Trio the Punch is the product of Data East's warped sense of genious . Take a fighting game , strip it of all plot , throw in the most bizarre settings and enemies and you have yourself a cult classic "hit" .
Well , almost .
The main problem with TTP is that it is just too long . And were it simply because it is overflowing with surreal weirdness , I would gladly savour the experience . However.......
Your main three characters . This is one of the rare examples I have experienced where in game graphics are actualy better looking then the character artwork on the selection/title screen . The Ninja is the only with a range attack , the other rely on shorter range attack (the barbarian uses a grill torch , while the gangster/a only uses his fists) . The game consists of many short rounds where mostly in order to fight a boss you need to colect a certain number of yellow hearts (which flash the words "help" when they apear , for.....some reason) . In some levels , you have no hearts to colect , but simply have to walk a bit towards the boss .
After defeating said boss , you play a mini game called lottery , which may increase your life , power up your main weapon (ganster man gets upgraded from fists to a garbage can for example) , sub weapon (a more powefull attack you may use only once per level) or.....power them down . This is sort of nice for the first few minutes , but after doing it more then twenty times , it wears on your nerves .
Speaking of which , the enemies : they range from Karnov (star of the NES/Arcade title of the same name , courtesy of Data East of course) , to zombies , thugs and the like . The first boss you face is a giant statue of Karnov carried ny mini Karnovs that shoots fire out of it's toe .
This seems like a promising start but it's just sprinkles on a giant banana shake gone bad two weeks ago . Nobody wants to down the whole thing , but that is what you have to do here .
In this case it is basicly fighting random bland enemies as stage bosses numerous times . Oh sure , you fight a disembodied hand , foot , some.....bizzare looking ghosts , your chinese master Mr. Chin ,and a ....pink sheep but this variety does not stay throughout the game . Particularly the last section of the game . The feudal Japan stage was prety repetitive , with it's three colour swaped ninjas , acting even as bosses , but that has nothing on the future/space ship setting . The whole section basicly has you fighting one enemy type . Blobs . Green , blue , red and yellow blobs . Sure the yellow ones turn into clay lizard men for a while after being hit , and the red ones have float tanks and take a crapload of time to actualy kill , but they are stil blobs . The blue slimes you start off against in RPG titles . The only other enemy is a robot as a boss , but he is prety boring to look at .
The last stage also becomes increasingly frstrating and tedious . The necessary amount of hearts to summon the boss is very hard to even colect before the 30 second timer shows up , meaning you have half a minute to defeat a boss who hasn't even showed up yet ! And when you do get him to show up and beat him , the robot turns into his second form.....a blob (sigh......) with a new health bar and you are basicly screwed .
This goes on for several stages , and does not improve at all . The entiere futuristic section should have been cut , and it would certainly not have made the game feel any shorter at it's 30 plus levels .
As for the last level and ending.....well I say the decision is up to you whether it is worth the trouble or not .
Trio the Punch recieves 3 out of 5 wife beaters , because the early stages of the game actualy do merrit replaying .
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