The Depressing History of Little Mac

like i mentioned a couple videos ago i've been hard at work in my free time on a basketball boss rush game prototype and that led me to research arguably the greatest boss rush video game of all time punch out on the wii the perfect cel-shaded art style insane animation personality grueling but fair difficulty this punch out by next level games is perfection it got me interested in little mac the game's unlikely lead but the deeper i dug for little mac facts the sadder i got going through 30 years of this man's history has led me to one conclusion despite his amazing games all little mac knows is pain let's talk about it [Music] today's video is brought to you by raycon premium wireless earbuds at half the price with no compromises in high quality sound or comfort raycon sent me the everyday e25 earbuds they come in a variety of colors and they give you six different sizes of swappable gel tips to make sure that they stay comfortable and stay in your ears no matter what you're doing raycon was co-founded by singer ray j and is used by celebrities all over the world like mike tyson yeah that mic the same one that's been laying the beat down on little mac for over 30 years i use my raycons every day coven shut my gyms down and illinois winter makes basketball not very reasonable so i got a cheap treadmill to help me stay active indoors i'll be honest running and walking is kind of boring but raycon's helped me get away from the screens and still have fun while doing it i've been using them to get lost in a new album listen to my favorite podcast and even find sci-fi audio books it's been a great part of my daily routine with high quality bass simple bluetooth pairing and six hours of play time raycon's are easy to use every day and they pump up every workout that i do if you're looking to make already affordable wireless earbuds even cheaper click on the link in the description or go to buy recon dot com slash the jwits for an additional 15 off they're so confident that you'll love them that they even offer a 45 day free return policy thanks to raycon for helping support this channel so today we're going to talk about the hurtful history of little mac let's punch in unlike most series mascots little mack's creation was not at the start of his franchise punch out is even older than the family common nes starting its adventure on the good old-fashioned arcade cabinets nintendo's first punch out dropped in late 1983 with a unique dual monitor boxing experience featuring this unnamed green haired guy for a majority of the game your very average height boxing challenger is shown in a green wireframe mode which lets you view the colorful and admittedly stereotypical boxers in front of you to get a better view to dodge their attacks through your character this original arcade release then got an add-on arcade expansion featuring all new bosses called super punch out and in one of the most forgotten pieces of punch-out brand history there was also arm wrestling it wasn't until 1987 that our little legend was given life so after almost four years why unpack the mac now the answer is that the nes sucked well it sucked compared to the processing power of arcade cabinets the 8-bit nes just couldn't replicate the wireframe effect in a graphically appealing way so instead they decided to make a comically tiny main character so that you could more easily see your opponents looming over you hailing from the bronx and listed at the time is just 4 foot 8 and 107 pounds little mac is the ultimate underdog combined with the washed up heavyweight star doc lewis this unlikely duo tackles insurmountable odds and even sizing up against the most powerful boxer in the world at the time little mac is a joke literally he is a joke it is meant to be funny that he can even compete his name little mac is a joke playing off the popular mcdonald's hamburger even his hard-fought victory at the hands of the player is treated as a joke just look at this newspaper [Music] not not that part this part look at that april fool's day it's a joke little man gets no respect even the nintendo comic system builds in this framework in fact i'd argue that's even more mean-spirited give it up mac retire you're just a loser from the bronx you weren't born to be a fighter yet despite it all the nes punch-out titles sometimes featuring mike tyson but always featuring little mac is where the franchise really began to blow up no longer a quarter feeding arcade machine this new punch out had extreme difficulty to keep the player in long gameplay sessions not only did this make for a more memorable gaming experience but this also helped build the little mac mythos you might be small and you might be light but with the right training good reflexes and a little luck even the most unlikely hero can go the distance punch out on the nes and famicom sold over 3 million cartridges even outselling other classics like kirby's adventure dragon quest 2 and metroid little mac even makes a brief appearance on the 1989 tv show captain n the game they chose for alex playing before he got sucked into the tv was this classic punch out little mac got some tops trading cards got some action figures he was on top he was popular so naturally we wouldn't see him again for another 20 years in 1994 we got super punch out for the super nintendo yes there are now completely different games called punch out and completely different games called super punch out it might be a return to the ring but not for the true king who is that that's not little mac the instruction booklet doesn't call him little mac the game doesn't call him little mac you get to call him whatever you want there's no doc lois this is an imposter according to david chef's 1994 book game over little mac's original character name for the nes was peter punch i don't care what stray nintendo of america promotional material says about this blondie that is not little mac i will forever call this guy peter punch with the power of the super nintendo the game's designers decided to go back to emulating the feel of the original punch out for arcade giving us a normal sized generic boxer that could also turn transparent to allow you to see the opponent in front of you strangely enough early promotional material for the game reveals that little mac was originally the game's protagonist it's very obvious this was based on the original design no one has ever officially commented on why we ended up getting this guy instead super punch out is a solid game and it reviewed decently but it just didn't hit the stellar sales of its predecessors punch out as a series would step out of the spotlight for a long time after this over a decade later nintendo makes one of its weirdest promotional moves of all time working with ea to get nintendo character appearances in its gamecube versions of sports titles but then there's fight night round two their boxing game there was only one nintendo character right for this job the nintendo character who already has a history of fighting real-life boxers okay well uh actually he's from the bronx but i guess i can excuse that error if they oh you gotta be kidding me the gamecube version of the game even came with a full emulation of super punch out starring of course peter punch little mac is still nowhere to be found the year is 2008 a super quirky game called captain rainbow releases exclusively in japan on the wii it's an adventure game from the chibi robodevs