So, I caved on Fist Puncher and spent a few hours with it yesterday. Overall, it's a good game and well worth it if you're a fan of old school side scrolling beat-'em-ups like Streets of Rage and Double Dragon. It's got a range of vigilantes to play, and among the 10 I've unlocked (out of 15) there's a good variety of moves and fighting styles, aided by the fact that as you level you're given stat points to distribute among five stats that have tangible, consequential results. Im a big fan of the fact that different situations and enemies really do call for using certain vigilantes. There's also a pretty wide spectrum of enemies, environments, and level objectives/gimmicks, which I won't spoil for those of you that want to purchase it. I like the atmosphere, too. It's funny, outrageous, and always throwing something crazy at you. Also a big fan of all the collectible cards that double as achievements in the game. Haven't done co-op yet, but I'm sure it's good.
It does have some problems though. First is that even though the combat is pretty well balanced overall, there are times when it does rapidly swing from having you kicking ass with (maybe a little too much) ease to having to resort to cheesing your way through the next fight/boss battle with repetitive drop kicking to build up your special meter or completely changing vigilantes in order to exploit a ranged characters special move to slowly poke down a boss. The other big whiff would have to be the music. As one of these outrageous callback games, I expected it to have some over-the-top 16-bit tunes rocking in the background as I performed unnecessary brain surgery on criminals around the city, but the music is so subdued and actually a notch lower than the sound effects so I hardly ever even heard it unless I was purposely trying to do so. It definitely deserves more, but I think this game was made on a pretty low budget Kickstarter so I would chalk it up to that. Still, a quality soundtrack would've done wonders for the game. I might just play it while running the Guile Theme or the UN Squadron or Double Dragon soundtrack in the background.
Like I said, overall it's a good game and worth a buy if you're a fan of the genre or are just looking for some pleasing, almost cathartic fun.