Wrestling games

What do you think about WWE games ? I played a lot of those titles during my childhood and I remember them being extremely fun.

I like them. Only got the WWE ones though. 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, and All-Stars are the ones that I own.

Not really. They didn't seem to have good mechanics but I probably just didn't understand them.

I liked one of the Rumble Roses games, can't remember which or the mechanics.

War Zone and Attitude didn't do much for me among early games (still enjoyed making a character and just dicking around for love of wrasslan). Didn't have much time with Wrestlemania Arcade, Wrestlefest, Fire Pro, etc. All Stars seemed pretty neat. WCW vs NWO World Tour (working off the Virtual Pro-Wrestling) was where shit got real (eventually leading up to my all-time favorite "No Mercy" *the primary complaint about it being a supremely awful glitch where it eventually erases entire memory card slots of CAWs*). Smackdown's starting point was very meh, but Know Your Role got the gameplay and character creation to a much higher standard (the former becoming acceptable and the latter improving by an absurd margin from the trash it started as). Just Bring It was a botch. Shut Your Mouth being more of a return to form as I recall. I think the peak for that series was the next entry (Here Comes the Pain *my second favorite*). They would eventually have some things I had long wanted (more creation *especially moves* though a lot of it needing work). Story focus was often a huge waste of time/effort/resources (probably needed to just copy No Mercy's notes on this front). It got ugly real fast after that. I wish they would dial things back and figure out what worked. Take it to HCTP and begin adding features, improvements, etc. (or do the same with the No Mercy path). Either is fine (though No Mercy is probably the better call, frankly).

NOTE: I've heard tall talk of an AEW game being modeled after No Mercy's spirit. Big words. Bigger still the suggestion it might be the same people making it, but even with the studio, getting the same people (as they were or better)? Doubtful. If it were so, I would be willing to buy the game (provided it has character creation like before, at least). I haven't watched the stuff for many years and have seen basically nothing from this upstart promotion (as Vince loses his monopoly), but we're talking vidya here. I don't exactly need to watch the programming to get value out of the game (and affection for play fighting made real). Even now, No Mercy lives on through modding.

I've recently played the WWF Royal Rumble game (the one that was on the SEGA Naomi arcade board and got a Dreamcast port), and I have to say I think it's pretty underrated.

The home console version got a particularly bad reputation for being a straight arcade port and adding virtually nothing, which is a fair criticism if it was a full price game back in the day. The game contains 21 wrestlers (2 of which are secret unlockables), and 3 game modes. The main one is the "Royal Rumble" mode, based on the real life match type. The match sees 30 wrestlers competing against each other, but because of the game's roster size, some wrestlers will appear more than once. Wrestling fans found this contradiction to the real thing to break their immersion. The second game mode is the Exhibiton mode, which is pretty similar to the arcade mode of a fighting game - you win "x" amount of matches, beat the final boss, watch the credits as your reward. The final mode is a VS mode, where up to 4 players can compete against each other in a match. Additional players can join in on the two single player modes too.

I watched a few video reviews of the game before trying it, and the general consensus on the game was very negative. One thing that did bother me though was that more than one reviewer claimed that the "Superstars left" counter that is displayed during the Royal Rumble matches was bugged, and that it wasn't decreasing as new wrestlers entered the match. Nobody seemed to figure out that this count actually displays how many wrestlers the player needs to eliminate to be crowned the winner - any eliminations caused by the AI are not counted. This is an arcade game, after all - you aren't going to be handed victory! To be fair, if you're familiar with how the actual real life match works, the counter works completely differently, and there are no in game prompts to explain the rules (or even how to play). I assume there will have been artwork on the original cabinet that describes this, and it's probably in the manual for those that play on the Dreamcast.

Despite being the game's namesake, I think the Royal Rumble mode is the least interesting due to the partner system present in the other modes. In Exhibition/VS mode, you pick a wrestler to play as and a second wrestler who will act a partner (if you're familiar with wrestling, it's probably more accurate to say they function like a manager). The partner system functions a bit like the "Striker" system from King of Fighters, or the "Assist" system from Marvel vs Capcom. The arcade game featured a 3-button setup (strike, grapple and run), and you could call your partner in to perform an action by pressing 2 of your 3 buttons. Each button combination performed a different action, and each partner has 3 different sets of assist types to choose from (another parallel to MvC). You choose which set of assists you want to use after selecting your wrestlers. This game came out around 6 months after Marvel vs Capcom 2 - the devs may have planned the partner system from the start, but it's interesting to think it may have been included in the game's secondary mode as a result of MvC's inspiration.

