Today we take a look at Spike Chunsoft’s latest grappler, Fire Pro Wrestling World. The Fire Pro series dates back to 1989 and this is the 29th game in the franchise. It came to Steam Early Access back in July 2017 and after initially being slated for a late 2017 release on consoles it is finally here, nearly a year later.
Video Review
I first got in to the series in the early 2000’s with a ROM of Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium on for the SNES. A modder had taken the time to localise it for the west and I was blown away by the gameplay and editing options on offer. Back then being able to play a game with almost a full WWF and WCW roster as well as the biggest stars from Japan was incredible and something I sank many hours in to.
Roster wise you have 30 generic wrestlers including blockbuster names like Dag Boomer, Max Bertrand and everyone’s favourite, Bobby Bobby. Thankfully the base game does come packed with the New Japan Pro Wrestling licence and along with it wrestlers such as Omega, Okada, Suzuki, Ibushi and Zack Sabre Jr. Even Attitude Era’s own Taka Michinoku is present and accounted for.
Impressions Video. An Epic With Daniel Bryan v Hulk Hogan.
The game really comes to live in it’s edit mode though. Actually creating a character yourself can be a daunting task, but thankfully at the time of this review there are already over twelve and a half thousands created characters available for download. You would have to try pretty hard to come up with a wrestler past or present that someone hasn’t had a go at creating and the graphical style allows for some pretty astounding accuracy. This is also helped by the insane number of moves that can be allocated to any creations.
The creation tools are not limited just to wrestlers either. You can also download or create ring mats, aprons, posts and turnbuckles. I say create, but honestly, at this point with the amount of work the community has put in I’m sure you will be able to find what you are looking for. Creations are downloaded here. You simply add them as favourites and the next time you load up the game on your PS4 it will begin downloading the assets.
Gameplay is as well rounded as it has ever been. Matches have a wonderful flow to them and you really feel the momentum twisting and turning. At first you will only have access to you punches, kicks and your most basic grapple moves. As you start to wear down your opponent medium and strong grapple moves stop being countered and are added to your arsenal. No health or stamina bar is shown, instead you hold L1 to breathe and regain stamina and rely on the games excellent momentum to judge when you may be a finishing move away from victory.
In terms of modes you have exhibition, tournament, league, battle royal, mission mode and Fighting Road for offline players. Within exhibition you can choose from normal, cage, barbwire death match, landmine death match and Gruesome Fighting, which is the games MMA mode. Unfortunately this match type isn’t very well fleshed out. Online is an option in theory, but trying to find an opponent can be a challenge in itself. This title does have a following, but it feels like most gamers are keeping their experience offline at the moment.
Mission mode is a tutorial that starts off simple and ramps up in difficulty extremely quickly. Fighting road is the games story mode where you create a character and start off as rookie and try to make it in NJPW. There are visual novel style cutscenes with the likes of Okada in-between the action, but the mode does lack the excitement of story modes found in wrestling games previously.
Overall Fire Pro Wrestling World is one of the best wrestling games around. Gameplay is king and if you aren’t hung up on cutting edge visuals and are willing to take a chance on something different I don’t think you will regret it.
-VDZE
Reviewed on PS4. Also available on PC. A review code provided by the publisher.