REVIEW: Thunder Ray


Title	Thunder Ray
Developer	Purple Tree S R L
Publisher	EastAsiaSoft
Release Date	October 4th, 2024 (Japan / Asia)
Genre	Fighting
Platform	Switch, PS4, PS5
Age Rating	N/A
Official Website

When I first saw Thunder Ray I thought it looked like a decent Punch Out! style boxing game. I was always a huge fan of games like this, so my interest was piqued enough that I wanted to try this out for myself. I mean, we have a man here that has bested all the best fighters on Earth, so now the universe wants to challenge him! Let’s see if I found another great arcade style boxing game, or did I just got punched in the face?

Graphically, Thunder Ray looks great. The fighters featured in the game are all huge in scope and size. You will encounter huge robots, mutants, a witch and even a tiny alien that looks harmless at first glance. These characters are greatly detailed and each has a variety of special moves that are very well animated. The game runs at a solid framerate on the Switch, and this is a good thing seeing as you are expected to dodge attacks with quickness and precision.

The game features at total of 11 fights. Eight of these are in the main game and the additional three are in the Origins DLC included in this package. Each fight has different gimmicks for you to overcome. Some fighters will cast spells or have magical barriers, while others may give you status effects like confusion that reverses your controls, or poison which – as you would figure – constantly drains your health. This makes it very important to either block, duck, or dodge whatever these foes throw at you and counter attack. Once you knock your opponent down three times you win and Ray will end them in an over-the-top and gory fashion. But if you get knocked down, you lose and will have to try the bout again. The real problem is the controls here feel very heavy at times, and I had a very hard time dodging some of these. The last bosses in each mode gave me a ton of trouble even on the easiest setting.

With so few fights found here I feel the value in this one is being able to master these controls and get through the game on higher difficulties with better ranks – which I guess is the goal of most games made in this style. I still think the price tag on this is bit high at 1999¥ for this Asian release of the game. There is some meat on the bones here, but once you get used to the controls you can breeze through the first eight fights in right around 30 minutes. Now how many hours you’d have to put into this to get that good really depends on the player, and I’m too old and don’t have that kind of patience anymore.

Overall I think Thunder Ray is a decent game for players who enjoy this genre of game. The difficulty here was a bit too much for me personally, but I know a lot of players really enjoy a challenge in a game like this. Still, I think the price tag is a bit much for what you get here, so I would wait for a sale before stepping in the ring.