There are 3 different types of assist that can be used, which are designated by colour - red, yellow and green. Red assists are close range grapples. If you succeed at landing the grapple, your partner will join you to perform a double team attack which deals much more damage than regular moves. Being in a grapple animation provides you with i-frames, so you will be protected from Yellow assists while performing one of these.

Yellow assists see you whistle to call your partner in to the ring, who will then run at your opponent and perform either a strike or grapple attack (which is dependant on the character and assist set you pick). Unlike the Red assists, you can activate these at any range - your partner will run across the ring to reach your opponent regardless of where they are. You need to be careful using these, as your opponent won't be able to perform their attack if your opponent is in the middle of a grapple animation, and it will be wasted.

Green assists allow your partner to perform a support action. There are a few different actions - the ones I have seen so far include:
- throwing a weapon to you
- coming in to break up a pin attempt
- throwing a drink to you (and if you manage to drink it, you can recover health)
- entering the ring to perform a taunt (if completed, you will earn an extra stock on your Special meter)
- entering the ring to perform a taunt (your opponents meter is constantly drained until the taunt is interrupted)

I really like the partner system - it'd be interesting to see what the meta would look like if the game had a following. If Def Jam FFNY and Shrek Superslam can get competitive scenes, maybe there's still hope for this one yet...

The main gameplay mechanics are similar to those found in the PS1 SmackDown games (the arcade version released in between SD1 and 2). There are some changes, though. You have access to a main strike combo string, but you can end the combo with 3 different attacks with different properties. The first will knock your opponent down on their back, the second will leave them standing but groggy, and the third will knock them down face first. Depending on which of these states your opponent is in, different follow up attacks are available. For anyone interested in how the movelists compare to the SmackDown games, there's a Move List FAQ by a GameFAQs user below. It does seem to be incomplete though - I've noticed that the author hasn't listed the attacks when springboarding off of the ropes, like Chris Jericho's "Lionsault". Others may be missing too.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/913943-wwf-royal-rumble/faqs/11423

Another change from the PS1 games is the grapple system, that more closely resembles the one used in the PS2 title SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain (which was released 3 years after this game). You press the grapple button to enter a lock-up animation, and from there you could perform a grapple move by pressing the button again, either with or without a direction. This gives you 5 different grapples to perform when facing opponents, and 3 when behind opponents (as up/down and left/right perform the same move).

Like in a fighting game, you build can build meter. When the meter fills, you recieve one Special stock (or "S"). You can have a maximum of 5 stocks. You can use 3 stocks to perform your wrestlers finishing move. It seems that there are a few different actions that use up one stock, but I'm still figuring out what these are. I think performing various signiture moves requires 1 stock, and you can also use a stock to perform a quick recovery when grounded, or to cancel out of certain hit stuns while standing. Each Special action is performed by pressing all 3 buttons together (this is mapped to the R trigger on the Dreamcast controller). You can fill the Special meter quickest by landing attacks, but it does build when receiving damage too. Another way to fill the special meter is by taunting (Start button in the arcade version or the L trigger on the Dreamcast).

The quickest way to win is to pin your opponent for a 3 count. It is harder to kick out of pins when your health is lower. There is a dedicated command for pinning a grounded opponent, but some grapples end with a pinning attempt anyway. Alternatively, you can also win by KO if you perform your finishing move when your opponents health meter is empty (or if the damage from the move causes it to become empty). Some characters have submission moves, but I haven't tried these out to see if you can make opponents submit. I'd assume that you can win by submission in the same way you can win by KO.

Overall, it's a very "arcadey" experience, in that it's designed to be fast paced and OTT without straying too far from the source content. I'm doing a lot of research on arcade games at the moment (I'm thinking of saving up for an emulation cabinet with a PC inside), and when I saw this game I had to give it a go. If you're a fan of the WWF "Attitude Era", don't require your wrestling games to be simulations and have the means to play/emulate it, I'd recommend it.