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There are some games throughout history that become part of gaming lore, and Power Punch II is definitely one of those titles. For decades now, rumors have circulated about this title starting life as an official sequel to Punch-Out!!, but Nintendo moved away from the project once Mike Tyson found himself at the center of controversy. This is only furthered by statements that claim Power Punch II was made under supervision from Nintendo.

Making for an even stronger argument, the start-up screen for Power Punch II does say that Nintendo owns the trademark to Power Punch II and that it was licensed to American Softworks. If the story seemed a bit fishy at first, this little tidbit definitely muddies the waters even further.

With that kind of evidence and speculation, the story has to be true, right? Well, Destructoid reached out to Power Punch II’s programmer and character designer, Andrew Bailey, for the scoop. Not surprisingly, his comments cast a ton of doubt on this dubious bit of legend.

“I don’t remember it being commissioned by Nintendo. We were working for LJN (from memory) a small US publisher. Of course, Nintendo needed to approve every game, and they would have probably not liked [Mike Tyson’s] involvement once the issues came out.”

Unless Bailey completely forgot the game’s ties to Nintendo or was never made aware of them, it seems like Nintendo never had any real connection to Power Punch II. Seeing as how Nintendo made a sequel to Punch-Out!! just a couple of years after Power Punch II’s launch, it seems they were more than capable of crafting a follow-up of their own.

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Comments (2)

hawk

2y ago

I'm sure they wanted people to think it was a sequel, though.


ninjinister

2y ago

Still waiting on Power Punch 1