Put your gloves on and take on eight of the Galaxy’s best fighters in Thunder Ray.
If you’re down for some nostalgia, then put on some gloves because you’re in for a seriously violent slobber knocker as Planet Earth’s most formidable boxer was suddenly kidnapped by the relentless Galactic Boxing Federation. You must overcome unbelievable odds to become the greatest of all time in the boxing scene. And yes, there will be blood – and loads of it.
The gameplay is based on a 2D retro arcade-boxing concept that’ll surely send gamers from previous generations with first-class tickets to the good ol’ days. And Thunder Ray will even save some seats for the younger generation. When players reach the main menus, they’ll find that there are only two options for them.
Firstly is the journey-based story mode called ‘fighter path’, where players take on the role of an elite boxer named Thunder Ray. They’re faced with some challenging, skilled opponents, and they must defeat them to win the tournament and be crowned as Universal Champion. But before they start, they have to select one of the three difficulties: rookie, contender, or beast, and then they’re on their way.
And secondly is the options menu that allows players to customise their gaming experience, especially with the button configuration. However, there are only two control types, and they’re not much different than each other. The jab and body shots buttons are the only functions that differ. Players should be able to learn the default controls very quickly, so there’s probably no need to change the controls at all.
But if players still feel the need for a helping hand. Then, no worries, their first match, which is against Rico Javi, will also be their tutorial. Thunder’s boxing trainer, C.Smith, will guide them by providing an in-depth guide on how to perform low attacks, dodges, blocks, special attacks, and so on.
As mentioned beforehand, players will come across challenging opponents. They’ll be up against the best boxers in the Galaxy. All of which have their unique fighting styles and abilities. That means, in Thunder Ray, players will have to do more than float like a butterfly and sting like a bee to stand a chance. To make the situation worse, the only way out is not to lose.
Thunder Ray’s rules pretty much borrow from real-life boxing tournaments, where if a player is knocked down and the referee counts to ten, they lose. Or if they’re knocked down three times again, they lose, but with a TKO. If a player gets knocked out, they need to tap the X button to get up before the count to ten.
On the flip side, whenever they manage to get their opponent on the mat, they’re going to have to repeatedly tap the same button, but to regain some health, they may have lost from opposing attacks.
In matches, players are encouraged to use a variety of combat techniques to gain an advantage against their opponents. Jabs, uppercuts, hooks, and more. And they’ll have to be creative and win in style by combining the aforementioned to form awesome combos on their opponents. And because the opponent’s attacks can be unpredictable at times, as well as powerful, it’s worth pointing out that reaction timing is also important, especially if players go for the harder difficulties.
They can see how many hits they’ve made with the counter, which appears under their health bar that may or may not rise, depending on how quickly they land their strikes. To inflict the most damage, there are the Thunder special attacks that are ready for use whenever the supers’ bars are full. As players progress, they’ll unlock additional special attacks and bars. Therefore, they’ll have up to three bars in total, which would benefit and come in handy against tougher opponents.
All three special attacks have their unique animations and severities in damage. Note that one special carries 16 hits, 17 hits for two specials, and a whopping 52 hits if players use all three to cause merciless devastation. The power is in their hands – literally.
The only way to fill the meters is to simply make sure the hits come into contact with the opponents. And here’s a bonus: players will receive a silver trophy after unlocking all three of them. There’s just one more thing: the opponents also have their powerful abilities. So, this should be more incentive for players to place more emphasis on blocking and dodging.
After each match, players are ranked based on their performances and are allowed to select the difficulty when coming up against new fighters. And, of course, the challenge becomes greater as they progress. When speaking like this about the combos and supers’ systems, they have some resemblances to Street Fighter’s mechanics, with how the combo counter and the super meters work.
But other than the mechanics, Thunder Ray also takes pride in itself by delivering a vintage-like boxing game, but still having modern elements to it. For one, the artistic designs of the characters, costumes, Galactic stages, and so on. Not to mention the bumps, bruises, and blood gushing down the fighters’ faces because of the hardcore violence.
On top of that, you can’t help but stare at the game’s highly attractive visuals. As well as the impressive and fluid animations, to portrays a great balance between retro and modern. And to find out that the 2D animations are handmade makes them even more praiseworthy. Plus, the cutscenes are fun to watch and are strongly reminiscent of high-profile anime shows.
However, despite Thunder Ray’s bright sparks, the game isn’t perfect–not even close. And it’s a pity when you realise the actual length of the gameplay. There are eight fights, which isn’t the issue. The issue is that, regardless of the difficulty you’re playing on and your skills, the story mode typically wouldn’t take you any more than about a few hours at best to complete.
As for the content, other than the Fighter Path mode, Thunder Ray has nothing else to offer, apart from playing the mode again. As well as collect the trophies you might have missed out on. But there are only ten trophies to unlock, and you can get them in only one playthrough. You don’t have to play on the hardest difficulty to get them. You could even play on rookie, and that’ll be enough.
And this might not seem like a big deal for some, but there should be a query on why there’s no stamina. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like a stamina system would add more tension to the fights. Plus, it would’ve made the fights more challenging, as the stamina system would likely have you thinking more strategically rather than button-mashing all willy-nilly with no serious consequences for doing so.
Thunder Ray is indeed lacking content, and the gameplay is extremely short. Nonetheless, this was still an incredibly fun arcade boxing experience and a game that would catch the eyes of gamers from any generation as long as you’re not too fussed about the biggest drawbacks that were discussed. Thunder Ray has something going on here, and hopefully, this is the starting point that’ll lead to updates, more features, and possibly a sequel in the future.
