xbox live indie game reviews

I come from the button-mashing school of fighting, so my more talented fighter-game friends might blast me for giving this one a thumbs up. With that caveat out of the way, I like Funky Punch XL. The basic combo is way too hard to pull off--the timing is tough already before you think about pressing A,B,X, and Y in rapid succession. Some sort of onscreen indicator to assist with the timing would've made this game a lot more playable.

The "story" is awful, but everything about this game stays within itself. I kept expecting one of the characters to break out of the mold and wink just so I knew that the creators were pulling a fast one, but they never did--the developers committed wholly to this "Punk" vs "Funk" storyline. It's not always clear what makes one character funky and one character punky, but there are 12 unique playable characters. I was entertained by the emoticon color, who changes color to match the "mood" of the move he's pulling off.

The basic combos are tough, but the speical moves are actually quite easy to pull off. You start each round with your "funk" meter fully filled, and each "special" move drains a certain amount of it. It's easy to drain the funk meter in a couple of moves, but every character has the ability to regain funk by dancing. Because you're completely vulnerable while dancing, the game resembles a resource management game as much as it does a fighting game. Most matches boil down to waiting for the right moments to either pull off a special or bust a move and recharge your funk.

Basically, it boils down to this: if you can get past the flaws in the fighting mechanics, there's a ton of content here to keep you entertained for hours. The characters look good, the backgrounds are great, and the animatino is fluid enough (though they could work on the transitions a bit). While it could certainly use a little more polish, I felt like I was at least getting my money's worth (even at 400 points).