It’s the Ricky Fighters versus the Strong Bads … over and over again.

Scores look so weird on this screen

To Beat: Win 35 matches to become Super Champion
Played: 5/18/19 – 5/23/19
Difficulty: 6/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
My Video: Tag Team Wrestling Longplay

Well, I was wrong. Here is yet another NES wrestling game. I am starting to wonder if these games ever end. I mean, I know they do of course, but I have been receiving what feels like a steady diet of these titles for a little while. As soon as I get a bit of a breather, bam, another NES wrestling game. Tag Team Wrestling naturally turned out to be a real grind of a game too.

Tag Team Wrestling was first an arcade game that released in late 1983/early 1984. It was developed by Technos Japan and published by Data East. The game was ported to a few different home computers, as well as to the NES and Famicom. The Famicom version came first in April 1986. There it was called Tag Team Pro Wrestling and it was published by Namco. The NES version released in October 1986, published by Data East and developed by both Data East and Sakata SAS. The NES port was only released in North America. Tag Team Wrestling is very likely the first third-party title released on the NES in North America.

Wrestling yay!

Tag Team Wrestling is just what it sounds like. You play as the team Ricky Fighters against the bad guy team the Strong Bads. You can also play a two-player game where each player controls one of the teams. To win a match, you either need to pin your opponent, have them tap out by submission, or have them lose by countout when out of the ring. As you win matches, you rise in rank and eventually earn some titles. You beat the game by rising all the way to the top by becoming Super Champions, but you need to win a whopping 35 matches to be the very best.

The controls in this game are different from other wrestling games I’ve played. You move around the ring with the D-pad. You use the A button to punch and grab the opponent. Grab your opponent and initiate the grapple. Now you must select your move with the B button via a pop up menu. Tap B quickly to cycle through the moves and then press A on the one you want. There are eight different moves for each wrestler but there’s only a three second timer to enter your move before the opponent does a counter move himself. I learned pretty quickly to rhythmically tap out the button to get the move I wanted. Once the opponent is low enough on health and knocked to the ground, close in on him and press A to pin.

Seeing as this is Tag Team Wrestling, you can call on your partner to pitch in. Simply walk over to the lower left corner and press B to tag him in. Each wrestler has his own health bar displayed when he is activated. Naturally your opponents can do this too, so try and finish the job quickly when he is at low health. Your partner can also step in and break up a submission hold by pressing A when you are stuck. He will run in and smash the other guy so you can get back in the action. This is the only way I found to get out of the move.

Picking moves from a real time menu seems advanced for 1986.

You can also fight outside of the ring. This happens automatically if someone is hit with a move into the rope, typically by being either flipped or slammed toward either side. The referee begins a 20 count and you fight as normal with a few changes. First, you are locked on the same plane so you can’t run circles around each other. Instead of eight moves, there are only three moves available on the outside. You still need to tap B seven times to get to the last move. Sometimes there is a chair lying on the ground that you can pick up and slam into your opponent. Press Up to get back into the ring before the ref finishes the 20 count or you automatically lose the match. If you leave your opponent out there and get back in in time, then you win by disqualification.

The Strong Bads have a special anger mechanic that you will contend with all the time. After some time, one of the opponents will turn red. When this happens, you will always be grappled and attacked no matter what you do. A lot of the strategy in the game revolves around managing the opponent’s anger. One little trick I learned is that if the opponent becomes angry while laying on the mat, you can pin him and that mellows him out somehow. He also never gets angry while outside of the ring. That may not be realistic, but sure, whatever. As play continues and you win more matches, the time between angriness decreases, making those matches much harder to win.

There are a couple of special instances that occasionally come into play. Each wrestler has an original super move. This move is the last in the move list, and you can only do the move against the opposite wrestler from the start of the match. The Strong Bads also have super moves in that same manner. The Ricky Fighters have an occasional, unique ability of their own that goes against the Strong Bad anger. During certain rounds, if you tag your partner in a number of consecutive times, you will flash for the duration of the match. I believe this makes your attacks more powerful. It’s too bad this can only be done a few times a game.

