Fire Pro Wrestling Gaiden: Burning Tornado (Saturn)

 So, you probably already know about Fire Pro Wrestling, the best series of wrestling videogames that there's ever been, right? Well, in 1994, Human, the then-makers of the series, released a wrestling game to arcades entitled Burning Tornado. Fire Pro Wrestling Gaiden: Burning Tornado released for Saturn a year later isn't a simple port, however, but a game that takes elements from the main series and from the arcade game to create a satisfying middle ground between the two.

 

The problem with the original arcade version of Burning Tornado was that it eschewed the Fire Pro series' trademark timing and skill-based playstyle in favour of a system that relied on hammering the attack buttons as fast as possible, as was the style of various arcade wrestling games that preceded it. The Saturn game brings back the Fire Pro style, with a few little changes to make for a faster, more arcadey experience than the main series' simulation style. And from this point on, you can assume that I'm only going to be talking about the Saturn game, not the arcade one.

 

In case you don't know how Fire Pro plays, the basics go thusly: when wrestlers walk into each other, they go into a lock up animation, and to perform a wrestling move, you press a direction and a button on the final frame of this animation. Furthermore, there's a few (typically three) different strengths of moves, and you have to wear your opponent down with weaker moves before moving up to the bigger, flashier attacks, lest you get countered like a fool. Blazing Tornado changes it up through simplification: there's only two strengths of move, and there's a health bar. You know you can start using your more powerful moves when you've got your opponent down to half health. You can win by pinfall or submission when your opponent's health is completely depleted.

 

With this mechanical simplification in mind, along with the drastically shrunken roster of characters, does Blazing Tornado have anything to offer fans of the main Fire Pro series? Yes! The smaller roster of characters means that instead of being constructed from parts in the series' trademark editor, they're all fully drawn sprites with bespoke animations and a ton of personality. There's actually a fair bit of variety in the tiny roster, too. There's a ruebenesque american wrestler, who's trademark move is repeatedly licking his opponent until they submit, but he's also a devout christian who prays for his post-match taunt. There's also a kung fu guy with very few actual throws, a couple of luchadors who differentiate from each other by working in rudo and technico styles respectively, and an androgynous bishonen from Sweden.

 

If you're a fan of wrestling in general and/or the Fire Pro games in particular, I think Blazing Tornado is definitely a worthwhile game to track down. It's got the satisfying gameplay of the Fire Pro games, with the big flashy presentation you might expect from the WWF games that were around at the time. On top of that, the simplification of the mechanics might even make it a nice little gateway game to introduce new fans to the series, so they can enjoy downloading hundreds of CAWs on 2017's Fire Pro Wrestling World and spending countless hours booking their fantasy promotions.