Punch-Out!! on the NES is one of the most complete-feeling games of the 8-bit era — a tight, precisely designed boxing game where every opponent is a puzzle and the solution is always pattern recognition. It doesn’t feel like anything was missing. As it turns out, something was. A recently discovered prototype of the original NES build revealed cut characters that never made it into the final release, and a fan developer called Bitcrunched has decided that a Game Boy Color remake is exactly the right place to put them.
The project is called Steel Joe’s Punch-Out!! B-Side. It’s not a straight port of the NES game — Bitcrunched describes it as a remixed version, with deliberate changes to the roster, structure, and feel. The GBC’s screen and hardware constraints make it a natural fit for the Punch-Out!! aesthetic: small sprites, punchy colour, fast feedback. Built in GB Studio, the game is designed to run on actual Game Boy Color hardware as well as emulation.
The Backstory
Bitcrunched started the project roughly two years ago, then stepped away from it. Last month they returned, published new footage showing the game in action, and confirmed the project is back in active development. The footage shows a game that looks and feels recognisably like Punch-Out!! — the framing, the opponent portraits, the rhythm of the exchanges — while clearly being its own thing.
The inclusion of cut prototype characters is the detail that makes this more than a fan port. Punch-Out!! prototypes have circulated in the preservation community for years, and the characters that didn’t survive into the final release have been documented. Bringing them into a GBC remake is a genuine act of recovery — making playable something that existed in concept but never reached players.
Why This Is Worth Watching
Fan games built on GB Studio have had a strong few years. The toolset has matured significantly, and developers who know what they’re doing can produce games that hold up visually and mechanically against commercial releases from the original GBC era. B-Side looks like it’s in that category — the footage suggests someone who understands both the Punch-Out!! formula and the constraints of the hardware they’re building for.
There’s no release date. The project is back in development and Bitcrunched is sharing progress as they go. Worth keeping an eye on.
For more on the Game Boy Color in 2026, see our piece on the Time Frog Color wristwatch build.