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You think wrestling’s big here in the states, what with action figures and halloween costumes
and Thunder in Paradise and that one episode of Space Ghost where Randy Savage is his grandpa
and threatens to put Zorak in a figure-four leg lock? (Best episode ever.) Feast your
eyes on this madness. The Fire Pro Wrestling series dates back to 1989 on the PC Engine
(AKA the Turbografx-16) and was one of the crowning gems of developers Human Entertainment,
who also gave us Monster Party, The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island, and Clock Tower. Esoteric
much? Anyway, we’ll leave hellish landscapes, Bob Denver, and point-and-click action for
some other time. There’s wrasslin’ to be done.
What you’re probably noticing is the utter lack of any UI whatsoever, aside from the
timer. While it keeps the screen all nice and clean... if the game doesn’t come with
a manual (like this cart), you’re probably going to be completely lost. Here’s the
trick: The Fire Pro Wrestling series couldn’t care less about how many times per second
you can mash a button. It’s all about timing. And without any overt visual cues whatsoever,
this poses a rather high barrier to entry to anyone trying to get into the series. While
you can pretty quickly identify the punch, kick, jumpkick, and run buttons, the grapple
- responsible for about 84% of the action - will continue to elude you. It just takes
trial and error, and getting powerbombed a few times, maybe getting put in an arm bar,
a tombstone piledriver, perhaps a side-to-side suplex. At least you’re only holding a controller
through all this.
But what sets the Fire Pro Wrestling series apart from its competitors is a ridiculously
full-featured edit mode, rivalling the control we’d find in games for the PS1 and N64.
While you can’t arbitrarily scale up a wrestler’s build by increasing the size of his polygons
(regardless of what any spam emails may indicate), you can select from a huge array of models,
alter any number of parameters, and save up to 16 of these custom combatants for later
use. You can even pit them against card after card of ever-so-slightly knocked-off Japanese
pro-wrestling superstars, and the occasional western challenger making a cameo appearance.
Case in point: The Undead Tailor. Yes, they actually went there. Man, knock-offs know
no dignity, do they. Anyway, if you’re not of a mind to find an import copy and search
fruitlessly for a copy of the manual (I found resources for its predecessor and its successor,
but not for this particular title), you can find a couple domestic versions that were
released for the Game Boy Advance and PS2, and a new avatar-centric version for XBLA.
But those don’t have the Undead Tailor. Much to their chagrin.