Punch-Out!! Wii & Star Fox Switch 2: Two Approaches to a “Remake”

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Two similar circumstances... but different outcomes!

When the Star Fox for Nintendo Switch 2 Direct was broadcasted on May 6, 2026, my first thought was comparing it to Punch-Out!! for the Nintendo Wii. Punch-Out!!, which released 17 years ago (May 18, 2009) and has a lot in common with Punch-Out!! for NES, had a lot of circumstances in common with Star Fox, which is heavily based on Star Fox 64. Let's set the scene...

In March 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii released. While many would consider Brawl the launchpad for Kid Icarus's revival for 2012, it also was the first appearance of Little Mac (as Little Mac, not that weird blonde guy from Super Punch-Out!!, which was a game that played much differently than its predecessor) since the NES. Then  it was announced in October 2008 that Little Mac would get a new game, developed by Next Level Games, with an updated design and art style that was marketed as heavily based around the NES game that he's famous for. That Little Mac would be back, returning to the ring after a long absence.

Compare that to Star Fox. Fox McCloud had a major appearance in April 2026's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which was very shortly followed up by the announcement and release of Star Fox for Switch 2, developed by Velan Studios, on June 25, 2026. Star Fox did get a release as recently as Star Fox Zero for the Wii U (versus Punch-Out!!'s generational absence—generational in a human lifespan sense, not a console lifespan sense), but... Star Fox Zero was better off forgotten (and is also directly based off Star Fox 64). Before that, there was Star Fox 64 3D in 2011 (which is... also directly based off Star Fox 64), and then 2006's Star Fox Command, a game that played much differently than its predecessors and had much of its cast behaving out-of-character.

But what about the details on the games themselves? How were people expecting them to come out, and then what actually happened? And why does it make sense to compare Star Fox and Punch-Out!! specifically, from a game design point of view? Besides that they both have names that are already the names of the first games of their franchises. For some definitions, check out Mustering the Remasters from 2014 for the differences between a remake, a remaster, and a port. Back then, I cited Star Fox 64 3D for the 3DS as a remaster of Star Fox 64—my position in this article is that Star Fox for the Switch 2 is a remake, and Punch-Out!! Wii is not a remake. I guess you could say it's a reimagined parallel universe story-wise, and with far more going on that makes it more than a remake.

There are huge interface, graphical, camera, and dialogue changes between Star Fox games and Punch-Out!! games.
And yes Peppy, this is Zoness.

Everyone knew—since Nintendo outright stated it—leading up to its release that Star Fox would just be a remake of Star Fox 64...and they were mostly correct. Compare to Punch-Out!! Wii. Everyone (except Nintendo Power) also thought that they knew, leading up to its release, that it would just be a remake of Punch-Out!! on the NES. And they were mostly wrong. Even when journalists were talking directly with the game's developer, Next Level Games, they described it as a remake. The big difference between 2009 and 2026 is that back in those days, videogame journalists still controlled the flow of information. Nintendo Directs did not exist. Instead, game developers would put out information to a press pool or password protected press site, and select journalists would disseminate it with their own spin on things.

The main three gameplay reasons that Punch-Out!! Wii is not just a remake of Punch-Out!! NES is the presence of four fighters that weren't in the NES version: Disco Kid, Bear Hugger, Aran Ryan, and Donkey Kong, for 14 total fighters. However, the second reason is that there are 27 unique fights in the game: all of the fighters except Donkey Kong have both Contender and Title Defense fights, and the difference between those two fight types is dramatic that they are almost like all new characters. New attacks, different timings, new voice lines, different power and HP values, new lore. Title Defense is way more than just a difficulty upgrade. The kicker is that, not until moments prior to the game's release where they only hinted at it, neither Next Level Games or Nintendo revealed the existence of Title Defense in the marketing. In other words, the biggest differentiator between the two Punch-Out!! games that so many journalists (and gamers that listened to them) kept comparing was kept a secret until when the game came out. The hype was massive with this news.

The third gameplay reason is that the Star system was completely changed. On the NES, you could collect and hold up to three stars. Little Mac would use one star for each Star Punch, and he would lose one star if he gets hit. This is very different from Punch-Out!! Wii, where you can still collect and hold up to three stars, but Little Mac will have three different Star Punches with different damage values depending on how many stars he has, and taking any damage will make Little Mac lose all of his stars. Besides different attack patterns, this also means the strategy for completing battles quickly has changed. Compare these speedruns of Punch-Out!! (NES) Super Macho Man and Punch-Out!! (Wii) Super Macho Man (Contender). They are drastically different, and it is worth keeping in mind that neither Contender nor Title Defense fights are replicas of an enemy boxer's fight in the NES game, with a few early exceptions between Contender and NES.

These differences aren't just rare, detailed oddities for speedrunners to think about. The changed Star Punch system is the basic foundation for multiple fights and Challenges, most prominently for Title Defense Bear Hugger. Just to really prove my point about how things are different between the two games, the speedrun strategy for Great Tiger on the NES doesn't even let him get off his special Tiger Punch that he so passionately rapped about, because the NES game has a unique mechanic where a Star Punch will one-hit knockdown if the opponent gets up on the count of 1. (Disclaimer: none of the moves he does in Punch-Out!! Wii are the Tiger Punch; he instead other rushing magic attacks and mirage dances. ...Which... also goes to my point that the attack patterns are different between NES and Wii, which makes it not a remake.)

