Thunder Ray

I want to love Thunder Ray more than I actually do, and that tension is basically the whole review right there. Purple Tree have built something genuinely stylish: hand-drawn animations that pop off the screen, a roster of eight alien fighters each with their own arena and personality, and a combat loop that will feel immediately familiar to anyone who spent their childhood reading Little Mac's opponents like a rhythm game. The Punch-Out DNA is obvious and unapologetic, this time reworked closer to the Super Punch-Out SNES template rather than the Wii reboot. The controls keep things tight. You have body blows and high punches mapped to separate buttons, a charged version of each for slower but harder hits, and a super meter that stacks up to three bars. Burning one bar gives you a quick super attack; saving all three means a much bigger, screen-filling finisher. Defensive options are dodge, block, and duck, and picking the wrong one when an opponent telegraphs means you eat the shot. That read-and-react rhythm is where the game genuinely sings. Opponents like the towering Backbreaker, fire-wielding Ignis, or a full vampire-styled night creature all have distinct attack tells, and cracking their patterns is satisfying in the way only pattern-memorisation games can be. The game comes with three difficulty tiers - Rookie, Contender, and Beast - and Rookie is honestly accessible enough that newcomers can see the full roster without the wall of frustration the higher settings can throw at you. Here is where the caveats pile up though. The campaign is short. Depending on how quickly you read opponent patterns you are looking at two to three hours of main content, maybe a bit more on Beast difficulty. There is a boss rush mode and speedrun leaderboards to chase after that, but the lack of depth beyond those options will sting players who wanted a meatier experience. A few design quirks also grate: every fighter requires exactly three knockdowns to finish, no exceptions, which flattens the tension those final exchanges should carry. The near-death screen zoom effect that dulls the colours is a genuine visibility problem against brightly coloured opponents, and the voice acting has drawn consistent criticism across reviews for sounding oddly flat. None of these are dealbreakers, but they add up. For the couch crowd wondering about multiplayer - this one is strictly singleplayer, so the Saturday night tournament lineup you had in mind will need a different headline act. The controller support is solid for the genre though, and this type of pattern-reading boxing plays well on a gamepad. As a solo session between longer games, Thunder Ray scratches an itch that nothing else on PC currently scratches. Just go in knowing it is a short, beautiful snack and not a full meal. Riley, Scout Team

Valve rates this game Steam Deck Verified.

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