You won’t like them when they’re angry.

Beating the game requires winning 35 matches. Along the way you will obtain smaller titles on the road to Super Champion. After each victory, you see a screen showing the next title you are going after and how many wins you need to get there. The listing of titles in the game manual is incorrect. Clear Round 3 to become Regional Champion, Round 8 for American Champion, Round 15 for European Champion, Round 25 for World Champion, and Round 35 for Super Champion. Winning a title serves as a checkpoint and you don’t lose rank. For example, winning the first three matches earns you the Regional Champion title. If you lose a match while gunning for American Champion, you go back to Round 4 at the start of the American Champion ladder. You have unlimited continues, making the quest for Super Champion a little easier.

This was my first time playing through Tag Team Wrestling. I am not much a fan of wrestling anymore and I never cared for wrestling games at all. This is a common cart that can be found for a few bucks. I have had several copies of this game on my journey to own them all.

The exploit for winning this game became evident after a while. Early on I play the matches straight up. I got a feel for the right amount of opponent’s health to shoot for. You need it low enough to successfully pin but not too low so that he doesn’t go back to tag his partner in with a full health bar. This works for several rounds but eventually the anger kicks in faster and you need a new strategy. Knowing that the opponent never gets angry on the outside, the goal becomes to shift play out there as soon as possible. I can get him out there in two moves. The first knocks him down to set up the suplex that throws him out. From there, do a post smash to move him into the corner. With good timing when he gets up, you can always win the grapple for another attack. Then I establish a cadence of moves to set up the timing so that I can knock him down as close to a 19 count as possible. That gives me enough time left to get back into the ring so that I win by disqualification. This is not an easy setup, but I was able to do it enough through repetition that it became easy.

“Always grab the weapon on the floor” is some sound advice.

I had a few struggles and close calls. I am not a perfect player so mistakes will happen in my routine. Normally this isn’t an issue until the final matches. The Strong Bad anger becomes constant only a few grapples into a match. Should that happen, either I get lucky and get knocked out of the ring to stage a comeback or I’m toast. This came into play on my final attempt one night. After almost two hours of grinding, I finally reach Round 35. Right away it turns into disaster when I miss the suplex that would throw him outside. The anger loop happens, and I’m done for. After kicking out of a pin, miraculously I get knocked out of the ring. I start working my outside strategy, but my cadence is off. At the end of the count, I panic and fire off a move only to struggle getting back into the ring. I get called out as my feet are hovering above the mat. Game Over. I’m pretty sure after my shock wore off, I threw the controller, turned the game off, and went to bed. Two nights later, I’m back at Round 35 after almost 90 minutes of attempts. It starts off well enough, however somehow I miss a grapple on the outside and get beat up for a little bit before we both head back into the ring. This time I kept my composure enough to grapple him just before he tags his partner. Lucky for me, Strong Bads aren’t in anger mode when attempting to tag in their partner. I attack and get the win by pinfall. It wasn’t how I drew it up, but it works just the same. I ended up playing a couple more matches. You always get the Super Champion message past this point, and naturally I didn’t have any issues winning the extra matches. Looking back, I’m glad the ending was a little bit exciting since it’s a better story.

Tag Team Wrestling is more notable for its influence than for its gameplay. Not only was it probably the first third party NES game, but it also directly inspired the Strong Bad character from Homestar Runner. Aside from that, this is a lackluster game. The graphics and music are simplistic, though that’s not too unusual considering it is such an early effort on the NES. The menu-based move system is a novelty at first that soon becomes tedious. Matches are quick but the road to Super Champion seems to go on forever with very few opportunities to spice things up. The Strong Bad anger is absolutely unfair by the endgame. I don’t think it would be entertaining for a two-player game beyond a match or two. Tag Team Wrestling, while completely playable, is not fun to play. There are far better wrestling games on the NES.

#128 – Tag Team Wrestling

Wrestling with my first Tecmo sports game!

Basic title screen, but great title theme!

