"A decent little button-masher for the ol' brick, with great music."

So, how good can a Wrestling game be on a colorless little brick with only a steering cross and four other buttons? While it's not very in-depth, I'd say it's more fun than I dared to imagine.


Graphics

The title screen looks good, but then it's only downhill from there. The thing is, though, that the graphics doesn't really matter. I'd rather take this game as it is - with very little detail - than something too cluttered up to be able to see what's going on.

The ring is very basic; you've got the ring, ropes, a few heads in the background which I guess is supposed to be the audience or the commentators. For cage matches there's also a cage on top of everything. While that makes is a bit hard to see what's happening on the lower part of the screen (since it's behind the front part of the cage), it's still bearable.

Also on screen during matches are the health meters and also a little avatar pic of the wrestlers. The health meters are easy to read and are very simple, but the wrestler avatars (which are also used in the character selection screen) are pretty awful. Still, it's understandable it's hard to make good portraits on this small screen.

The wrestler sprites are good, and while they're not good animated, they look ok and when a hit looks like it registers, it most certainly registers. I've had some problems during some matches to keep the wrestlers apart, but that's only a problem with the two that has similar outfits.


Sound effects and music

The music, for once when it comes to Game Boy games, manage to interest me. For starters, where normal Game Boy games only has a few tunes which are repeated to death, here we have a whole bunch! It's the wrestlers signature themes, minimized and synthesized to fit the portable format. It's not a bad conversion either - of course there's no lyrics or anything, but actually being able to hear that it's the right song on a Game Boy is rather impressive. These tunes are used in many places - the character selection menu, the intros, if you win a match. But you can't really get tired of "Real American", no matter which version, right?

Sound effects, on the other hand, are pretty boring. You've got the bell, you've got punches and kicks... The machine can't just make those hard-hitting attacks justice, but still, the music is so great for a GB game it weighs up this entire category.


Controls

Here, I'm not really sure whether to like them, or not. I do find them hard to use, but that might be just because I bought the game used and didn't get the instruction booklet. Let me explain more.

First, we've got the steering cross. Always easy to understand; in the menus it moves the cursor, and in the ring it moves the wrestler. A is the button to confirm menu choices; irritatingly enough the B button is also used to confirm, instead of going back. This means you have to lose or win the match to be able to go back to the menu if you select something wrong.

In the ring, as I said the steering cross moves the wrestler. Here, the A and B buttons are used for attacking. You use A for a short punch, and B for a longer kick. For some reason, I always find the kick more effective - both in strength and reach, which is a bit odd. When an opponent is down on the floor, you press A and B at the same time to pin him. You can also leave the ring or start climbing a cage by pressing left or right when standing next to it, you can also use the upper turnbuckles by pressing up right next to them.

So, that might not sound that difficult, but there's a thing I haven't mentioned. Grapples. I really haven't been able to work out a way of getting them to work. I think you're supposed to press up when next to your opponent, but I just can't figure it out. Usually when the opponent grabs me, button mashing will take me winning out of the grapple, but I can't do it myself. Button mashing, which I've never seen used so much in a Game Boy game earlier, is also used to get back up when on the ground.


Gameplay

There are a couple of different game modes to choose from - normal match, cage match, tag team match and also a tournament. In the normal match, you just need to bring your opponents energy down and then pin him. In a cage match, that works too, but you can also climb up to the top of the cage while your opponent's down and win that way. The tag team match is a 2 vs 2 match, but instead of everyone being in the ring the whole time, you has to tag out to switch. This can be a bit hard, and sometimes I've left the ring instead. The tournament is a row of five matches (against the wrestlers you didn't pick in character selection), and you can choose if you want cage matches or normal. Sadly enough, there is no tag team tournament.

The wrestlers you can choose from are Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Sid Justice, The Mountie, The Undertaker and Jake the Snake. When it comes to moves, they're exactly the same. When it comes to other differences, I haven't been able to find a source for this, so it might just be my brain playing tricks, but I find it easier to play as Undertaker or Hulk Hogan than the others. That it feels more easy to dish out damage with them. So maybe there's some secret stats buried in the game, but I haven't found anything about it.

During the match, what you need to focus on are the energy levels. That is, to keep yours as high as possible, while wearing down your opponents. An opponent with high energy won't let himself be pinned, or stay down long enough for you to be able to climb the stage. Of course, attacking is the way to go. There's also a little trick you can use - press select to gain a chunk of your energy back. That only works once per match, and your opponent will use it too. What the reason is for including that feature instead of making the energy bar go down at half the speed, I don't know, but it feels pretty good.

For all single matches, you can select a difficulty. I find easy and medium very easy, and hard is a bit tougher but still beatable with button mashing. I do prefer when games like these have a bit more strategy included, but maybe I should be glad this doesn't, because of the hard grappling controls. For the tournament you haven't got any difficulty choices, but I think it's increasing a bit, with the first match being rather easy, to the later ones being somewhere in the area between medium and hard.


TOTAL

While I do like this game, I do find it lacks a bit of variety. I find the tournament the most interesting of the game modes, which is because it's got an end. The other matches, you can play them as much as you want, but since there's no real gain from it, it risks to quickly become repetitive.

I give this game a 6 out of 10. It's got an interesting system, and while the controls are a bit hard to learn that's better than them being plain bad. I also like the gameplay and that there's some variety in the type of matches. The music is also very good for being a Game Boy game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/07/11

Game Release: WWF Superstars 2 (US, August 1992)