handle my routine before the weigh in. I passed with flying colors and I ended up knocking out the guy 25 seconds into the 1st round.

After that I let my doctor control my diet and I took a one week vacation from training because my fatigue and ''bad'' health meters were running too high. But before I decided to take some time off I picked my next fight. Feeling confident, I picked a fighter with a 3-1 record and scheduled it in 18 days. That left me with less than 2 weeks to prepare.

Realizing I didn't have much time I decided to cut my vacation short because I noticed that not only was my doctor managing my diet but was also managing how much I trained. My power and speed attributes totally deteriorated. I immediately went into the ring to spar and I felt sluggish and out of shape as my partner slapped me around the ring. I watched the video of my opponent after that and literally thought to myself ''this guy's going to tear me apart''.

It didn't look too good for me at all. So with only a week and a half to go I decided to shut the stupid doctor up and I maximized my diet and training exercises through the roof. As I watched the clock tick I witnessed my fatigue level naturally increase and my lbs started to flirt with super middle weight. There was no time to let my weight coach handle it. I knew I was doomed. The time came and I barely passed the weigh-in. The fight started and the guy knocked me out with only 2 punches to the face.

I started a new career with the same boxer I created before. A nice little feature the game has is that you can create boxers and save them and load them up for situations like mine. Not only can you save a created boxer, you can save the created face, body parts, and boxing apparel separately. It sounds like an insignificant feature but the Create-a-Boxer is really deep, especially the face sculpturing, so if you spent hours trying to create yourself for example, but you only got the face down packed, you could just save and continue later. It's also good for if you want to make yourself a heavyweight and you had yourself as a lightweight before.

I'm currently 4-0 with 4 KO's in my new career. And even though I'm undefeated and cautiously scheduling my fights this time, I'm still stepping into the ring with fear.

Three months later: I'm officially a 6 round boxer. I beat a man with a 2-6 record. And I guess you become a 6 rounder after your fifth win because coming into this fight I was still a 4 rounder facing a 6 round opponent. It was the longest and most difficult fight of my young career. It lasted 5 rounds and it was really tough because he came at me hard in the 1st landing a lot of punches and knocking me down at the end of the round. I ended up knocking him down twice in the 2nd but he got me again at the end of the round. In the third round I had absolutely no stamina because every time he would land a punch, I’d get stunned. I had to avoid as much of his punches as I could and I waited till he threw an uppercut or a long hook so I could sneak in and counter with a jab and a straight and then get out as quickly as I can. I did this till the fifth when I was finally able to throw more without getting hurt and I knocked him out late in the round. It was the best fight I had in a while and it will be the last one of the year before I turn 21.

The competition is getting tougher as you can tell by their records. There are barely any 0-6's and 1-7's anymore that I can pick to fight. Also you wont believe how many boxers there are in each division. I'm not even ranked yet. Ranking is mostly for the top 15 in each weight and division. When you start, you're just thrown in a pool, a very big pool. I tried counting how many there were in my division and I had to quit because there was just too many. My next opponent is a man with a significantly longer reach than me. He's called Piston Apollo, he's black, he has a fro, and he looks mean.

Wait a minute! I am ranked! I'm the number one contender for the IBF middleweight division! I guess the members of that organization really enjoyed the dinner my promoter treated them to.

-END YEAR-

That is an example of my experiences with Boxer's Road, the career mode in this game.

Since I am a boxing fan recently converted into a Hajime No Ippo fan, this review is mainly intended for boxing fans who don't know much about the anime/manga that the game is based on. You all have heard before how every boxing video game fan should thank Victorious Boxers for its revolutionary game play in which other games have been influenced by. Well this sequel to the first Victorious Boxers should definitely prove no exception. It is truly revolutionary in more ways than one and it is the definitive sports role-playing game in my opinion. But before I move on, I should mention that the career mode of this game is kind of an unofficial sequel to Boxer's Road for the original play station, an old (1995) virtually unknown title that never made it to the states. It was truly ahead of its time because of its simulation aspects. And the same developer who designed that game, developed Victorious Boxers 2, implementing and improving most of the ideas it had from their first game. So even before the Knockout Kings franchise took off, this Japanese developer was trying to emulate the sport of boxing not only in but outside the ring, by creating a boxer, building him up, training and conditioning him throughout his career.