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 1/5/19 – 1/13/19
Difficulty: 7/10
My Difficulty: 7/10
My Video: Tecmo World Wrestling Longplay

Today we have another NES wrestling game. I am surprised at how many of them are on the system. There are four WWF games and a smattering of others, even a first party Nintendo title. I know that Tecmo Bowl and Super Tecmo Bowl are highly regarded football games and Tecmo makes good games in general. That alone made me hopeful that Tecmo World Wrestling would be a solid entry. Let’s see how it fared.

Tecmo World Wrestling was released in Japan, North America, and Europe. The initial version was on the Famicom. In Japan it was named Gekitou Pro Wrestling!! Toukon Densetsu and was released in September 1989. The NES version came out in April 1990 and the PAL release was in November 1990. The game was developed and published by Tecmo in all regions.

There isn’t much story to go along with this game. You are competing in a tournament to become the champion of Tecmo World Wrestling and win the title. The matches feature a live announcer, Tom Talker, who will provide commentary throughout the game. There are ten wrestlers to choose from, each with special techniques that not all other wrestlers use. Win matches against all the other competitors to win the game.

Choose your wrestler from this instructional pamphlet.

At the title screen, you select between single-player or two player mode. Multiplayer only has one-on-one matches where each opponent chooses a wrestler. Choosing single player mode presents you with a booklet featuring two wrestlers per page. Press either A or B to flip pages to view two more wrestlers. There are ten wrestlers in the game: Akira Dragon, El Tigre, Pat Gordon, Rex Beat, Jackie Lee, Boris Chekov, Mark Rose, Julio Falcon, Randy Gomez, and Dr. Guildo. First find the page of the wrestler you want. Then move the star cursor to either the left or right page with the D-pad. Press Start to choose that wrestler. After selection, choose your name. The wrestler’s current nickname is the pre-provided value. Use the D-pad to move the cursor around, press A to choose a letter, and press B to go back a letter. Finally, press Start to play.

Before your first match, you get to do muscle training to get stronger. You also do this after every loss. You can choose between squats, sit-ups, and push-ups. Each choice seems to be the same, just with different animations. This is a button-mashing mini-game where you press A as fast as you can for 10 seconds. You’ll see the workout animation along with the timer, power level, and push meter. The push meter is what fills up as you mash the A button and once it’s filled up all the way you will add a notch to your power meter. You begin at Power 0 but can go all the way up to Power 7. The power meter determines how powerful your moves are when fighting an opponent.

First, let’s cover some basic ground rules. The object is to knock your opponent down and pin him to a three-count to win the match. You can also win by submission by forcing your opponent to give up. Matches are seven minutes long and are considered a draw if there is no winner after time. Wrestlers fighting outside the ring begin a twenty-count and lose by disqualification if one is still outside the ring after the count. If both wrestlers reach the twenty-count, the match is considered a draw. There is also a five-count and associated disqualification for climbing and hanging out on top of the turnbuckle.

Wrestling with commentary just like on TV.

Matches are shown in a split screen view. The top half contains all the action in the ring. The screen can contain the whole width of the ring but slides over a little to show the outside of the ring on either side if one of the wrestlers gets thrown out. The bottom half contains the status bar. You see the match timer and stamina meters of each wrestler. Two player mode also features what is called a biometer underneath the timer. It changes between red for player one and blue for player two. Whichever color is more full on the meter means that player will have better power and defense for a time. At the bottom is the running commentary by announcer Tom Talker. He clues you in on what moves are being performed and makes the matches more entertaining.

I have not yet played Pro Wrestling, but thanks to this article at Hardcore Gaming 101, I have learned that the control scheme between the two games are similar. You can move freely around the ring with the D-pad. Double tap either Left or Right to run in that direction. You can bounce along the ropes until you press the opposite direction to stop. Press Up when in the corner of the ring to climb on the turnbuckle and press Down to get back down. If your opponent is outside the ring, you can walk into the ropes to go down on the floor with him. Move toward the ring to go back inside from the floor. To pin a downed opponent, press B while standing next to him. Mash the A and B buttons to break out of a pin. You can also clinch an opponent simply by walking up to him.

