More importantly, the game feels good and is fun to play. Although the style is intentionally reminiscent of Punch-Out, this boxing game is played from a side perspective with full 3D movement around the ring, almost like a wrestling game. You throw right punches with the Wii Remote and left punches with the Nunchuk, and there are even left-handed characters who benefit more from the latter. The developers were extremely wary of the gameplay spiraling into a waggle-thon, so they came up with a design to reward strategic punching and blocking while punishing players who spam attacks.
It’s in these mechanics where the Street Fighter comparisons start to make more sense. Facebreaker is a combo-based game in which you must pay attention to your opponent's movements and position in order to gain and keep an advantage. You can even parry attacks to break up the opponent's combos. Each character has a special attack that becomes more powerful and flashier as the combo meter fills up. If you can score enough consecutive hits, the combo meter will fill up to "Facebreaker" status, allowing you to unleash a devastating super attack that will finish off the opponent. These super attacks can still be dodged, maybe even blocked, so you always have to pay attention and choose your attacks wisely.
Branching animations ensure that any move can be interrupted by a number of other moves; this is especially important in the Wii version in order to prevent a feeling of detachment from the controls. In other words, your motions will immediately translate into action, even if the character was already in the middle of a different move. This is yet another way that the game prevents random waggling – if you don't slow down, the fighter will never complete an attack. This system wasn't fully implemented in the E3 demo, but the game definitely felt more responsive than many other Wii action titles, even in this pre-alpha stage.
There are several Wii-specific features that set KO Party apart from its prettier cousin on the other systems. Two of the multiplayer modes support up to four players in a Royal Rumble-style format; i.e. there are two boxers at a time, and the others come in when players are eliminated. This light-hearted party mode also includes a lot of crazy power-ups and other elements not found in the normal modes. Another cool Wii feature involves recovery from being knocked down in the ring. The view switches to first-person, and imaginary birds circle your character's head to indicate dizziness. If you manage to shoot down the birds with the Remote's pointer, your boxer will regain some extra health when he stands back up.
As with many third-party, multiplatform games, the Wii version of Facebreaker lacks some key features like online play, and the graphics definitely aren't as good. However, it looks like EA is taking the right approach in redesigning the game with Wii technology, especially keeping motion controls in mind. They seem cognizant of how other Wii games have failed to make intelligent use of the Remote and Nunchuk, and they're taking steps to avoid those pitfalls. It should be interesting to see how this one shapes up over the next few months of development.