Victorious Boxers 2 has an Exhibition mode, Tournament mode, Career mode and Arcade mode. Arcade mode is a Story mode where you get to fight in bouts that happened in the anime and manga chronologically. Its like a mode where you fight in classic historical fights but with the anime characters instead.

There are 40+ boxers, most of them being characters based on the anime and unlock-able through the story mode. The career mode has additional fictitious boxers which are too numerous to count, some having peculiar resemblances to real professional boxers and characters from other video games.
There are 18 different weight classes and 6 different governing bodies like the WBO, WBA, and IBF. There's also regional divisions depending on what country you train out of.

Here are some other features:
-There are 30+ special moves & punches including the ability to switch to southpaw if you're a conventional fighter and vise versa!
-Ability to lean against the ropes and still throw punches.
-There's a control setup feature where you can coach your boxer during fights by giving him commands on the fly like attack, defend, etc. (there's a lot more but in Japanese though).
-Your career is displayed on a calendar and it progresses by a live clock which you can stop to change around your routine.
-You can choose to start your career in the timeline of the anime series or not, and depending on what weight class you belong to and what part of the world you're training in, you will be able to go up against certain main characters of the game.
-Your career can span as much as 50 YEARS and it can end in a number of ways. If you don't win a major belt before your 39 years of age you will be forced to retire. You also can be forced into retirement by losing a number of fights. And you can announce your retirement before your last fight anytime.
-You can watch video of your opponent's previous fights as you prepare for him.
-You can spar as many times as you want before the big fight.
-You can assign special punches and even create your own.
-You can move up and down in weight.
-In the Create-a-boxer, you can break his nose, distort his jaw, deepen his eye sockets, and adjust the color of your trunks and shoes. All sorts of things. It is really deep.
-You can change trunks, shoes, and hairstyle anytime in your career. So you're not stuck with the same outfit the remainder of your life. You can also adjust the colors of just about anything (trunks, gloves. etc). The size of your trunks and shoes are adjustable too.
-There's 7 different boxing styles ranging from boxer, fighter, freestyle, open, up, etc. and you can switch styles anytime in your career.
-When you begin your career you get to pick what country you're from (USA, Japan, Korea, Thailand, or England).
-Each country has 2 or 3 gyms you can pick.
-Each gym has their own trainer/coach which gives you advise (in Japanese) and there are other boxers which you can spar with. The coach also tells you when you have an up and coming fight, like when your first pro-test is going to be.
-What part of the world you're from affects your training and diet.
-When sparring you can chose which boxer you want to spar with. There's like 8 or so belonging to their respective weight classes.
-Before sparing you can chose to go at it with the headgear or not. You even get the choice of what size gloves you want. For example, if you want to spar with a heavyweight and you want some sort of a handicap, you can give your partner the 16-ounce gloves and you wear the 8-once ones. It's also fun to just spar with someone from your weight with the both of you wearing 8's as you knock each other senselessly around the ring.

There's much more stuff to do that it boggles my mind how a game based on an anime no less can make such an in-depth boxing game. I just wish they added training mini-games like Rocky and kept the ability to save replays from the original Victorious Boxers.

Before you begin your career you need to pick how much you weigh so you can fight in your desired weight class. You start off as an amateur preparing for your pro-test, after that you become a 4 round boxer, then when you win a certain number of fights you become a 6 rounder, then 8, 10, 12. You can try to move up and down weight classes as much as you like but losing/gaining a lot of weight too often can be detrimental to your health and overall life. After you schedule a bout, you have to try to maintain or make weight to be able to pass the weigh-in. You maintain weight by managing your stats through training and picking your proper diet. There's an enormous selection of different foods to pick from, all displaying their nutritional facts (glucose, amino acids, fat, water, minerals, etc). There are no training mini games. The training is all simulated by picking what days you want to train and what exactly you want to train in. There are 10 training exercises in all, each affecting different stats, physical attributes, and muscle development. Its also a good idea to review your opponent's attributes to give yourself an idea of what you need to train in so you can have a slight advantage over him. And no, you don't see your boxer actually sitting down at the kitchen table eating his food. You do have to watch what he eats though. Take in too much sugar and no protein and your muscles wont develop properly. You might even fail to reach weight. Simple Krebs cycle knowledge actually comes in handy here! So stats and physical attributes are not only determined by what you choose to train in and what you eat but by how much you train and how much you eat. Train too much and your fatigue level will sky rocket and if your fatigue level is too high the day of the big fight your fighter will actually feel fatigued!

