Rocky takes on Apollo.

It's been a little while since Rocky made an appearance on video games, and this may well be his first appearance on a handheld.  Rocky fans may rejoice, but others may find it to be just an average boxing effort.

The game can be played in several modes which include single bouts, fights with a friend over a link cable, a tournament ladder, and movie mode.  The single fight mode is pretty much self-explanatory, and the tournament mode plays as a series of fights as you try to take the top prize.  The movie mode is the most interesting one, challenging you to fight your way through all of the opponents that faced Rocky in the movies.

Fans of the movies will enjoy the movie mode - not only do Apollo, Clubber, and friends make an appearance, but also some of the other fighters Rocky faced along the way like Spider Rico.  Before each fight against one of the marquee opponents, a few still screens and text are used to advance the story.  They do the job in a minimalist sort of way, but fans of the movies will be left wishing there was more to the story aspect of the game.

Rocky in training.

In movie mode you have the opportunity to train Rocky between fights to improve on his skills.  The training amounts to three mini-games that help improve Rocky's ratings in strength, stamina, and speed.  In pad training you fight against a padded trainer who calls out button combinations such as "A ►".  The faster you hit the given combos, the better your training results.  Heavy bag training challenges you to hit the bag as many times as possible.  A set of long combos are displayed on the left of the screen, but they are so small that they'll have you squinting in good light.  Hitting the combo sets awards you with even more improvement, but it's hard to get the game to register these combos.  Finally there is speed bag.  To improve your stats, you must hit the buttons while a slider is within a red bar on the screen.  If you want to skip the training, you can select auto-train and move right to the next fight.

No matter which mode you play, the fights are played the same way.  The boxers are shown from the waist up, and move on a side-scrolling ring.  It's impossible to get you opponent stuck on the ropes because you never reach the ropes; you can keep scrolling the same direction the entire fight.

Punches are thrown with the A and B buttons, and you can modify the punches by pressing up, right, or the right shoulder button.  This gives Rocky a repertoire of ten punches to use - unfortunately there aren't additional move or punch combos.  Pressing the left shoulder button will cause Rocky to lean back and the direction pad can be used to lean to the back left or right.

The boxers each have two status bars during the fight which represent damage and stamina.  The stamina bar determines the strength of your punches and is also used to replenish health between rounds.  If the health bar goes empty, then the boxer is knocked down and must hit the buttons to get up before the ten count.  A nice touch is the fighter portraits at the top of the screen which change to show the effects of the fight on each boxer.  They're a little small though, so are tough to see in low light.

Probably the biggest knock against Rocky is that it is too easy.  Lean back and wait for the other boxer to throw a punch, and then land a couple of your own after he commits.  Repeat until you knock your opponent down.  The game scores each round in case both fighters go the distance, but it is not really necessary as you'll take out all of your opponents within the first three rounds.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 64%.  Fans of the movie will probably enjoy it, but it is too easy to keep the interest of most fight fans.