Fire Pro Wrestling AdvanceReview

Fire Pro Wrestling has been the quintessential wrestling game since 1989. Sadly, the US gamer has been devoid of this great game due to its use of talent from major wrestling federations such as WWE, WCW and ECW. This use of licensed talent made the game almost impossible for release in the US. Luckily, through a clever use of name change, Fire Pro Wrestling came to the US on the Gameboy Advance. It easily out classes every wrestling game that's been released in the US.

Fire Pro Wrestling makes use of a large number of real life wrestlers. Since made in Japan, most of the wrestlers are from the many Japanese federations. As for American wrestlers, the developer, Spike, created some of the most well known wrestlers in the US but changed their names and appearances. If you have the time, you can find guides online to make the necessary changes and recreate the characters just like their real life counterpart. For wrestling fans, this is the only time when you can play a dream match such as Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan or the Rock vs. Sting.

Wrestlers already created will have all the signature moves that made those wrestlers popular. With such a wide range of moves used for wrestlers already created, there's an extensive create-a-wrestler system. Not only will you have plenty of choices for the look of your wrestler, you'll have just as many, if not more, choices for the moves of the wrestler. You start with deciding on a style then go to the specific moves. Even though there are tons of moves to choose from, the choice of style will dictate on whether you have a good affinity for that move. If you do have a good affinity, your wrestlers will pull of the move easily and effectively. On the other hand, give a small quick wrestler a power move like a Choke slam will be a poor choice making the move very hard to pull off. This great system lets you make almost any character you can dream of including a variety of video game character with my favorite being a Paul Phoenix wrestler.

The grapple system for FPW is simple, effective, but you'll need plenty of practice to get good at it. It's all based on timing. Once two wrestlers come within a certain distance, they'll immediately go into a "tie up". At this point, you have a small window to do a move, and that window gets smaller and smaller the harder the opponent is. Once you get the grapple timing down, you have what you need to win. Attack and grapple moves work about the same. There are weak ones, medium ones, and strong ones. There's a standard operating procedure for matches. Start of with weak attack and weak grapples since stronger attack and stronger grapples will either be blocked or reversed early on. After some weak attacks, you go to the medium and then to the stronger attacks. Usually the stronger moves will consist of the "finisher" for that wrestler. Depending on the style of the wrestler, this "finisher" can cause a critical which will end the match automatically by KO. If not, the constant pummeling of the opponent will let you get the 1-2-3 pin fall, count out, or submission needed to win.

There are a variety of matches available to play. Most of these matches are just exhibition matches since there is no story mode to the game. Instead, there is something much better for a wrestling fan called an Audience Match. These set of matches play out in a ladder type form making you progress through a certain type of match style. After choosing a style, you will need to perform the match to the audience's approvals. For example, the Gruesome match means you have to do fight on the outside of the ring and do a variety of illegal moves to win the crowd over. Do well enough and you'll continue to the next match. Completing each style of match will unlock some special wrestlers.

With this being a GBA game, graphics are not going to being incredible. The models are very simple but the developer did well to keep certain specific details on the outfit so you can tell the characters apart. If there's part where the game graphics excel at is the animations. Being that there's tons of moves available, there has to be an adequate amount of animations used to create the look that the move is effective. In a sense, the game keeps true to form that wrestling is all about "selling" the moves and making them look as if they're painful.

Just like the graphics, the audio doesn't have much going for it since the game is on the GBA. The sound of the audience is great especially when they start counting the pin fall and their roar when you use signature moves. A clever addition to the audio is the wrestler's theme music. While some seem to be random rock music, other themes are actually theme music of well known wrestlers. They've been changed but you can still hear the similarities.

Like I said in the beginning, Fire Pro Wrestling easily outclasses every wrestling game made in the US. It's a sad note that US gamers had to wait 12 years to get the game and only the GBA version of it. Regardless, this is the best wrestling game released in the US.

- O.G.