Another great thing I found out about the career mode was that you could change the personalities of your boxer. I noticed that when I was sparring with one of my partners, he kept celebrating every time he would knock me down. I'd be like ''why is this guy showboating during a sparring session?''. Turns out your boxer can have 5 different personalities and you can change them around anytime. For example, if you feel he's doing too many back flips after every time you knock someone down, you could just calm him down and he'll act all serious.

In terms of gameplay, this game has a mix of both arcade and realistic features. First of all, there's no clinching, nor stoppages. Stamina is a huge and realistic part of the game though. In fact, it might even be too realistic because landing a good number of clean shots and counters can really hurt a boxer and can change the course of a fight, or a round for that matter, in a mater of seconds. Having no HUD also adds to the unpredictability of the outcome of a fight. And stamina not only affects your hand speed but your sway and foot speed too. So, if your boxer takes too many punches early in a fight, or tries to slug it out too much, his ring movement will slow down to a crawl and stay like that if you don't conserve energy. Because of all this, boxers are more vulnerable to getting stunned and knocked down in this game. It makes button mashing against the computer virtually impossible. If there was one game that needed clinching though, it would be this one because since footwork is also hindered, there's not much room for you to run and hide when you're hurt.

Ring movement is more graceful compared to the first game. You aren't almost always in a wide stance and limited by the quickstep and normal walk anymore. The farther you are from your opponent, the more you'll bounce or skip, the closer you are, the more you'll slide as you circle him. It makes entering fighting range much more strategic because the CPU likes to come in to catch you off guard and move out more often. You have to be able to do the same by mixing around the way you move. You can bounce, skip, rush, and slide in to catch him off guard and disrupt his timing by entering contact range and bluffing or landing a leading punch before he does.

If you've played the original game, you'll notice that the jab is more useful this time because the CPU doesn't move from side to side as much. It tends to come in and out more as I mentioned before. As a result, the boxers are better aligned with each other. Your opponent also protects his weak side more often when you try circling him. The AI varies in several ways; its style, its stamina, and in the way you approach the particular fight. Certain styles tend to throw more flurries and punches per round then others too. But ring movement is a little too fast with some opponents, which makes working the body very difficult sometimes. And if you leave yourself open a lot or you're too reckless, your opponent wont waste the opportunity to try and knock you down quickly. And believe me, you will get knocked down if you’re not careful and if you're not prepared coming into the fight. So knockdowns also depend on the way you train. Concentrate too much on improving your strength and not your stamina, and you'll notice that your fights wont last too long.

There are tons of animations in the game, specifically punching animations. There's inside punches like short uppercuts, short jabs, short hooks, swaying straights, and outside punches, like leaning jabs, wide hooks, crosses, lunging straights, etc. You can sit on your punches, giving you the ability to snap the jab at close range or you can slide your lead foot in and reach with the jab to measure distance and drive an opponent backwards. You can generate more force behind a punch like weaving and throwing a hook, ducking and throwing an uppercut. You can blend a hook and an uppercut. You can slip the jab to either side. You can parry or cutoff incoming punches like the first game, but quicker this time giving you more of an opportunity to counter. You'll also see your punches follow their intended targets sometimes. For example, say I throw a 3 jab combo. My first jab shoots out and my opponent slips it to the outside. My second jab follows him and aims where his head moved, but he manages to avoid that one by ducking in time. My third jab if thrown quickly enough, will zero in and lands while he's ducking. So in other words, it doesn't just go to the same place all the time. You can even jab to the body while you're still upright. It's really impressive the amount of weapons you have in your arsenal.

