Yesterday afternoon, the Video Game History Foundation uploaded a brief video highlighting a new discovery made by the community: an early prototype for Punch-Out!! on the NES. While it’s more common to see in-development or early builds of games nowadays, Nintendo has always been cagey when it comes to sharing insight from the past. It took a massive leak of data to see alpha and beta versions of classic games, so finally seeing Punch-Out!! in its pre-Mike Tyson form is an incredible get.
The cartridge featured in the video comes from an unnamed person who bought it at an auction for $45,000. Purported to be owned by a former Nintendo of America employee, the ROM was dumped online via The Cutting Room Floor and made available for fans to skim through. What’s interesting is that the cartridge label mirrors the original NES Black Box design, though it does look rather unfinished. I appreciate putting Glass Joe on the front, at least.
As for the contents of the ROM, it functions pretty closely to the final version of Punch-Out!!, but only has four playable opponents. Data for other fighters is present, but using hacking tools to access them merely plays a sprite demonstration. The character data isn’t complete, so you won’t be able to fight Von Kaiser or Piston Honda, etc. You can still “finish” the game, however.
The ROM data does have references to characters who were featured in the arcade original, though. Piston Hurricane, who was later replaced by Piston Honda, is in the code. There is also the elusive Pizza Pasta, though there are no sprites or any kind of programming to indicate he was to be playable. The credits even use Soda Popinski’s original name, Vodka Drunkenski. Fascinating.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