There are a surprising number of attacking moves in the game. You can do basic strikes by pressing A or B. You can do two different attacks with A and B while running. You can do a jumping attack off the turnbuckle. You can also attack an opponent while he is laying on the ground. Most of the moves are done from clinching with the opponent. Simply pressing Left or Right will throw your opponent toward the ropes. The other wrestler is also trying to do a move during the clinch, so I found you have to mash the button to get your move in hopefully. The A and B buttons do different moves, and there are also different moves when combined with a D-pad direction. So there is an Up and A move, a Down and A move, a Left or Right (toward the opponent) and A move, as well as moves swapping in the B button.

Training sure looks intense!

Wrestlers also have special moves. These are moves that replace default moves and only apply to certain wrestlers. For example, the normal Left+A move while clinching is the Back Drop. Akira Dragon and Jackie Lee will do a German Suplex instead, while El Tigre and Mark Rose do the Northern Right Suplex. (That particular move is a mistranslation and should actually be the Northern Lights Suplex.) Furthermore, most of these special moves only are used when the wrestler is low on stamina and the common, default moves are used with higher stamina. It’s all very complicated and the manual is really important in detailing what moves you have available. I think the high/low stamina moves make the matches more interesting as the stronger, more exciting moves will occur toward the end of the contest.

Tecmo World Wrestling features what the manual calls Zoom Mode. These are cutscenes that occur whenever a wrestler does one of his signature moves against an opponent with little or no stamina remaining. They are just like what you see when scoring a touchdown in Tecmo Bowl. These scenes flow freely during the match, replacing the action briefly while leaving the bottom half of the screen with the timer and commentary intact. They are very well animated and neat to look at. I think they serve as a nice little break from the action but do get repetitive after a while.

In the single-player mode, you will match up against each other wrestler in order. Each win advances you to the next wrestler. Losing a match or a draw puts you back to the previous wrestler instead of a rematch. You are forced to put on a big winning streak to make progress in the game, and of course each wrestler gets more difficult the farther you go. Being able to do some training and increasing the power meter after each setback helps you do more damage in subsequent matches, plus you can keep playing and continuing for as long as you want. After winning against all nine wrestlers, there is one more wrestler remaining known as the Blue Mask. He was disqualified from preliminary matches in the competition, but he is the strongest wrestler in the game with all the best moves.

Detailed cutscenes provide a break in the action.

This was my first time playing Tecmo World Wrestling, as will be the case with all other wrestling games on the NES. I was surprised to find out that this game is really cheap online. It should only cost around $5 and is probably cheaper bundled with other games. I’ve had an extra copy or two through all my game buying, but it doesn’t seem quite as common as the pricing would normally indicate.

A good way I would describe this game is exhausting. It’s not on the level of Super Team Games, but it wears my forearms and fingers out for sure. The controls are complex enough so that there is some nuance to the action, but ultimately most of the time is spent button mashing. The obvious button mashing occurs during the training. It is very easy to go up one power level during training and very hard to go up two levels at once. My button mashing technique is to lock my arm and vibrate it to rapidly tap the button. I can keep that up for the ten seconds but usually I fell one notch short of that second power level. In the matches, later ones especially, I reserved that technique for when I needed to pull off a well-timed move or kick out of a pin with no stamina left. This game can be beaten quickly, but lose a few matches and all of a sudden it takes a while to complete. It really wore me out, and losses were demoralizing.

My completed run of the game on my longplay video is bad. I think it’s one of my worst videos. I was able to beat the game one time before when I wasn’t recording and just chipping away a couple matches at a time over a day. The next time I played, I set up the recording and got all the way up to the Blue Mask but failed over a few tries before calling it quits for the night. After a day of rest, I got up early in the morning on a Sunday and grinded out a win. It took me two hours to finish the game. I reached the Blue Mask about four or five times and each match progressively got better. It shouldn’t have been that way since I know I got more tired as I played, plus my power meter dipped down to level 4 at one point and I was too tired to possibly upgrade twice per attempt. I had to take a ten-minute break near the end of the game and didn’t bother editing it out as I feel the resting is part of the experience. My family was waking up and I was running out of time for playing, but I managed to beat the Blue Mask by disqualification with a perfectly timed pile driver on the outside. Any way I can get a win in a game like this, I will take it.