There are also a lot of knockdown animations like boxers taking a knee and quick knockdowns where your opponent gets up right away. The knockdowns can either be viewed in slow motion or not. Getting up from a knockdown is not user controlled. It all depends on your boxer's stamina again. The ref also doesn't stop counting right when you get up too. He waits till you're completely composed. So, you can still get counted out even if you're standing. There is no visible ref in the ring though.

The blocking is automatic. How many shots get through depend on several things like the boxer's style, his position in relation to his opponent, his stamina, the type of punch thrown, how many punches thrown in a combination, etc. In real boxing a lot of blocking has to do with instinct and reflexes. In this game when your opponent is throwing pot shots at you, your boxer doesn't just put up his hands and keep them in one location. He is constantly moving them around defensively depending on what punches are coming at him just like the real thing. Movement consists of things like catches, brushes, and elbow blocks. Sometimes he even switches his arms around horizontally to shield himself against longer combinations. Its kind of like the same system the game is using when your punches sometimes zero in on your intended target. This system of blocking added with the quicker ability to parry shots compared to the original game, makes Victorious Boxers 2 much more realistic because its easier for you and your opponent to get tangled up and reduces the chances of free shots getting through.

It would have been great for the game to come with user controlled blocking or at least a true 'cover up' move because free shots do still land quite frequently. But I think it would have been too complicated to have the ability to control when to block and at the same time have these automatic defensive motions of your hands. If you take this away and just add user blocking, you take away a realistic part of the game. The reason is say this is because the auto-block isn't like the auto-block of Knockout Kings 2001, where you had to keep your boxer stationary in order for the blocking to get activated. In Victorious Boxers 2 you don't need to be stationary. So even when you're circling your opponent and looking for openings, the auto-block is working. It isn't a perfect system by any means though because sometimes the blocking can get in the way of you wanting to counter. And I still could see where user controlled blocking would've come in handy, like when you're coming in towards your opponent.

The graphics are better than the first game especially the character models. The bodies are longer and less bulkier. In the career mode your physique can change. Its really great to see how your boxer starts off as a flabby out of shape young man into a more physically fit and ripped boxer. What muscles become more defined depends on your training too. Facial damage could have been better but your boxer's eyes still stay swollen days after a fight depending on how much damage you received.

The crowd graphics and crowd noise could have used more work. Also some hair colors on boxers look strange, like blond hair. Sound effects are all right and Music is jazz-like.

There are less camera options than the first game but the default camera is way better this time because it doesn't get obstructed by the near corner so you don't find yourself purposely positioning your boxer farther away to suit your point of view like the first game.

This game also has a ridiculous amount of items you can unlock. From different boxers for exhibition use, to trunks, shoes, hairstyles, body and head decorations, special moves, venues, training exercises, nicknames, fighting styles, etc.

It'd recommend it to any boxing fan out there. I wrote this because when I was interested in the game, I couldn't find anything online about its features. So I decided to put this up for others interested in the game. Boxer's Road, the career mode, is a complex game about finding the right balance between training hard and eating right. It is as close as you can get to life as a boxer outside the ring. My main problem with the game overall though, is that there aren't any replays and since there are so many animations and so many various ways of dealing with your opponent, the only way to experience them again is to keep boxing! End of review.

Oh yeah, I got this game a year ago from a import store in NYC. I paid 75 dollars for it but for some reason I am more upset over the 50 I paid for FN2.

[grunt]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

Here is a review from gamefaqs. Its kind of long but a good read.

A year in the life of a victorious boxer (well…not so victorious)

I created a middleweight from Mexico training out of the west coast. I trained him for 4 months before my pro-test. Gave him a strict diet of basically protein and water with just a hint of glucose, no fat. After passing my pro-test, I scheduled my first fight with a 1-4 scrub. I chose to train for 60 days before the fight. I stayed with my routine until a week before the fight. Then I turned on my weight coach and let him handle my routine before the weigh in. I passed with flying colors and I ended up knocking out the guy 25 seconds into the 1st round.

After that I let my doctor control my diet and I took a one week vacation from training because my fatigue and ''bad'' health meters were running too high. But before I decided to take some time off I picked my next fight. Feeling confident, I picked a fighter with a 3-1 record and scheduled it in 18 days. That left me with less than 2 weeks to prepare.

