This year has provided a cornucopia of delights for the nostalgia gamer. First, Street Fighter IV brought 2D fighting games into HD, and now Nintendo is finally giving us the now-gen boxing game we’ve been jonesing for since Wii Sports became a house party staple. Oh yes, as you may have realized from that photo of King Hippo up there, I'm talking about Punch Out!!.

To the 8-bit Nintendo generation, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! from 1984 is the definitive fighter, much as Excite Bike is to racers, Mario is to platformers, and Zelda is to RPGs. (Though to be accurate, Punch Out!! began as a Japanese arcade game and didn’t feature any famous fighters, only licensing Tyson to win over westerners.)

And won over we were, spending untold hours living vicariously through the underdog Little Mac, taking our turns trying to knock down the weakling Glass Joe, the vicious Piston Honda, and that goddamned Soda Popinski. Eventually, you’d find yourself facing the undisputed heavyweight champ and--at risk of Nintendo thumb--referee Mario might even declare that you beat Mike Tyson. Of course, back then, Iron Mike was still a street-kid gone good, not the ear-biting, face-tattooed, convicted rapist he would one day become (or the soft-spoken documentary star he'd become after that). So it’s understandable that the other gloved '80s icon was replaced by “Mr. Dream” back in the day, even if Tyson was technically edited out of the original game (now available via Virtual Console) for financial reasons, and not as a result of his public relations foibles.

Alas, he’s still missing from the Wii’s Punch Out!!, but otherwise this marks a welcome (and surprisingly faithful) return to form for the cartoonish fighting franchise, which is still in pretty good shape after a 15 year breather. And it's still goofy as all get out.

Most people will make use of the system's motion-sensing controls, though using the balance board for dodging is totes unnecessary. It plays like a more sophisticated version of Wii Boxing, requiring twitch reflexes, ducking and blocking and, most importantly, watching for weaknesses, like when King Hippo's mouth opens wide, for example. In other words, it's not designed for you to just flail about and hope for the best. That said, purists will no doubt want turn their Wii-mote sideways to play with the original NES control scheme, which is just as satisfying.

Would this new version be as great if it weren't a reboot of a bona fide classic? Maybe not. But it is--and its mix of new and old school gaming is a real knock-out.