Hajime no Ippo The Fighting

Fans of the popular manga Hajime no Ippo The Fighting will be very excited to learn that there is a game by the same name for the Gameboy Advanced. (GBA) This game originally released in Japan offers players the chance to follow roughly the same path as the anime. You star as high school student Makunouchi Ippo who wants to become a boxer, and must fight other people to get to the top.

Developers for the game, Treasure, have managed to create a number of great games for GBA, including spectacular options like Astro Boy: Omega Factor and Advance Guardian Heroes. Their special talents for making unique 2D fighters springs to life once again with this engaging fighter.

Generous number of fighting modes

Hajime no Ippo The Fighting offers a number of different fighting modes to keep things entertaining. Story mode tells the story of the characters so you understand what is going on in the game, but there’s also a Tournament mode, sparring mode, and customizable options. This makes for a flexible game that keeps things entertaining long after you’ve finished following the plot.

Lots of characters to fight

Although there isn’t the huge cast of characters to defeat like in Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations there are quite a few different characters to battle. When in a boxing match, your character is reduced to a floating set of boxing gloves, so you can better see the other character and their moves.

While you can fight some characters off the bat, there’s also plenty of unlockable characters that you have to complete different tasks in the game in order to achieve them. Each character has different moves so you never know what to expect when fighting them.

Some characters are more difficult than others to unlock, which gives completionists hours of entertainment as they try to figure out how to unlock those last few c haracters.

Huge number of combinations available

The controls for Hajime no Ippo The Fighting are very simple, just using the cross, A, B and R buttons. There’s a large number of different combinations you can use to make more powerful moves. This makes the game more fun because as your skills advance, so do the skills of Ippo.

Hajime no Ippo The Fighting the fighting was only released in Japan, but if you can get hold of a copy it is a very enjoyable game to play. If you’re a fan of the anime or manga, or just want to play a great 2D fighter, this game checks all the boxes.

Pros:

• Lots of characters
• Plenty of gaming modes
• Engaging plot

Cons:

• Not available outside of Japan