| Introduction
I have to be honest... I am a wrestling fan. I have
watched all kinds of matches from all over the world.
I myself used to wrestle for real in high school - 3rd
place in the city of Philadelphia in the Public League,
thank you very much ;). I have played all kinds of wrestling
games from Epyx Championship and Bop N Wrestle on the
Commodore 64 to Pro Wrestling and Tecmo World Wrestling
on the NES. My wrestling game nirvana arrived the day
I received Fire Pro Wrestling: 6-Men Scramble for the
Sega Saturn.
The Fire Pro Wrestling series is considered to be
one of, if not *THE* best wrestling game series ever
made. Fire Pro started the "create a wrestler"
mode that almost every other game of grapple has tried
to implement with sometimes horrible results. The Fire
Pro series features 'real' wrestlers from around the
globe with slightly changed names. The looks of the
wrestler along with his moves are usually spot on. Fire
Pro A for the Game Boy Advance shares the most with
its 32-bit cousin Fire Pro G on the Sony PlayStation
console which was released after the Sega Saturn version.
Well... I've wasted enough time already... on to the
review.
GamePlay
Fire Pro Wrestling A for the Game Boy Advance has
literally hundreds of hours of built in gameplay. The
amount of options in the game is awe inspiring for any
console game and completely unheard of for a handheld.
The game features 200 wrestlers once you unlock everyone.
You start with roughly 170 wrestlers and there are enough
save slots to create 77 more wrestlers. The built-in
templates in the game feature about 340+ wrestlers,
most featured in the game as well as others that you
can create. You can also re-name all the wrestlers in
the game to their real name and even do it in English.
It may take a little time... but it can be done.
The create a wrestler mode is extremely detailed.
You can pretty much make anyone you set out to create
without having to sacrifice much, if anything at all.
There are numerous outfit types that you can mix and
match to get the desired look and you can fully customize
the coloration of the outfit, skin tone, hair, etc.
The move list alone can take you hours to go through.
There are literally thousands of moves to chose from.
There are the standard grapple moves, your standing
punches and kicks, jumping moves to the outside, off
the top rope moves, moves on downed opponents, etc etc
etc. You can even create the CPU logic for the game
so the CPU will control the created wrestler the way
you want it to play him.
You can choose to play a single match, tag match,
electrified barb wire cage match, UFC octagon match,
Battle Royale, tournaments, etc. There is a lot to do.
You can set options for the match such as time limit,
pin or submission to win, which arena, which ring, which
ref, etc.
The way you unlock wrestlers is by entering into
the "AUDIENCE MATCH" mode which is a really
interesting mode where you have to choose a 'style'
of wrestling which you must adhere to in order to 'please'
the crowd. If you do not give the crowd what they want,
you won't perform well in the rankings and you won't
unlock the hidden wrestlers.
In addition to these modes, there is also a 'survival'
mode where you fight through 10 matches in a row, with
the wear and tear on your wrestler carrying over from
round to round. You may also create your own "League"
where you can have as many as 64 wrestlers battle it
out in a round robin style tournament to determine who
the best is.
Controls
The Fire Pro series feature the tightest control
that gives you more options than any other wrestling
game to date. The grapple system is the core of any
good wrestling game. The Fire Pro system is reasonably
simple. Wrestlers will automatically grapple when they
get close enough to each other. To win a grapple, you
must enter the button combo for a move at the moment
that the two wrestlers 'lock-up'. Since most wrestling
games used 'button mashing' to win grapples or some
other type of system, the Fire Pro system usually takes
a little getting used to. After you get the hang of
that... the game is a breeze and a joy to play.
Graphics
Graphics are never the strongest part of the Fire
Pro series on any system. However... it works very well
for the gameplay and everything and every wrestler is
recognizable. The game features 2-D graphics in a 3/4
style overhead ring view. The graphics compare favorably
to the source material from the other 32-bit consoles.
People usually down the series because it does not feature
bleeding edge 3-D graphics, however, I find that to
be one of the series best strengths. Without the complexities
of a 3-D polygon engine, the gameplay is perfect and
tight.
Sound & Music
Sound and music are a mixed bag, as always with the
Fire Pro series. Sounds are reasonably well done. The
slams sound like real ring slams and wrestlers grunt
and groan every once in a while. A lot of the usual
Fire Pro voices have been cut from the game since there
was probably too much to squeeze into a pocket sized
cart. It doesn't take away from the game at all though.
The crowd sound pretty good but, let's face it, that
would probably be easy even on the Game Boy Color. The
ref has the most voice work and it is very well done.
Music is not the best example of what the GBA can
do either but it gets the job done. You may even recognize
a couple of the entrance theme songs since some of them
are curiously similar to the real wrestler's theme.
Final Comments
This is *THE* wrestling game for a portable machine.
The developer at SPIKE, (formerly from HUMAN) have been
doing these games for a long time now and get better
each time. If you are a wrestling fan... you cannot
go wrong with this game. For years people have whined
about not being able to have wrestlers from different
federations grapple with each other in their video games
and for years Fire Pro importers have been enjoying
just that. I imported a GBA just because Fire Pro was
a launch title. But... like I said... I am a Fire Pro
junkie. If you have any questions about this game that
I may have not covered... just post a question in the
Game
Boy/Game Boy Advance Forums and I'll be happy to
help out.
|
Hardware
Reviews 
Game
Title
Fire Pro Wrestling A