and it's all about a forgotten superhero stranded on an island full of forgotten nintendo characters this is nintendo's isle of misfit toys featuring forgotten nintendo characters like the soldiers from famicom wars hikari from shin onigashima and your boy not peter punch the one the only little oh no it looks like little mac have one too many big macs and it's up to you to get him back in a fighting shape with a crappy motion control minigame if anything describes the place that little mac has in the nintendo mythos at this point in time it's this he is a complete and utter oaf but after much effort we do get the closest thing we've seen to a prime little mac on a nintendo home console shout outs to kirameki by the way for helping produce a fan translation for captain rainbow it's a ridiculous game that i've wanted to play for a long time even if it is a game that does my boy dirty the end of this decade marked a huge turning point in mack's career little mac was back the real little mac in super smash bros brawl little mac was an assist trophy keeping his iconic tiny size and powerful punch more on that later because obviously if you're watching this video today you know what comes next but most importantly we come full circle back to punch out for the wii i already said it but this game is just so unbelievably good it's like a fromsoft game built 100 out of boss fights not only does it strike a perfect balance of puzzle based and reaction based boss battles but this game is clearly a massive love letter to everything that made the nes game great so many old animations and moves are modernized and even without the mike tyson license they found a great way to keep some of his iconic moves and attitude with the new revamped mr sandman and even though this game came with all kinds of classic wii motion gimmicks including the absolute masochism of playing with a wii balance board this game is 100 playable and optimal with a sideways wiimote just like an old nes controller critics loved it and while it wasn't a cultural milestone the way that the original was it's still one of just 60 wii titles to sell over 1 million copies it even had multiplayer which i've barely touched it did give us the horrifying gigamac powerup though which devs really wanted to call big mac but avoided due to obvious legal trouble in keeping with our theme of little mac constantly getting the short end of the stick he also has a bonus game that was lost to time doc lewis's punch out was released as a club nintendo download only title in 2009 and once more in 2015. it's a single boss fight with three different difficulties as you spar with none other than the dock himself they found the perfect way to make this fight both entertaining and challenging and it's a shame that this one game is sort of lost to history outside of emulation or hacking now i mean scott pilgrim got a physical release so anything is possible but for a single dlc the odds aren't looking great in the game's final mode mack's last stand little mac agrees with duck that he wants to go out on top before he loses his luster when you lose three matches in this mode the game's ending cutscene plays [Music] good job son good job what an absolute gut punch as sad as the scene makes me it still feels pretty fitting as a metaphor for little man's original run on the nes he showed up rocked the world as a surprisingly entertaining underdog and retired from the world while still being fondly remembered unfortunately little mac is not as fondly remembered these days thanks to a little series called super smash brothers at face value this seems like an absolute win for our boy in perfect underdog fashion little mac makes the first jump up from super smash bros assist trophy into a fully fledged character we also saw the return of big mac which uh um overall though his unique playstyle seemed like it would be an interesting new addition to the roster and a great representation for a retro gaming icon but there's just one problem and it's kind of a big one everyone hates little mac there's just no winning for this guy for example a bunch of japan was angry at his inclusion right out of the gates like metroid the punch-out franchise has always been one that was way more popular in the west despite originating from a japanese company and then there's the gameplay when little mac first dropped for smash bros 3ds casual players complained that little mac was simply too good now i'm a long time fan of the competitive scene of this game but there's no denying that casual players make up a majority of the smash bros fan base and for a casual player mechanics like super armor or a death bar that grants you a one-hit ko feel really unfair players begin to store message boards in droves articles start cropping up complaining about him everyone starts playing as him because they think it will give them easy wins and the irony as many of you know is that little mac was terrible sakurai posts an article in response to all of this stating that little mac has by far the worst win ratio of any character in online data he gives the impression of being able to win easier than other fighters which leads to more people using him but in reality he's a difficult character to actually continuously win with and this ended up being true while there were obviously highly skilled players that could do nasty things of the character there's no denying that he was toward the bottom of smash 3ds and wii u tier lists and in smash ultimate he is at the bottom bottom bottom of the barrel with some top players even arguing that he is straight up the worst character in the game it turns out that having good aerial options is sort of important in a platform fighter and whether people hated him because he was too good or hated him because he's too bad smash fans still seem to agree that he simply isn't fun to play against while it is fitting to see little mac in a situation where he has to overcome great odds it's just sad to see this character in a position where people are unhappy with his existence it's especially sad when i realized just how long it took for little mac to start existing again in video games at all whether it's being the butt of a joke being replaced losing a game drawing the hatred of fighting game fans or getting repeatedly punched in the face in his games it's clear to me that little mac walks a very challenging path just this year nintendo announced that they acquired next level games developers of that amazing wii punch out it's very clear that they loved the project and it was nice to catch that little reference to it in luigi's mansion 3. don't get me wrong i would love a new punch out from that team to make it onto the switch but then again i just played punch out wii to make this video and it's just as good as it was 10 years ago in my opinion these are some of the best design bosses in all of video games they are that fun to fight and re-fight over and over again as little mac if you told me that little mac will never get another video game that actually might be perfect because at least in his own titles he got to go out on top [Music] you

Channel: TheJWittz

Views: 461,835

Rating: 4.9539876 out of 5

Keywords: Punch Out, Punch-Out!, Little Mac, Boss Fight, Gaming history, Nintendo Switch, Next Level Games, Mario Strikers, Doc Louis, Wii, NES, SNES, Captain Rainbow, Mike Tyson, Boxing, Evolution of

Id: BuJfQOICQEQ

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 14 2021