Realizing I didn't have much time I decided to cut my vacation short because I noticed that not only was my doctor managing my diet but was also managing how much I trained. My power and speed attributes totally deteriorated. I immediately went into the ring to spar and I felt sluggish and out of shape as my partner slapped me around the ring. I watched the video of my opponent after that and literally thought to myself ''this guy's going to tear me apart''.

It didn't look too good for me at all. So with only a week and a half to go I decided to shut the stupid doctor up and I maximized my diet and training exercises through the roof. As I watched the clock tick I witnessed my fatigue level naturally increase and my lbs started to flirt with super middle weight. There was no time to let my weight coach handle it. I knew I was doomed. The time came and I barely passed the weigh-in. The fight started and the guy knocked me out with only 2 punches to the face.

I started a new career with the same boxer I created before. A nice little feature the game has is that you can create boxers and save them and load them up for situations like mine. Not only can you save a created boxer, you can save the created face, body parts, and boxing apparel separately. It sounds like an insignificant feature but the Create-a-Boxer is really deep, especially the face sculpturing, so if you spent hours trying to create yourself for example, but you only got the face down packed, you could just save and continue later. It's also good for if you want to make yourself a heavyweight and you had yourself as a lightweight before.

I'm currently 4-0 with 4 KO's in my new career. And even though I'm undefeated and cautiously scheduling my fights this time, I'm still stepping into the ring with fear.

Three months later: I'm officially a 6 round boxer. I beat a man with a 2-6 record. And I guess you become a 6 rounder after your fifth win because coming into this fight I was still a 4 rounder facing a 6 round opponent. It was the longest and most difficult fight of my young career. It lasted 5 rounds and it was really tough because he came at me hard in the 1st landing a lot of punches and knocking me down at the end of the round. I ended up knocking him down twice in the 2nd but he got me again at the end of the round. In the third round I had absolutely no stamina because every time he would land a punch, I’d get stunned. I had to avoid as much of his punches as I could and I waited till he threw an uppercut or a long hook so I could sneak in and counter with a jab and a straight and then get out as quickly as I can. I did this till the fifth when I was finally able to throw more without getting hurt and I knocked him out late in the round. It was the best fight I had in a while and it will be the last one of the year before I turn 21.

The competition is getting tougher as you can tell by their records. There are barely any 0-6's and 1-7's anymore that I can pick to fight. Also you wont believe how many boxers there are in each division. I'm not even ranked yet. Ranking is mostly for the top 15 in each weight and division. When you start, you're just thrown in a pool, a very big pool. I tried counting how many there were in my division and I had to quit because there was just too many. My next opponent is a man with a significantly longer reach than me. He's called Piston Apollo, he's black, he has a fro, and he looks mean.

Wait a minute! I am ranked! I'm the number one contender for the IBF middleweight division! I guess the members of that organization really enjoyed the dinner my promoter treated them to.

-END YEAR-

That is an example of my experiences with Boxer's Road, the career mode in this game.

Since I am a boxing fan recently converted into a Hajime No Ippo fan, this review is mainly intended for boxing fans who don't know much about the anime/manga that the game is based on. You all have heard before how every boxing video game fan should thank Victorious Boxers for its revolutionary game play in which other games have been influenced by. Well this sequel to the first Victorious Boxers should definitely prove no exception. It is truly revolutionary in more ways than one and it is the definitive sports role-playing game in my opinion. But before I move on, I should mention that the career mode of this game is kind of an unofficial sequel to Boxer's Road for the original play station, an old (1995) virtually unknown title that never made it to the states. It was truly ahead of its time because of its simulation aspects. And the same developer who designed that game, developed Victorious Boxers 2, implementing and improving most of the ideas it had from their first game. So even before the Knockout Kings franchise took off, this Japanese developer was trying to emulate the sport of boxing not only in but outside the ring, by creating a boxer, building him up, training and conditioning him throughout his career.

Victorious Boxers 2 has an Exhibition mode, Tournament mode, Career mode and Arcade mode. Arcade mode is a Story mode where you get to fight in bouts that happened in the anime and manga chronologically. Its like a mode where you fight in classic historical fights but with the anime characters instead.