By comparison, Star Fox for Nintendo Switch 2 released with exactly everything that the Nintendo Direct said it would. There is an Expert-level difficulty, but not only did they tell us this in the pre-release reveal, but the Expert difficulty was also in Star Fox 64. Expert is also nothing like Title Defense in terms of the differences. It's a difficulty bump for sure. But you aren't getting new voice lines or boss attack patterns from Expert (though you will get different enemy formations, which is kind of like a different attack pattern from the level as a whole)—but again, Expert was also in the original.

Star Fox does have new content, though, which definitely makes it more than a remaster. There is an online multiplayer battle mode that is substantively different than Star Fox 64's multiplayer, and there are now Joy-Con 2 mouse controls. Punch-Out!! also added a local multiplayer Head-to-Head mode that did not exist in any Punch-Out!! game prior to that. (I don't count the Super Punch-Out!! multiplayer debug code.) For its part, Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe considered the Punch-Out!! multiplayer mode to be the two big new things in the game, alongside the Wii Balance Board controls. The Wii Balance Board controls were... very bad, to say the least, and ignored by the player base. Head-to-Head was also very underplayed and was definitely missing the fun of the normal single-player. Star Fox's online multiplayer seems to be much better received, though the lobbies are sparse.

The fundamental shot-for-shot gameplay of Star Fox did not receive changes like Punch-Out!! got. The base technique for getting high scores, the Charged Unlocked Shot (or Unlocked Charge Shot), remains between Star Fox 64 and its Switch 2 rendition. That's the technique where you hold down shoulder buttons while charging your Arwing's laser to be able to shoot a shot without locking on, which provides extra score when you're wiping out groups of enemies with just the charge shot's splash damage compared to locked charged shots, as shown below (unlocked charge on the left and regularly charged on the right):

Unlike the Great Tiger or Super Macho Man comparisons, you can get a very good sense of how similar the Star Fox games are—in gameplay—by comparing these two videos of Area 6, the penultimate level of the game (if you want the true ending):

Both games added Challenges to its stages / fights. Punch-Out!! has 81 challenges (three for each fight) in Exhibition Mode, while Star Fox's Challenges mode is basically a stage select exhibition mode with six challenges for each level, or 192 total. (16 levels with Normal and Expert variations, or 32 * 6.) Both games’ challenges will have you interact with the game design to discover quirks you likely didn't already know about. Playing with a Challenge on does not alter the game's or AI's behaviour—it alters your behaviour within the game's existing framework. Challenges are nonetheless a very welcome addition to both games, and there are many unlockables (music, artwork, lore for Star Fox called the Holoviewer) behind completing them.

I haven't been able to complete all of Punch-Out!! Wii's challenges (or on Champions mode, which lets you only take one hit) on my own copy.
Donkey Kong is on the right arrow on his own screen.
Credit for this screenshot goes to Nolan414 in his all challenges video.

It's close to the end of the article, and I'll disclose now that I don't even own Star Fox on the Nintendo Switch 2. This screenshot is from zallard1.

Both of these arcade-styled games—which you're meant to play repeatedly for better scores or times—have quality-of-life improvements that make failure less punishing. In the NES version of Punch-Out!!, losing a fight might derank you so you can't fight the same opponent consecutively. Losing too many fights will give you a game over altogether and force retirement, kicking you out of the circuit unless you saved a password. Barring the Last Stand mode that directly references this, the Wii Punch-Out!! will never derank you or kick you out of the circuit. Similarly, getting a game over in Star Fox 64 will end your run entirely. Star Fox (and Punch-Out!! Wii, for that matter) lets you restart/exit a level without consequence, even allowing you to keep your bomb count and laser upgrades.

It goes without saying that both games have drastically high resolution graphics, a different art style, and modernised music, with new cutscenes that expand our understanding of the characters and personalities that differentiate each respective franchise from others in their genre. I used Soda Popinski's theme from Punch-Out!! as an example in my Ominous Latin Chanting rant article, despite the lack of... Latin in it. It definitely had ominous chanting. The Star Fox remake does contribute its own examples to the genre, though:

Nothing here is saying that remakes are bad compared to Punch-Out!! Wii, though I will say that I didn't get Star Fox mostly because the price-to-value ratio isn't good, and that is especially affected by Star Fox 64's availability on the Nintendo 64 Nintendo Classics on the Switch with my active Nintendo Switch Online subscription. I really thought that it was fascinating that in 2009, all they did was market Contender Mode and more than half of Punch-Out!!'s content wasn't mentioned until it launched, making it appear to just be an NES remake. Maybe Star Fox could've been the same way... but no, Nintendo didn't repeat their marketing technique. Both of these are arcadey, short-burst, highly replayable franchises that fans are yearning for something new for. Punch-Out!! delivered (and we really need a new one), while Star Fox continues to retread old skies.


This article was published during the KoopaTV infrequent tradition of Punch-Out!! Week. Don't expect other new articles this week, especially because it's published on Friday. (Ludwig intended to finish it on Tuesday, oops.) Or next year at this time. Anyway, what did you think of the comparison? Was it accurate? Thoughtful? Let Ludwig know in the comments section below!