[1] The game was released in Japan by Entertainment Software Publishing in December 2000 and in North America and Europe by Empire Interactive in 2001.

[2] The storyline, which unfolds in the story mode, takes place in six linear segments that originally overlapped in the manga.

The game keeps track of the fight records and saves it to the memory card, via an auto-save option.

[6] Instead, visible damage can be seen on a boxer's face, which is most noticeable between rounds when the characters are sitting in their corners.

[5] Cut scenes are added in before and after matches as the main story telling device, and utilize the same character models as the fights.

The game has six story arcs and begins with Makunouchi Ippo, the protagonist from the manga series.

Other locations include the mountainous area around Niigata, and an outdoor boxing ring set in post-World War II Tokyo, Japan.

The game features forty-four playable boxers—forty-two boxers and two duplicate characters that have handicapped abilities.

The game features most of the boxer up to the 53rd volume of the manga, including Ryuichi Hayami, Ryo Mashiba, Vorg Zangief, Kazuki Sanada, and Ryuhei Sawamura.

This version is based on when Ippo began boxing and was training to fight his rival, Ichiro Miyata.

[10] After winning, Ippo take his professional boxer exam to begin his boxing career.

Ippo later enters the Class A tournament where he wins his chance to challenge the Japanese Featherweight Champion, Eiji Date.

After losing to Eiji Date, Ippo climbs the ranks again to the featherweight championship, where he faces Sendo, who has become the new champion.

Afterward, he begins his comeback that eventually leads to winning the Junior Lightweight Championship fight against Ryo Mashiba.

Kimura's story is also different than the manga in that he lost several of the fights and did not become the Junior Lightweight Champion.

It begins with Takamura as the Japanese Middleweight Champion, defending his title against the Class A Tournament winner.

After the main boxers have been played, Ippo visits his coach, Genji Kamogawa, at the mountain lodge.

Kamogawa and his longtime friend and rival, Ginpachi Nekota, were both boxers before World War II.

Nekota challenges Anderson, but loses due to developing punch-drunk syndrome from his fight with Kamogawa.

Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory was produced by Entertainment Software Publishing and was adapted from the Fighting Spirit manga series, at a time when the publishing company was focusing on its licensed comic properties rather than original titles.

[15] The soundtrack of the game was composed by Takayuki Aihara, Shinji Hosoe and Naoki Tsuchiya.

[22] Many reviews commented that the anime/manga style of characters and use of Japanese names were a turn off to US gamers who were more familiar with boxing games like Knockout Kings or Ready 2 Rumble.

NextGen stated, "It's arguably the best 3D boxing game yet" and the versus mode offered "solid replay value".

[7][25][30] The lack of audio dialog, which forced the player to read text for the story mode, was also a negative when many other games on the PS2 at the time were adding in voice overs.

Reviews stated that Victorious Boxers was one of the most technically accurate boxing games of its time.

[2][6] Matt Helgeson of Game Informer described it as dramatically different from the "combo-intensive, somewhat sluggish feel" of Knockout Kings.

Hajime no Ippo 2: Victorious Road was released on January 29, 2004, exclusively in Japan, and features a fighter-creation mode and new boxers.