There are 40+ boxers, most of them being characters based on the anime and unlock-able through the story mode. The career mode has additional fictitious boxers which are too numerous to count, some having peculiar resemblances to real professional boxers and characters from other video games.
There are 18 different weight classes and 6 different governing bodies like the WBO, WBA, and IBF. There's also regional divisions depending on what country you train out of.

Here are some other features:
-There are 30+ special moves & punches including the ability to switch to southpaw if you're a conventional fighter and vise versa!
-Ability to lean against the ropes and still throw punches.
-There's a control setup feature where you can coach your boxer during fights by giving him commands on the fly like attack, defend, etc. (there's a lot more but in Japanese though).
-Your career is displayed on a calendar and it progresses by a live clock which you can stop to change around your routine.
-You can choose to start your career in the timeline of the anime series or not, and depending on what weight class you belong to and what part of the world you're training in, you will be able to go up against certain main characters of the game.
-Your career can span as much as 50 YEARS and it can end in a number of ways. If you don't win a major belt before your 39 years of age you will be forced to retire. You also can be forced into retirement by losing a number of fights. And you can announce your retirement before your last fight anytime.
-You can watch video of your opponent's previous fights as you prepare for him.
-You can spar as many times as you want before the big fight.
-You can assign special punches and even create your own.
-You can move up and down in weight.
-In the Create-a-boxer, you can break his nose, distort his jaw, deepen his eye sockets, and adjust the color of your trunks and shoes. All sorts of things. It is really deep.
-You can change trunks, shoes, and hairstyle anytime in your career. So you're not stuck with the same outfit the remainder of your life. You can also adjust the colors of just about anything (trunks, gloves. etc). The size of your trunks and shoes are adjustable too.
-There's 7 different boxing styles ranging from boxer, fighter, freestyle, open, up, etc. and you can switch styles anytime in your career.
-When you begin your career you get to pick what country you're from (USA, Japan, Korea, Thailand, or England).
-Each country has 2 or 3 gyms you can pick.
-Each gym has their own trainer/coach which gives you advise (in Japanese) and there are other boxers which you can spar with. The coach also tells you when you have an up and coming fight, like when your first pro-test is going to be.
-What part of the world you're from affects your training and diet.
-When sparring you can chose which boxer you want to spar with. There's like 8 or so belonging to their respective weight classes.
-Before sparing you can chose to go at it with the headgear or not. You even get the choice of what size gloves you want. For example, if you want to spar with a heavyweight and you want some sort of a handicap, you can give your partner the 16-ounce gloves and you wear the 8-once ones. It's also fun to just spar with someone from your weight with the both of you wearing 8's as you knock each other senselessly around the ring.

There's much more stuff to do that it boggles my mind how a game based on an anime no less can make such an in-depth boxing game. I just wish they added training mini-games like Rocky and kept the ability to save replays from the original Victorious Boxers.

Before you begin your career you need to pick how much you weigh so you can fight in your desired weight class. You start off as an amateur preparing for your pro-test, after that you become a 4 round boxer, then when you win a certain number of fights you become a 6 rounder, then 8, 10, 12. You can try to move up and down weight classes as much as you like but losing/gaining a lot of weight too often can be detrimental to your health and overall life. After you schedule a bout, you have to try to maintain or make weight to be able to pass the weigh-in. You maintain weight by managing your stats through training and picking your proper diet. There's an enormous selection of different foods to pick from, all displaying their nutritional facts (glucose, amino acids, fat, water, minerals, etc). There are no training mini games. The training is all simulated by picking what days you want to train and what exactly you want to train in. There are 10 training exercises in all, each affecting different stats, physical attributes, and muscle development. Its also a good idea to review your opponent's attributes to give yourself an idea of what you need to train in so you can have a slight advantage over him. And no, you don't see your boxer actually sitting down at the kitchen table eating his food. You do have to watch what he eats though. Take in too much sugar and no protein and your muscles wont develop properly. You might even fail to reach weight. Simple Krebs cycle knowledge actually comes in handy here! So stats and physical attributes are not only determined by what you choose to train in and what you eat but by how much you train and how much you eat. Train too much and your fatigue level will sky rocket and if your fatigue level is too high the day of the big fight your fighter will actually feel fatigued!

