Fire Pro Wrestling Returns

"Revival...Renovation...Return!"

The year 2003 was a dark year for this Fire Pro Wrestling fan. Starting my own Fire Pro history with 6 Man Scramble on the Sega Saturn, I was hooked from then on to the Fire Pro series. Each game that came out seemed to be, not a huge, but significant step forward in the series. While Fire Pro G didn't have six man or eight man tag team matches, the story mode for the game was arguably the best ever for a wrestling game. When Fire Pro D came onto the scene, it seemed to be the very pinnacle of the series and to be able to top such a title was going to take a strong effort. Unfortunately Fire Pro Z in 2003, while a great game in its own right, was ultimately a let down in comparison to the improvements and significant innovations that were in Fire Pro D. If Fire Pro Z was the end, then I was also finished with the Fire Pro series because I was very disappointed in that game. I was expecting something better and something greater. Fire Pro became dead to me and I moved on to King of Colosseum.

But wait a minute! 2005 is upon us and Fire Pro wrestling has been revived and has returned in full effect! What?! And make no mistake about it, this is the greatest Fire Pro of them all and in my opinion, the greatest wrestling game of them all.

GRAPHICS
When dealing with the game's graphics, there is a temptation to immediately discredit the visuals by comparing them to the top 3D wrestling titles that are out there. This is a major disservice because it is not Spike's intention to create a 3D title. What makes Fire Pro be Fire Pro is the 2D graphics. Judging from the standpoint of how the graphics are utilized, I would rate this game high in that department. This is the best looking Fire Pro ever. While the maximum potential level of detail and polish was not reached, this is still a very beautiful game to play and watch. For those who played Fire Pro D and then played Z, I'm sure that many of you shared my displeasure with the way the graphics seemed to decline instead of improve. There's no problem with that in Fire Pro R. The characters are colorful and they really stand out and shine. They are bigger than ever and more detailed than ever. The arenas and the crowds are well done. Not to mention that also the ring actually moves upon move impact this time around which makes things even better.
Score: 9

GAMEPLAY
If you've played the previous Fire Pro titles, you will be very familiar with the gameplay. This is one thing that has remained very consistent throughout the series, at least in my experience. The gameplay is solid and is based on putting forth a match from start to finish. It's about the wrestlers actually wearing each other down and then going for the victory. Finishing moves and special moves do not guarantee the victory, what guarantees the victory in Fire Pro is when one wrestler can no longer stand, kick out or hold on when placed in a submission hold. The different styles from around the wrestling world are represented beautifully from New Japan, All Japan and Noah to Dragon Gate, DDT and Big Japan to USA wrestling and Lucha Libre to even K-1, Pride and UFC.

To go into detail on the actual mechanics of gameplay would make for a very long review but I believe that Fire Pro captures the essence of what grappling should be better than any other series. If the wrestlers are close enough to each other, they will automatically lock up. This is much more realistic than all the other games out there that would have you press a button to reach out and if the other wrestler happens to move out of the way, you stand there just reaching for air. Does that happen in a real match? Nope. Also the grappling excels in its shoot style as well, which does a pretty good job of simulating shoot grapples. The grapples are based on timing so it isn't about mashing buttons but about executing the button command at the proper time during the grapple that will land you the move. Also, kicking out of pins only requires that you hold down the [X] button. Because of great considerations such as these, you can play this game for hours and not get blisters.

Now on the other side of the coin, the striking could be a bit better. Be prepared to be missing dropkicks and other striking moves with regularity until you learn how to properly distance yourself from your opponent to execute the striking attacks. This is one of the few negatives of Fire Pro in that with a gameplay engine that is so polished and refined already, they should have improved the collision detection on the strike moves instead of having to hit the move perfectly on. In a real match, if a wrestler missed that many strikes, the crowd would boo him out of the building.

There are many other areas that could be covered in gameplay and I'm sure there will be other that can cover those avenues. The last gameplay aspect that I wish to point out is the fact that you will never have the same match twice. This is because of the fact that the game boast an insane amount of wrestlers, a more insane amount of moves and also that the CPU controlled wrestlers are controlled by logic. That's right, they're not programmed to just kind of resemble the wrestler in terms of ringwork, they are programmed to resemble as close as possible the wrestler in terms of ringwork. That means when you're facing a CPU controlled Kenta Kobashi, he will wrestle like Kobashi. It has always been the Fire Pro games that have had this down to an art form while every other series has barely come into the loop in this regard.

