0 
0 With the inevitable rush of “New year, new me” ambitions, why not skip the pricey, long-term gym membership and spend £15.99 on Thrill of the Fight 2 instead? Developed and published by Halfbrick Studios, this sequel to the hugely popular and well-received 2019 release Thrill of the Fight offers a fun and engaging way to burn extra calories. Available to purchase now from the Meta Store, Thrill of the Fight 2 is available on Quest 2, 3 and 3S.
The elephant in the…ring?
I’ve really enjoyed some of Halfbrick Studios’ early mobile games, so I was curious to see what their VR title would be like. However, the Meta store page shows mixed reviews. It seems the userbase is divided, with many saying it’s not as good as the original Thrill of the Fight. Since I haven’t played the first game, I don’t have a basis for comparison, so let me know what you think, is the first one better?
That said, I’m not letting anyone else’s opinions sway my review of this game. Good or bad, this is my own perspective, without any influence from the previous title.
Gameplay
I thought this would be an excellent use case for the Maecker Quest Controller Grips which I’ve previously reviewed here. So I slipped on the rubber straps like they were my actual boxing gloves and got to work. There are 3 modes of play, training, multiplayer and career. Lets get started with training.
Training
There are two options here: dummy and sparring. The dummy lets you practice your punches, showing the damage of each landed hit and the velocity. Right away, it’s clear this isn’t going to be a Wii-style “swing and hope” situation. I might actually need to use proper technique. And to teach you that technique, there are some training videos provided. These videos, available on their main youtube channel as well, feel more like actual boxing training videos rather than VR game training.
Sparring puts you in the ring with an AI partner where you can set the number of rounds, round length, and difficulty. I set the AI to easy and gave it a try, losing my first two matches, badly. Refusing to quit, I went into my third training match more cautiously. No charging in recklessly. I focused on movement, head bobs, keeping my guard up, and punching only when I saw an opening. Finally, I won my first training match on easy! After only three matches I was actually sweating. Wii Sports never did that to me. The rest period between rounds became actual rest time, and by the end I felt like I’d had a real workout.
Career
Not so full of confidence from my poor performance in the training camp, I started the career mode. You start with your coach talking to you as you stare out at the ring about to take on your first amateur boxing match.
After your debut match, you settle into a routine of training sessions followed by fights. You can choose the type of training you want to do, and completing these tasks successfully will boost your fighter’s base stats. Opponents will bring different fighting styles, pushing you to adapt your strategy each round. Varying heights and reaches among AI boxers mean you’ll need to plan your approach carefully for each fight.
Your coach will be by your side giving you encouragement and let you know the result of each round. If you know you lost the opening round on points, how are you going to approach the second round? As you progress in your career the fights get harder, the arenas get bigger and fuller and the demand grows greater. Can you make it all the way to be the champ?
Multiplayer
As well as solo options, Thrill of the Fight 2 offers a multiplayer experience also. You can either create matches against your Quest friends or fight a stranger in the ranked matchmaking lobbies. My advice though would be to make sure you’re confident in solo mode before giving this a try.
Graphics & Audio
I really enjoyed the level of graphical detail. The environments are detailed and polished and the character models of the fighters are impressive. Your coach has lots of audio line which really makes him feel like he’s actually contributing to my corner.
Longevity
Thrill of the Fight 2 is a game which you can sink many, many hours into. Not just from a career/story driven aspect. But as a workout routine, I can absolutely envision this being something you jump into for a few hours each day to burn off calories and have fun while doing it. IF you have the right set up for it!
This game has room scale and standing options for play. Whilst you can play this game standing, the mechanics are geared towards you actually moving like a real boxer. That means loads of foot movement, ducking and slipping. This game is very hard to play if your feet are planted. So while it is possible to play like this, you really want room scale to get the most out of it.
There’s also a mixed reality mode that removes everything except your opponent. It gave me peace of mind that my TV wouldn’t take a haymaker, but I lost the sense of scale since I could no longer see the ring. I would love to try this game in a larger space but these types of play spaces are luxuries not many people can enjoy.
Final Thoughts
I can understand the divided reviews to a degree. This isn’t an arcade style beat-em-up. You can’t just rock up without learning the core mechanics and expect to land a load of knock out blows. Plenty of times, it felt like my swings barely affected my opponent, while they could just step into my character model and unleash a barrage of heavy hits before I had a chance to back up far enough to even see them.
It feels a lot more like an actual boxing simulator. The training videos suggest that you’ll be rewarded for actually fighting like a real boxer, rather than just flailing your Quest remote toward your opponent’s head. But I like what it’s trying to do. A game where improving your physical abilities will let you be better at the game is exactly what VR should allow.
I’m going to keep playing, working out, trying to improve my own abilities.
For this reason I’m happy to award Thrill of the Fight 2 the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you enjoyed this review, why not check out my previous article here
YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Discord | Podcast
About Author