The Blue Mask won’t fall easy.

My wrestler of choice was Dr. Guildo and I had a decent strategy to progress in the game. I picked Dr. Guildo simply because he was the only US wrestler and I get a kick out of representing my country in games like this. Plus, he’s the biggest wrestler and looks pretty cool. I highly abused his Giant Swing move. Knock the opponent down any way you can, and press toward the opponent and B when he is on the ground to grab him by the legs and swing him around. This move often throws the opponent directly out of the ring. At about half stamina or less, he would lay down long enough to do an attack from the top of the turnbuckle to the floor, which does some of the highest damage I found in the game. The Giant Swing is a sure thing when you can get your opponent down, but it causes issues with trying to pin your opponent with him usually getting thrown out of the ring where he can’t be pinned. Once I get the opponent with almost no stamina, I would do some kind of knockdown move, do an elbow drop or two while knocked down, and go for the pin. Often that was enough to win though the later opponents were more likely to kick out.

This is a challenging game, but I have a theory on how it works so that I decided to reduce its difficulty rating a little bit. This is just a theory based on my own experience and may not be accurate at all. I get the feeling that this game intentionally gets easier the longer you play and that it also uses the two-player biometer in the background so that the opponent ends up stringing a bunch of moves against you no matter how well you are playing. My first match with Blue Mask in my video I got destroyed, even with a full power meter. After several other attempts that got a little better each time, I dominated that final match. While out of stamina, Blue Mask then got into a stretch where I could not do anything against him. At that point I’m sure I was working off a bit of adrenaline that could have increased my finger speed. I was not at max power since it decays the more you lose and I couldn’t build it back up. With a partial power level and general fatigue, it doesn’t make sense to me that I could hit every move at the start of the match and then not be able to do anything productive at all for a time. In my mind the dynamic balancing has to be intentional. Just keep playing and grinding. This game would benefit greatly if it had passwords. As it turns out, the Japanese version does have a password system that was removed for the US and PAL releases. Maybe the difficulty does slide down as some sort of counter measure. I’m getting into conspiracy theory territory now, so I better quit while I’m ahead.

Tecmo made another great game with Tecmo World Wrestling. This is an early contender for best NES wrestling game. The graphics are excellent with great animation and detail. I’m particularly fond of the text font. The cutscenes do get repetitive, but they look great and I welcome the small break to rest up for the rest of the match. The music is equally excellent. The title screen theme doesn’t usually get heard the whole way through and that’s a shame. It’s not so much underrated as it is under heard. The controls, while complex, are responsive. The least impressive part of the game is in the gameplay loop. Matches tend to get repetitive and for me it devolved into both explicit and implicit button mashing. I suppose that just comes with the territory and I will have to live with that, but it wore on me and got me more irritable the longer I had to play. The presentation is right and the gameplay at its core is solid, so for a wrestling game you can’t go wrong with Tecmo World Wrestling.

#112 – Tecmo World Wrestling

Whatcha gonna do brother when Hulkamania runs wild on you?

Shiny colors!

To Beat: Win the Tournament
Played: 8/6/18 – 8/8/18
Difficulty: 6/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
My Video: WWF WrestleMania Longplay

I was a teenage boy and for a season I was really into professional wrestling. I happened to get interested in WCW during the time when it overtook WWF in popularity, and then I unceremoniously got out of it sometime before WWF acquired it. The NES wrestling games vastly favored the WWF license over WCW with four NES titles to one. I am familiar with many of the WWF stars from this period as they eventually crossed over into WCW. Hulk Hogan on the cover of NES WWF WrestleMania, for instance, was a huge part of the nWo and his entry into that group was very shocking for me as a young fan. Playing this NES game rekindled a lot of nostalgia for that period in my life. Of course what matters now, nostalgia aside, is if the game is any good.

