WWF Royal Rumble

"The First Great WWF Console Game"

After a series of disastrous games released for NES, and the abomination known as Super Wrestlemania on SNES and Genesis, the WWF finally got things right here by taking a concept from the old Arcade Game titled "Wrestlefest", they added a new feature in the Royal Rumble Match, which has since seen light in almost every WWF video game released ever since.

However, the WWF also did something smart, by releasing TWO versions, with the SNE and Genesis hosting some different wrestlers than the others, in case you liked the wrestlers in one game and not in the other. Anyway, the game features the following types of matches...

Singles Match
Tag Team Match
Triple (Six-Man) Tag Team Match
Royal Rumble Match
Championship Mode

Also, there is a 1-10 difficulty setting, in case you want to see how good you are against the toughest level of opponents. This is probably the biggest improvement yet in game format.

The Roster: Now including Twelve Wrestlers, the maximum amount held for quite a few years after this, the Roster contains the following: Bret Hart, Randy Savage, Mr. Perfect, The Undertaker, Crush, Tatanka, Ted Dibiase, The Narcissist, Yokozuna, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, and Razor Ramon, a who's who of the 1993 WWF Roster.

Graphics: 9/10
The best you can hope for, as everyone is animated nicely and has a nice coloring job to them. The ring looks pretty good, and in the background, you can see Bobby Heenan & Vince McMahon having seizures every five seconds. The only problem though is weight detection. Yokozuna, who at the time was 505 pounds, looks as big as Ric Flair, who was only around 240 pounds. Other than that, everything is great, especially the finishing moves animations.

Music: 9/10
The best music for a video game based on wrestling yet. Each wrestler has their own theme music in the character select screen, and almost all of them sound as real as possible, although the ones with lyrics don't have them. The one downer here though is the in game music, which really is none. However, the smacking sound of a steel chair makes up for it.

Game-play: 10/10
Very easy to learn the controls, as everything has it's own separate button, so you don't have to pull a Mortal Kombat and hope you press A-B-Y-B-X fast enough to pull off a scoop slam or something. Finishing moves are easy to pull off, and making tags isn't a pain in the butt. Also, the Rumble and 6-Man Tag Brawl modes are quite fun, and can go on as long as you want, and it will never get old.

Challenge: 5/10
Depending on the level of difficulty you select. 1 is almost too easy, 5 is medium, and 10 is quite hard, as it will take a lot of effort into winning a lockup and putting your opponents away. However, the game isn't too hard for those who aren't great at button mashing.

Replay Factor: 10/10
I've had the game for nearly 10 years, and I still play it on a regular basis. The Rumble mode will keep you coming back for more, Tag Team matches are fun, especially co-operative modes, and the game just isn't a chore to play like previous wrestling games.

Recommendation:
Probably the best game for wrestling at the time, if you can find it cheap enough for an SNES Game, splurge, because it's a good waste of time for people who don't suck at the games format.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/11/04