This portion would had gotten a perfect score but there are still gray areas that Spike needs to work on. For example, all four corners should be used instead of two. Sometimes wrestlers kick right back up after a special/finishing move (and I'm not talking about a main eventer like Misawa either). And the strike collision detection needs to be fixed. But in the grand scheme of things, these are minor blemishes.
Score: 9

THE PACKAGE
This section, we are going to deal with all the goodies that are a part of this fantastic game. First off, the game has 327 wrestlers to use from the very start. I'm not joking. Three hundred twenty seven! The wrestlers are from promotions from around the world, mainly based in Japan. No other series or wrestling game can even come close to claiming this feat. Also, if you want to make your own wrestler, you have 500 edit slots available to work with, making the total amount of wrestlers possible to be able to choose from 827! Trust me when I say that Fire Pro R's edit mode is the best in the business. You can create anybody in this game and I mean anybody and the likeness will either be dead on or very close. From there, you have over 1600 moves in the game. This means that you will be seeing all types of moves including the Styles Clash, Angels Wings, Diamond Cutter, Stone Cold Stunner, Olympic Slam, F-5, etc. You name it, there is a great chance that move is in. The edit mode is simply sick by how detailed it is. You can give any created wrestler face paint, a bandana, a beard, a ponytail or a mask. You can assign entrance music and even voice samples to accompany moves and taunts. You can assign logic to your created wrestler so that when he/she is used by the cpu, he'll/she'll wrestler exactly how you want. The options are endless with this game.

From there, you can create referees, create belts, create logos, create rings, create stables and factions and also create 5-man teams to use in the 5-on-5 elimination matches. And all of these options are better in this offering of Fire Pro R than in the previous Fire Pros. The replayability is huge here!

Match types rang from single to 8-man tags with the ability to do handicap matches, tornado tag and elimination tag. There are cage matches which can be 8-man tags, barbed wire deathmatches which can be 8-man tag, landmine matches which can be up to 8-man tag and so much more. Eight man battle royales are in. K-1 rule fights are in. UFC and Pride type matches are in. You can have leagues and tournaments and title matches. Included this time around is Match Make mode where you can book cards for different Japanese organizations. At this time, it is not confirmed as to whether or not edits can be used in this mode. If they can't, then this is a huge oversight by Spike because there are many that were expecting to be able to use edits in this mode. Either way, there still is a heck of a lot to do in this game and it will keep you busy.
Score: 10

MUSIC/SOUND
I have to admit that I love the upbeat main menu music. Also, the other menus have music that Fire Pro fans will recognize from earlier titles. The music is very well done overall and in the edit mode, there are plenty of music tracks to give a wrestler for his/her entrance. The choice of music is interesting because it can set many moods because of the different tracks such as fun, serious, exciting, inspiring, etc.

The overall sound effects are so much better than Fire Pro Z. There still is a crowd loop but the way the crowd reacts to pins and cheers for different moves and taunts more than makes up for it. The striking moves sound a lot more vicious. The move impact sounds are much more realistic. What it comes down to is that Spike made the sound so much cleaner in this game and it shows. A great improvement here over the last game.
Score: 8

OVERALL
This game can not be beat. It is a deep and very polished game. It has spunk and has substance. So much to do and so much to work with. And all of it is done very well. If you are a wrestling fan, this is the game for you. Fire Pro is the leader when it comes to representing the world of wrestling in its games. I should mention that the game is in Japanese and while you can rename the wrestlers and have English options in some places, you will need a translation to navigate the menus. Don't worry, Fire Pro is supported by a community of fans that look out for one another in this way. There are translation guides available that will assist you even as I type this. Once you get through the Japanese text, you'll realize that the wrestling that this game exhibits is universal and needs no translation. Fire Pro had seemed to die but once again it is alive. And not just alive and well. But alive and conquering. KOC II was my vote for the greatest wrestling game of all time until this game dropped. Thank you Spike for showing the world once again what a true wrestling game is supposed to be.

Final Score:
36/40 for a 9 out of 10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/05