The current WWE began in 1952 as Capitol Wrestling Corporation and was created by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt. It was part of the broader National Wrestling Alliance, or NWA. The owners at that time, Mondt and Jess’s son Vincent, withdrew from NWA in 1963 over a dispute and created the WWWF, which eventually rejoined in NWA in 1971 and was renamed to the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF, in 1979. Vincent McMahon Jr. created Titan Sports in 1980 and bought Capitol from his father in 1982. Vince Jr. helped usher in the WWF Golden Age in the 1980s. WWF acquired its main competitor, WCW, in 2001. In 2002, WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, after a dispute with the World Wildlife Fund. WWE is currently the biggest professional wrestling promotion in the world.

WWF WrestleMania is the first of four WWF licensed NES games. The other three games are WWF WrestleMania Challenge, WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge, and WWF King of the Ring. WWF WrestleMania was developed by Rare and published by Acclaim Entertainment. It was released in January 1989 on the NES in North America only.

Awww yeah, wrasslin’!

WWF Wrestlemania is a straightforward professional wrestling game. There are six characters to choose from: “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Bam Bam Bigelow, The Honky Tonk Man, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, and Hulk Hogan. Matches take place between two wrestlers in the ring until one of them wins by pinfall. The game supports up to six players though only two may play at one time. One or two players can play a standard match, or one to six players may compete in a Tournament format. To beat the game, you have to win the Tournament mode in single player.

At the start of the game you will choose the number of players and the corresponding mode. A name entry screen appears for each player after the mode is chosen. Use the D-pad to move the cursor and press A to make selections. Names are up to six characters long. For multiple players, odd numbered players use the first controller and even numbered players use the second controller. After name entry, choose from one of the six wrestlers. Press Up or Down to choose. You will see his profile picture and some short stats. Press A on the one you want. After all selections are made, you will see the Pre-Bout screen with the participants of the next match. Now the fun begins!

Fights take place on a single screen with the stats on top and the match on the bottom. On each side of the top of the screen are the character portraits and the vertical energy bars for each player. In the center is the match timer and the bell that rings at the end of the match.

Bam bam on Bam Bam.

The controls are a little more complex than they first appear. You walk around the ring with the D-pad and you can walk in all directions. You can press either A or B to do some basic strikes against your opponent. From here it gets more complicated as some wrestlers can’t perform certain moves. I won’t go into all these details, but the manual has a couple of charts detailing all this and I suggest you look that up before trying this game. One more thing all wrestlers have in common is running mode. Press and hold either Left or Right, and then hold A to engage running mode. You can let go of the D-pad, and then let go of the A button to stay locked into running mode without touching any of the buttons. You will rebound back and forth between the ropes until you press a button to get out of the mode or your opponent gets in the way.

The remaining moves can only be performed by some wrestlers. While in running mode, you can press A or B to do a running attack. You can do a different move by pressing either A or B while holding Up or Down. One of these, usually with the B button, is how you pin your opponent when they are laid out on the mat. If you have your back to the opponent and press A and B at the same time, you will do a strong back move. If you are facing your opponent and press A and B together, you can do a bodyslam. However, you need to have more energy than your opponent to pull off the bodyslam, otherwise you will default to the back move. Finally, some wrestlers can do a move off the turnbuckle. To climb up on the turnbuckle, you need to engage running mode while all the way at the bottom of the screen. Just as your approach the corner, press B. If your timing is good, you will climb onto the turnbuckle and then dive off all in one move. Even though there are turnbuckles at the top of the screen, you can’t climb on those. Weird, I know.

To win a match, first you need to drain all of the energy from your opponent. When he’s down, you need to pin him. Stand next to him and press either Up or Down combined with either A or B depending on your wrestler to pin. A three-count will start, and if your opponent is still down at three, the bell rings and you win the match. Often, just getting the energy bar emptied is not quite enough to keep him pinned down. Sometimes he will get up right away and other times he will stay down for quite some time. You can get a feel for when he will stay down longer than usual with some experience. On the flip side, your opponent is also trying to drain your energy and pin you too. You will rise automatically if you are knocked down with energy remaining, but if you don’t, mash the Up button on the D-pad to get up as quickly as you can.

