Creed: Rise To Glory – Championship Edition Review

April 4, 2023

It’s crazy to think Creed: Rise to Glory originally released nearly five-years ago. Survios have now released Championship Edition on PSVR2 – which is in a way a remaster of what they released all those years ago. However, they have added some improvements and extras in this update – but, does it still do enough to be entertaining all these years later?

STORY

The story follows the journey of Adonis Creed, as you train, fight and win in his against-all-odds journey, with the championship edition being expanded and inspired by Creed III. Given the name of the game, I think this is what you would expect – but its nice they extended this – even though it still isn’t very fleshed out.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is mainly about the boxing experience, but as you would expect from Survios and the original release, this is not really based on realism and feels more arcade-like than others on the market. However, this is not a bad thing, as it does bring some addictive gameplay with how it plays.

As aforementioned there is a story mode, this is split into two parts in Championship Edition. Playing this really helps you get used the mechanics of the game as you take on fighters in Creeds rise to glory, and put in some training sessions across a number of gyms between fights. Over this time you are going to learn how to block, punch, dodge and move about the ring to not leave yourself open for powerful or quick jabs from the AI, who all bring their own strengths and challenges in the ring.

After completing the fight you will be moved into the gym, where you play mini-games. However, your performance in these sessions is important because it will set your stamina for the next fight. If you let your stamina drain you need to hold your hands up in the blocking position to recover – leaving yourself open for attack.

The arcade feeling is ever present, as you can knock your opponent down multiple times in the one round, with me managing to do this four times in a single round multiple times. With one of my main gripes being between rounds you only get around ten-seconds to recover, which can make you very tired in person in no time. You can take the time to rest a little in gym before starting the next session, but in most cases you will find yourself just wanting to jump straight in.

The other two mechanics are if you get stunned by your opponent, you will need to move you hands into the same position of the gloves of Creed, in order to return to focus. If you are knocked down you will zoom out the ring into the crowd, and have move your arms in running movement to get back to your body in the ring – the more you are knocked down the harder this will become.

Outside of the story mode you can do exhibition fights against the computer or duke it out with others online – with a cast of twenty two boxers to chose from across the Creed and Rocky universe. At the point of writing this review, I have not really had the chance to play any matches online, but if the original was anything to go by these can be a lot of fun if you can find someone to fight against.

Finally something that the game offers is one hell of fitness workout, be taking on the exhibition matches, others online and going into the free-play mode in the gym and completing the mini-games offered between the fights. You really can work up a sweat in these, as its like bringing a boxing gym into your own home.

PRESENTATION

Survios have improved on the visuals to make use of the more powerful hardware and really does look fantastic on PSVR2. For me even before the Championship Edition Creed: Rise to Glory was the best looking boxing game available, and the new visuals just cement that. With the character models, the varied crowd designs and all the arenas never mind the size really looking great and keeping the feeling of being Adonis Creed.

The use of the audio in the game is also done well, the atmosphere grows as you progress into the bigger arenas, and the voice acting is solid. The stand out part being the Rocky music playing as you take on some of the mini-game montages and some of the fights – it really gets your adrenaline going. As your stamina starts to deplete you get the heavy breathing from Creed, as you are stunned and knocked out everything goes all muffled, so all this use of sound is adding to the level of immersion in the game.

COMFORT/CONTROLS

With this being based around boxing, it is made to played standing – and I cant imagine playing it any other way. The controls have been much improved with the PSVR2 offering analogues, meaning you can move around the ring a lot easier. Where before you were sort of static as it wasn’t easy to move, now it feels a lot more natural with this option.

Outside of the movement, the new tracking system on PlayStation VR 2 means the tracking has also improved, although at times I still found I lost tracking for a split second. This means your punches and blocking feels a lot more accurate, and that sprinting to the ring when knocked down seems much more fluid.

The team at Survios have made use of the PSVR2’s haptics by adding not only impact haptics in the controllers when landing your punches, but feeling the shots that connect with you through the headset haptics. Now, the only thing I found odd with the headset haptics, is these seemed to activate even if you are hit in stomach.

LONGEVITY

As previously mentioned you can knock you opponent down many times in one round and I found not often my matches went more than two rounds. This meant the campaign lasted around one and half-hours even on pro difficulty. However, what you need to take into account is the exhibition matches, PVP and free-play gym really give this game a lot if you want a daily workout in Virtual Reality. It all really depends what you want out of Creed, how much will get out of it.

REVIEWED USING PLAYSTATION VR 2

For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a sample provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a press sample does not affect my judgement of the product.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition is the only boxing game that is currently available on PSVR2, but it’s a great one to have available. Although this is arcade feeling and not really true simulation, it brings plenty of fun – be it exhausting fun. What it offers outside of the fun is fitness in VR, with it being based around calorie burning it does allow you to set time based or amount of calories burnt health goals for your sessions.