Sweaty man drama
One of the oldest wrestling video game series (and one in which famed Suda 51 got his start making games) appears to be getting its first installment since 2012, as Spike Chunsoft has launched a teaser site and video titled “Pro Wrestling.” Not only that but it appears to be just the fifth game in the long-running series’s history to officially be localized in the west, as the “Pro Wrestling” Twitter account name is “3/2 in San Francisco.”
Whatever they plan to show on March 2 in San Francisco (cough cough GDC), they likely wouldn’t bother doing in the states if they had no plans to release it there. The first games in the series to be localized were Fire Pro Wrestling A localized as Fire Pro Wrestling, and Fire Pro Wrestling 2 for the Game Boy Advance, followed by Fire Pro Wrestling Returns on PlayStation 2. That really bad avatar-based Xbox Live Arcade title was the last we saw of the franchise until now.
Truth be told I’ve never personally played a Fire Pro Wrestling game, but what I hear of its strategy and timing focus sounds alluring. I hear nothing but harrowing tales of 2K’s WWE titles, so the only fairly modern wrestling game I played and enjoyed was WWE All Stars even though I haven’t followed pro wrestling since junior high school.
N64’s WrestleMania 2000 and especially No Mercy will always hold the championship belt of wrestling games in my heart, but if this turns out good I’ll be more than willing to get a refresher on the annals of wrestling lore.
