Official Review
Players choose from one of six alien fighters to control and pummel each other across a variety of maps. You'll find no traditional boxing rings here, but rather some uniquely designed environments containing portals that swallow anybody knocked into them as well as holes and gaps that send you hurling off the stage only to respawn a moment later.
The goal of the game's primary Score mode is to get as many knockouts as possible. Each fighter controls identically with a moveset consisting of right and left punches, jump, and dash. Things turn into a button-mashing bonanza pretty fast. Landing punches on your opponents fills your power meter, granting a temporary strength boost.
The run-time for a single round can be set anywhere between 30 seconds to 10 minutes, though the game's default setting is three minutes. There are two other modes: a Super Gloves mode which is essentially a minor variation of Score mode, and a Soccer mode that drops a Rocket League-style ball into the arena to be punched into the portals to score goals.
The thing is, though, it doesn't feel like a boxing game. Your avatar is only able to deploy stubby little punches without any interesting variations like, say, an upper-cut, hook, or jab. We feel that, given the context of a raucous five-way alien boxing match, there's certainly more room for imagination in how your punches are meted out.
In our view, the lack of motion control support option is a missed opportunity. Bare Butt Boxing would have a much better shot of standing out on Switch if punches were controlled by motion thrusting the left and right Joy-Cons. We reckon that sort of control scheme could be much more intuitive and do a better job of piquing casual player interest.
As for what we liked about it, BBB is indeed polished with short load times and a smooth frame rate. The maps are varied and detailed in their design and are set to upbeat catchy theme songs. Some have unique environmental effects, like a gust of wind that blows you off the stage or disappearing floorboards that players risk falling through.
Bare Butt Boxing offers four-player local co-op and five-player online matches. Despite our best attempts, we never encountered another human in the online mode and were consistently paired with bots. Perhaps our biggest bugbear is the AI opponents, who perform hopelessly and are low-effort pushovers that are almost always bested with little effort.
In fact, we set up custom one-on-one matches just to observe bot behavior. Our opponents generally flailed around and sometimes tripped themselves into portals, delivering easy victories. There is, unfortunately, no difficulty setting for fights against the computer, which means the action gets samey and stale rather quickly.
The main incentive for continued play is unlocking cosmetics including avatar skins, boxing gloves, and title cards. The catch is that these items are reasonably expensive and require a good deal of grinding, with a first-place victory netting you a measly 12 coins regardless of the length of the match or your score. Most cosmetic choices cost 100 to 300 coins.
If you're a party game aficionado into physics-based outings like Fall Guys or Gang Beasts, you'll likely find something to enjoy here. Likewise, if you have children, young players can grasp this one quickly and have a cheeky good time. At $14.99 MSRP, perhaps there's a case that it's worth grabbing to add the couch co-op roaster, especially if you wait for a sale.
Conclusion
Bare Butt Boxing delivers short bursts of frantic and accessible fun with some clear room for improvement. Playing against real people will certainly elevate the experience, seeing how rudderless the game's CPU fighters are. But given how simplistically it controls and the sparse game modes on offer, we can't see it having the staying power to be anything more than a game night palate cleanser between rounds of more established, better party games.
