Punch Club

I'm trying to save you. Even as someone who grew up loving 80s action movies and grinding 90s JRPGs, the grind in this game is absolutely insufferable. A rare game where you can grind for hours and actually lose stats. On top of that, the fights are just auto-played. You pick your skills and the fight plays out with no other input from you. They're boring. Avoid.

So since I contacted the developer a few days ago. To ask for when you update this version (yes it was version 1.1) is now available for a few days finally updated version 1.31 on gog available. Now nobody can complain about bugs and old patch version. It took a while. But better late than never. ^^ Gives the game a chance. it is fun. a great retro game. Oh and get your hands on the other games Graveyard Keeper and Swag and Sorcery! They are also a lot of fun. But that's just my opinion! Yours sincerely

The story and the world of this game is so unique. It is composed of the references to the pop culture of 80s and 90s. Movies, comic books, games, it is all over there. Humour is great and 8-bit-style music absolutely kills it! The problem is... you cannot enjoy it. Mechanisms of the game makes the pace of the grind impossible to catch up. I mean - there are three features of the character: strenght, agility and stamina. While you acquire the next level of on of those, you cannot just rest on yours laurels on the ground the character loses them so quickly, you should just train all the day long. But you cannot do it either - because the character gets hungry quickier than any Sim would imagine, so you have to go to work to earn pennies for food. In a consequence you cannot develop your character in RPG-style, but you rather endeavour not to lose your levels. And there are fights every couple of days, which you are going inevitably to lose, because you do not have enough time to devel and level up... The only way not to rage quit this game is to play on the easy level. There is so much content in this game that you cannot enjoy as the illogical mechanisms of grind spoil it all.

Training Montage: the Game. The game is mostly about building up the main character into a fighting machine. The combat is automatic, you only watch it. The combat system is pretty fun, but not as deep as it tries to be. The game is VERY grindy. It does have a surprising amount of variety, but it still leans into the grind most of the time. And it is also rather janky. I haven't encountered anything game breaking, but plenty of small glitches.

..and did not bother to restart - what a bummer. You are introduced to Mick, who is willing to give you food if you are on the low end of cash, but he only mentioned that this help is limited when it was too late. Ended up with no cash, no food and no ability to sleep cause that is costing food. Also had no bar unlocked for looking through the thrash for burger. This happened on my first try, since I thought Mick is some kind of Father for our protagonist as "Rocky" is to "Creed", yet he is only a workaround for incoherent and untransparent gameplay design. Bad.