Another great thing I found out about the career mode was that you could change the personalities of your boxer. I noticed that when I was sparring with one of my partners, he kept celebrating every time he would knock me down. I'd be like ''why is this guy showboating during a sparring session?''. Turns out your boxer can have 5 different personalities and you can change them around anytime. For example, if you feel he's doing too many back flips after every time you knock someone down, you could just calm him down and he'll act all serious.

In terms of gameplay, this game has a mix of both arcade and realistic features. First of all, there's no clinching, nor stoppages. Stamina is a huge and realistic part of the game though. In fact, it might even be too realistic because landing a good number of clean shots and counters can really hurt a boxer and can change the course of a fight, or a round for that matter, in a mater of seconds. Having no HUD also adds to the unpredictability of the outcome of a fight. And stamina not only affects your hand speed but your sway and foot speed too. So, if your boxer takes too many punches early in a fight, or tries to slug it out too much, his ring movement will slow down to a crawl and stay like that if you don't conserve energy. Because of all this, boxers are more vulnerable to getting stunned and knocked down in this game. It makes button mashing against the computer virtually impossible. If there was one game that needed clinching though, it would be this one because since footwork is also hindered, there's not much room for you to run and hide when you're hurt.

Ring movement is more graceful compared to the first game. You aren't almost always in a wide stance and limited by the quickstep and normal walk anymore. The farther you are from your opponent, the more you'll bounce or skip, the closer you are, the more you'll slide as you circle him. It makes entering fighting range much more strategic because the CPU likes to come in to catch you off guard and move out more often. You have to be able to do the same by mixing around the way you move. You can bounce, skip, rush, and slide in to catch him off guard and disrupt his timing by entering contact range and bluffing or landing a leading punch before he does.

If you've played the original game, you'll notice that the jab is more useful this time because the CPU doesn't move from side to side as much. It tends to come in and out more as I mentioned before. As a result, the boxers are better aligned with each other. Your opponent also protects his weak side more often when you try circling him. The AI varies in several ways; its style, its stamina, and in the way you approach the particular fight. Certain styles tend to throw more flurries and punches per round then others too. But ring movement is a little too fast with some opponents, which makes working the body very difficult sometimes. And if you leave yourself open a lot or you're too reckless, your opponent wont waste the opportunity to try and knock you down quickly. And believe me, you will get knocked down if you’re not careful and if you're not prepared coming into the fight. So knockdowns also depend on the way you train. Concentrate too much on improving your strength and not your stamina, and you'll notice that your fights wont last too long.

There are tons of animations in the game, specifically punching animations. There's inside punches like short uppercuts, short jabs, short hooks, swaying straights, and outside punches, like leaning jabs, wide hooks, crosses, lunging straights, etc. You can sit on your punches, giving you the ability to snap the jab at close range or you can slide your lead foot in and reach with the jab to measure distance and drive an opponent backwards. You can generate more force behind a punch like weaving and throwing a hook, ducking and throwing an uppercut. You can blend a hook and an uppercut. You can slip the jab to either side. You can parry or cutoff incoming punches like the first game, but quicker this time giving you more of an opportunity to counter. You'll also see your punches follow their intended targets sometimes. For example, say I throw a 3 jab combo. My first jab shoots out and my opponent slips it to the outside. My second jab follows him and aims where his head moved, but he manages to avoid that one by ducking in time. My third jab if thrown quickly enough, will zero in and lands while he's ducking. So in other words, it doesn't just go to the same place all the time. You can even jab to the body while you're still upright. It's really impressive the amount of weapons you have in your arsenal.

There are also a lot of knockdown animations like boxers taking a knee and quick knockdowns where your opponent gets up right away. The knockdowns can either be viewed in slow motion or not. Getting up from a knockdown is not user controlled. It all depends on your boxer's stamina again. The ref also doesn't stop counting right when you get up too. He waits till you're completely composed. So, you can still get counted out even if you're standing. There is no visible ref in the ring though.

