It�s all about the names and faces (and
heels), folks. Sure, a game like Fire Pro
Wrestling can get by with just some smile-and-wink
allusions to the big stars of the day - Undead
Tailor, indeed - but there�s something immediately
engaging about being able to take a fighter
you know into the ring. Zen Nippon Pro Wrestling
2 does just that, harvesting the most marketable
personages from the actual, true-to-life All-Japan
Pro Wrestling promotion... or at least, how
said promotion looked in 1995. All the greats
are here, from Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta,
to a large gaijin contingent featuring Stan
Hansen, Terry Gordy, and �Dr. Death� Steve
Williams. And if you don�t recognize those
names, don�t worry: Derek�s over in the
other room throwing a conniption fit of excitement
over the prospect of using a tag-team of Doug
Furnas and Dan Kroffat.
That�s all fine and dandy, but the question
is: How does it play? Well, kinda minimalist,
truth be told. It�s one of those wrestling
games where you have no user interface whatsoever,
no status display, not even so much as a timer
(and most matches are on a 30-minute time
limit). Nope, your only indication of the
state of the wrestlers in the ring (or repeatedly
getting thrown out of same) is their posture,
and how long they take to get up from getting
knocked down. That�s really your main metric.
Much of the action is decided from the grapple,
with various and sundry submissions, whips,
and other injuries awaiting whoever was too
early - or too late - in inputting their commands.
Timing is everything. But even timing won�t
help you when the camera dude here just decides
he�s gonna go out for a beef bowl while
everyone�s putzing around outside the ring.
C�mon, man. This is televised. Pull it together.
In fitting with the title, this version�s
chief upgrade is multitap support, so everyone
in your tag match can have their own representation.
The standard game modes include regular and
tag one-offs and tournaments, a championship
mode, and a four-man melee familiar to those
of us who cut our teeth on the old SNES and
Genesis WWF games. Also featured is a �Budoukan�
mode where an entire show�s card is generated,
with each player choosing which wrestlers
in each match they�d like to control, kinda
like your Tecmo sports series. It�s a fun
experience, even if you don�t recognize
anyone, made a little bit weird by a soundtrack
that I could�ve sworn was cribbed directly
from a Mega Man X game. And then I looked
up the composer, and found that it was in
fact Kinuyo Yamashita, who did in fact work
on the soundtrack for Mega Man X3. Oh, and
she�s responsible for another game you might�ve
heard of. Little thing called Castlevania.
You are now picturing Simon Belmont putting
Dracula in a figure-four leg lock. Don�t
fight it.
