Fire Pro Wrestling Returns

"Smackdown v.s. What? (May Contain Minor Spoilers)"

That's what I find myself saying as I play this "more than superior to the Hyper 3D Recycling Bin" masterpiece. It has all the things I could ever want and more, A good, simple yet effective gameplay that's easy to learn and addictive. So addictive that I find myself thinking, "wow, So this is what WWF No Mercy would be like in 2D?" With that said, Let me break it down and score this work of art.

Graphics 9/10: Sure, It's in 2-D, But that's one of the best things about this game. When playing as a default wrestler, or creating a unique one of your own, You can actually compare the sprites to the real thing. AJ Styles looks like AJ Styles, Kevin Nash looks like Kevin Nash, & Andre The Giant looks like Andre The Friggin' Giant! Not to mention the refs look sweet as well, Whether it be one of the defaults, or that bikini wearing piece of eye candy you created. They just look excellent. I even think the intros (Short, Sweet, & Just as effective as anything SvR, DoR, or RAW could do.) look excellent.

Sound 7/10: Once you get passed the overly generic Main Menu tune and get right into the action. You'll find plenty of ear candy to enjoy. Dark Prince is my fav. track to fight to, I don't even need to turn on my Pantera CD with something that sounds like Black Sabbath. Music aside, The sound effect are also simple but effective.

Gameplay 10/10: Simple yet Effective, You just get close enough to your foe to auto-grapple them, listen for that sound of feet on the canvas, and press either Left/Right Square or Down X or eventually Up Circle to perform a move. Even your guys Finisher (or Critical as it's called in this game.) can be done at any time. Although, The finisher is much easier to pull off once your foe is so weak that he/she falls over from a mere punch/chop/kick. In addition to having wrestling moves, This game also offers a pretty nice MMA style system. Just mount on and beat down. Although it's easier to mount on when you have a mounting move in your arsenal of moves. You can also use various weapons that are laying around in the Barbed Wire or Landmine or Cage match. There's also some nice cookies in the moves themselves, using a fork or a scythe to cut open an opponent just seems pretty satisfying to me. And if that don't get your attention, Try naming one 3D game that offers a match with 8 people in the ring AT THE SAME TIME, 9 Including the ref.

Replayability 10/10: Let's face it, A game with a tournament mode, Match Maker Mode (The equivilant of GM mode in the SvR games.), League Mode, & other kinds of assorted nick nacks means you'll be playing for hours upon hours, day after day, week after week, so on so forth until the trumpets sound. This game has over 300 default wrestlers and 500 open slots for Created Wrestlers.(That are saved along with the game itself in it's entirety, Which only takes about 900-something KB of memory. The CAW function is known as Edit in this game and will require you to go into an organization and actually highlighting "New Wrestler" and choosing a "Default Model" to start fresh or the one above it to use a default wrestlers model.)

Rent or Buy: BUY!!! Deffinantly buy this. A game of this caliber can't just be rented for a couple of nights of overly addictive wrestling. If one does this, They'd find themselves suffering through Fire Pro Relapse. Something that shouldn't plague any decent person. So, Save yourself the agony of missing a brilliant game and buy it. It's only $15 ($19.99 at Gamestop) so you'd hardly be breaking the bank. If anything, You'd probably still have money left for all those other games on your wishlist. And like I said before, Who could turn down a wrestling game as good as WWF No Mercy?

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/07

Game Release: Fire Pro Wrestling Returns (US, 11/13/07)