The blocking is automatic. How many shots get through depend on several things like the boxer's style, his position in relation to his opponent, his stamina, the type of punch thrown, how many punches thrown in a combination, etc. In real boxing a lot of blocking has to do with instinct and reflexes. In this game when your opponent is throwing pot shots at you, your boxer doesn't just put up his hands and keep them in one location. He is constantly moving them around defensively depending on what punches are coming at him just like the real thing. Movement consists of things like catches, brushes, and elbow blocks. Sometimes he even switches his arms around horizontally to shield himself against longer combinations. Its kind of like the same system the game is using when your punches sometimes zero in on your intended target. This system of blocking added with the quicker ability to parry shots compared to the original game, makes Victorious Boxers 2 much more realistic because its easier for you and your opponent to get tangled up and reduces the chances of free shots getting through.

It would have been great for the game to come with user controlled blocking or at least a true 'cover up' move because free shots do still land quite frequently. But I think it would have been too complicated to have the ability to control when to block and at the same time have these automatic defensive motions of your hands. If you take this away and just add user blocking, you take away a realistic part of the game. The reason is say this is because the auto-block isn't like the auto-block of Knockout Kings 2001, where you had to keep your boxer stationary in order for the blocking to get activated. In Victorious Boxers 2 you don't need to be stationary. So even when you're circling your opponent and looking for openings, the auto-block is working. It isn't a perfect system by any means though because sometimes the blocking can get in the way of you wanting to counter. And I still could see where user controlled blocking would've come in handy, like when you're coming in towards your opponent.

The graphics are better than the first game especially the character models. The bodies are longer and less bulkier. In the career mode your physique can change. Its really great to see how your boxer starts off as a flabby out of shape young man into a more physically fit and ripped boxer. What muscles become more defined depends on your training too. Facial damage could have been better but your boxer's eyes still stay swollen days after a fight depending on how much damage you received.

The crowd graphics and crowd noise could have used more work. Also some hair colors on boxers look strange, like blond hair. Sound effects are all right and Music is jazz-like.

There are less camera options than the first game but the default camera is way better this time because it doesn't get obstructed by the near corner so you don't find yourself purposely positioning your boxer farther away to suit your point of view like the first game.

This game also has a ridiculous amount of items you can unlock. From different boxers for exhibition use, to trunks, shoes, hairstyles, body and head decorations, special moves, venues, training exercises, nicknames, fighting styles, etc.

It'd recommend it to any boxing fan out there. I wrote this because when I was interested in the game, I couldn't find anything online about its features. So I decided to put this up for others interested in the game. Boxer's Road, the career mode, is a complex game about finding the right balance between training hard and eating right. It is as close as you can get to life as a boxer outside the ring. My main problem with the game overall though, is that there aren't any replays and since there are so many animations and so many various ways of dealing with your opponent, the only way to experience them again is to keep boxing! End of review.

Oh yeah, I got this game a year ago from a import store in NYC. I paid 75 dollars for it but for some reason I am more upset over the 50 I paid for FN2.

[unhappytriad]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

hey thats my review

money man you still havent gotten your hands on vb2? its too bad no publishers got a hold of the game. i'm taking my copy to the grave.

vb2 is better than fn2 in ALOT of ways. fn2 has the graphics, manual block, clinch, and real boxers but man i tell you thats not enough to dethrown vb. the foot work and the cross still need work. and the career mode...hah. i was expecting alot more then what i got from fn2. so many peeps gave feedback into what they wanted in the next fn as did i but never did i hear or read someone saying they wanted a haymaker punch. where did that bright idea come from?

i'm still trying to scrounge up the money to order vb-allstars. i cant wait to see what the manual guard is like.

[unhappytriad]

Re: VB2 or FN2?

hey thats my review

money man you still havent gotten your hands on vb2? its too bad no publishers got a hold of the game. i'm taking my copy to the grave.

vb2 is better than fn2 in ALOT of ways. fn2 has the graphics, manual block, clinch, and real boxers but man i tell you thats not enough to dethrown vb. the foot work and the cross still need work. and the career mode...hah. i was expecting alot more then what i got from fn2. so many peeps gave feedback into what they wanted in the next fn as did i but never did i hear or read someone saying they wanted a haymaker punch. where did that bright idea come from?

i'm still trying to scrounge up the money to order vb-allstars. i cant wait to see what the manual guard is like.