Review: Panda Punch
Last Updated on December 22, 2022
Panda Punch is a simple 2D puzzle platformer with a stylish retro aesthetic. You play as Zeep, a red panda who loses an arm amidst an alien attack. It’s not all bad news. Your father just so happens to be a skilled blacksmith and patches you up with a shiny new oversized bionic arm.
This bionic arm is the cornerstone of Panda Punch‘s gameplay loop. In each level, you’ll punch enemies into dust, solve simple puzzles, and jump over pitfalls.
Later on, you’ll earn new abilities, and some of these will grant access to hidden areas in previous levels. I love this; it encourages revisiting places you’ve already beaten if you want to collect everything.
Gorgeous 2D pixel art
The biggest draw of Panda Punch for me is the visuals. I’m a sucker for retro aesthetics, and there’s plenty to appreciate here. Zeep looks great, as do the enemies and bosses. The Nintendo Switch has no problem running in portable or docked mode with zero slowdowns which is a welcome bonus.
You would expect these things in a decent puzzle platformer, and at surface level, Panda Punch ticks plenty of boxes, but unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for a few shortcomings to become apparent.
The levels look gorgeous thanks to the vibrant pixel-art style, but many share confusing design choices. Panda Punch is a simple game, and even though exploration is encouraged, it feels like the developers quickly ran out of ideas to keep the gameplay interesting.
Panda Punch tasks you with placing boxes on switches, which are often right next to each other, and it rarely gets more imaginative than that. Some levels will have you backtracking to previously blocked areas or take you on a perilous tour across platforms above, but things start to feel samey rather quickly.
There are a few enemies to spice things up, but aside from the rare curveball, you tackle them the same way.
Quantity over quality
Panda Punch boasts a generous level count, with 16 in the first area alone. I can’t help but feel like my experience would be much more enjoyable with half the level count. It takes far too long to reach the first boss, and as every level in an area looks and feels the same, it feels like a slog.
The soundtrack amplifies this feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed Panda Punch‘s music, especially the Jungle track; that’s a banger! The issue is that the music plays on a neverending loop throughout each area. A couple more bits of music or fewer stages would have gone a long way.
The highlight of Panda Punch, hands down, is the boss battles. They are few and far between, but all offer a welcome break from the platforming. Each boss is unique and challenging, and they reward you with upgrades that spice up the gameplay.
Every boss took me a good few attempts, and that feeling of finally emerging victorious is definitely my most positive takeaway from the game.
And this brings me to my biggest complaint. In my playthrough of Panda Punch, I ran into several soft locks. I did this by accident, usually by taking damage while holding a box which caused the box to get stuck in the scenery.
Some levels have checkpoints, but oddly enough, those checkpoints don’t reset boxes, so once it’s stuck, it stays there until you start the stage again. This was infuriating, and considering how often I made it happen, I’m surprised it wasn’t fixed pre-launch.
If you’re in the market for a simple puzzle platformer with a generous helping of retro flavour, you may find something to enjoy in Panda Punch. However, numerous issues hamper the experience. The soft locking, in particular, is incredibly frustrating, and that, more than anything, makes Panda Punch a hard sell.
- Publisher: Ninja Rabbit Studio and Ratalaika Games
- Platform: Sony PlayStation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC
- Review Platform: Nintendo Switch
- Released: December 16th, 2022
- Price: £4.99
Anthony is a freelance writer and has worked in the industry for four years. He’s furiously competitive and is always looking for the next big multiplayer hit. Anthony is a passionate PS1 collector and firmly believes in playing his retro games rather than letting them collect dust on a shelf. He also loves speedrunning and always looks forward to the next GDQ and ESA events.
