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.

Best Bout Boxing (Arcade)

 Combat sports are often an interesting subject for videogames, especially in the arcade, and even moreso in the mid-nineties post-street Fighter II fighting game boom, when every developer was trying to put out the next big hit about people doing super-powered martial arts at each other. Battle K-Road, which I reviewed a while back, took a more grounded approach, and was a more interesting game because of it. But Jaleco really seemed to have made a tough job for themselves when they decided to release a boxing game into that market. Boxing, the fighting style made up entirely of just punches, in a world where all the other games have not only kicks and throws, but swords and energy blasts and all that stuff too?

 

I don't know how much of a commercial success Best Bout Boxing was (though, with its complete lack of console ports, I assume it wasn't massive), in terms of making a game that could have ended up looking drab and bland into something that stood a chance of standing out in a busy arcade, they were definitely successful! The presentation in this game is amazing, everything is big and loud and colourful, and it definitely takes a contemporary fighting game-style approach to its characters. They're all very distinct from each other, full of personality, and with amazing names like Jose Humdinger and Carolde First. Also, one of them is blatantly just Abdullah the Butcher. There's even an unplayable final boss character, who appears on the continue screen to mock you, looming large like a Fist of the North Star villain.

 

As for how it actually plays, it's easiest to describe it in terms of how it's different from a typical fighting game of the era. Movement is obviously a lot more limited, as you canbasically just move towards or away from your opponent. There's no room to run, of course, nor do jumping and crouching have a place in the boxing ring. Furthermore, all your attacks are punches, with your left and right fists each having a dedicated button, along with a third for doing a special attack that's powerful but leaves you very vulnerable if you miss or get blocked. Adding to the differences is the lack of special moves, as you might think of them in a fighting game: there's no moves activated with joystick motions, for example. Instead, each boxer has a few combinations, activated by using the necessary sequence of specific punches in the right order, and with the right rhythm.

 

Best Bout Boxing is a game that came as a pleasant surprise to me. It took what could have been a tepid, uninspiring basis for a videogame, and made it fun and exciting, not only mechanically, but aesthetically, too. I recommend you give it a chance, too, and I hope to one day hear of it being announced as an Arcade Archives release. One last interesting point I want to mention before ending the review, though: the dip switches give the option to alter the strength of each individual character. I don't think I've ever seen that in any other game! It's especially odd considering that your opponents in single player come in random order. I can only assume it's for arcade operators with unusually patriotic clientele, who want to ensure that their homeland's representative always has an advantage?