High octane pinning action!

There are a few additional mechanics and things to look out for in the game. Energy meters slowly grow over time. You have to keep up the offensive or your opponent can get back into the game. There is an additional way to earn back some energy in the form of a powerup. That’s right, this game has a powerup called the energizer. Each wrestler has his own energizer listed in the game manual. Energizers appear from the top left of the screen, go across the top of the ring, and then exit on the right side. You want to collect your energizer if you are near it, and likewise you want to keep your opponent away from his. There is also an anger mechanic. If someone gets hit a bunch, his skin will change color from pink to red. Moves do more damage while in this angered state.

The timer is of some importance as well. There is no timer in a standard match, either single player or two-player. In fact, a two-player match with one person is a great environment for practicing moves and timing, all without worrying about the timer. The timer runs in tournament mode only. It counts up to three minutes, and if there isn’t a winner to that point, the match is considered a draw. You will get an instant rematch, and these will continue until there is a clear winner.

To win single-player Tournament mode, you pick a wrestler and then you have to win against all other wrestlers in order. You can tie via the timer as many times as necessary, but lose once and you’re out. A multi-player tournament functions more like an actual tournament. The computer controls the remaining wrestlers and everyone plays each other once for a total of fifteen matches. Whoever wins the most matches wins the tournament, and the tiebreaker is whoever has the quickest average match time over matches won.

Ooooh, that’s gonna leave a mark.

This was my first time playing WWF Wrestlemania. This game was originally on my deferred list, but I can’t remember why I put it there other than my general disinterest in sports games. This is one of the most common NES games out there. Right now, I have four extra copies I haven’t bothered to sell yet. It only costs a few dollars if you want a cart.

I did not have the easiest time beating this game. I decided to go with “Macho Man” Randy Savage (RIP) as he was one of my favorite wrestlers growing up. Taking the wrestlers in order means The Million Dollar Man is the first wrestler, and he really is a pushover for the most part. For a while I couldn’t beat anybody else. I found trying to beat anyone else in a fist fight is useless. Those guys can rifle off back moves quickly before I could barely get out one. Running attacks are more useful especially if you can knock the guy down with them. You can go right into another running attack and knock him down as soon as he gets up. This strategy doesn’t work on the heavier wrestlers. My path to victory was abusing turnbuckle moves. The problem then is getting the opponent into the corner with you to get in range for the move. I try to get the opponent to run after me into the corner so I can climb the turnbuckle. Knocking him down gives me enough room to back up and run again. I tried to time it so that I was climbing up when he got up. That way he will chase me into the corner, trying to take advantage of having my back to him. I can get into a loop, but it doesn’t always last. Your timing has to be really good too so that you don’t miss the turnbuckle climb. I think the presence of the timer, combined with energy regeneration, encourages repeating powerful moves over and over to win. It might be a cheap way to win but it worked for me. I can win most of the time with this strategy, but even then, winning all five matches was a little harder than it seemed.

Take this opinion with a grain of salt because I haven’t played any other wrestling games on NES, but I don’t think WWF Wrestlemania is all that good. Rare usually makes fun games but not this time. The level of presentation and polish from a Rare game is still there. There are some nice graphical effects on display. The character portraits look pretty good on the NES. Everything up to the gameplay is solid, and then the annoyances begin. I had a tough time lining up properly with the other wrestler, and when I did I would get beat down before I could get enough hits in. Movement around the ring is cumbersome and slow. It’s easy to get trapped in the corner and hard to get back out. The act of pinning a wrestler is a lot harder to perform than it should be. The timer gets in the way of a more thoughtful match, resulting in exploiting moves just to win in time. These control and balancing issues add up to a more frustrating experience than a fun one. I hope later games are better than this one.

#96 – WWF Wrestlemania