RETRO REBOOT | Pro Wrestling (Nintendo Entertainment System)

I grew up a huge wrestling fan. Along with Transformers, it's one of the earliest things I grew a strong attachment towards. That fandom has waned in recent year, as modern WWE's weekly television can be incredibly vanilla, and All Elite Wrestling squandered its potential of being a diet Ring of Honor/New Japan presentation into overhyped garbage, but there's a little bit of a mark in me (Strangely enough, as of this writing, I find Total Nonstop Action the most consistent and enjoyable). When it comes to wrestling video games, they're all over the spectrum. I'm probably not alone in saying I was introduced to them through Pro Wrestling on the NES, which still holds up as being quite an enjoyable game in a lot of regards.

Released in 1986, Pro Wrestling was developed and published by Nintendo, At the time, this was the third wrestling video game to be released for the NES. Along with its solid replay value, the small, but memorable roster has given this game such longevity.

Regarding the graphics, when I was 8 years old, I was very amazed at the amount of detail that was paid attention to in this game. The play-by-play and color commentator in the back, (except they’re sitting in the crowd?) to the cameraman capturing the action, it felt at the time like a big deal to see the 8 bit system provide such an aesthetic. Even the ref is quick on his feet, following the action, though he does not stop The Amazon from using his super illegal Head Bite (ref's discretion, indeed.)

The animation is great and includes nice touches, like wrestlers colliding after botched Irish Whips (that does get annoying, more on that later) and individual animations for each of the characters’ signature moves, except for Fighter Hayabusa’s Back Brain Kick, which is just his kick-out animation of him falling on his ass.

For its simplicity and age, Pro Wrestling is still pretty cool to look at and beats the ever-living hell out of Data Easts’ Tag Team Wrestling, a horrible disappointment I rented with my own allowance money one weekend, thinking it would be as cool.

The controls are pretty iffy at first until you begin to get the hang of its quirks. Most of the time the melee attacks never land when you would like them to (timing that spinning back kick is something I still can’t consistently do on purpose) and often you and your opponent will fall into a Rock’em’ Sock’em’ deal where you’ll stand there and punch back and forth until one of you falls down.

Attacking while running requires a clearance space of about a character’s length away and on the same vertical plain in order for the clothesline or the Harley Race/Triple H High Knee to land. Probably the two worst examples of all are Hayabusa’s previously mentioned BBK Enzuigiri and Kin Corn Karn’s Mongolian Chop. Hayabusa’s Kick involves standing just below your opponent and hitting the kick button. The success rate of this move dips the more you try to land it and your friend catches on. To land it, slap the controller out of your friend’s hand and as he scrambles to pick it up, nail the BBK for the 3 count. This only works a few times, as you will run out of friends to play Pro Wrestling with. I made up my own secondary finisher; two top rope knee presses followed by a big splash off the top rope.

The grappling, on the other hand, is still one of the better control schemes in wrestling games in my humble opinion. With one D pad and two red buttons, you can pull of a good array of moves like body slams, back and front suplexes, piledrivers, as well as finishers. May not sound like a lot, but the fluidity of how easy it is to execute these is pretty impressive. You can suplex or slam your opponent over the ropes (OW!!) and with timing, get a running start and launch yourself over the ropes for a suicide body press on to the floor. The grappling just makes the game absolutely fun to work with and a good reason why replay value is so much fun and makes up for any shortcomings control-wise.

To beat the game, you must play through it twice. Once, to win the VWA Championship from the game’s biggest heel King Slender, then you have to successfully defend your title by beating all challengers again until challenging Great Puma, who sells moves about the same degree as John Cena does.

King Slender has to win TEN matches (in some copies of the game, allegedly. I think everyone just hates King Slender) before getting the title shot, so his path is three times as hard. I have only gotten to Great Puma a couple of times and beaten him even fewer times than that!! He has everybody else’s moveset and takes a long time to wear down. I can only beat him by count out, and even then, I time it so he doesn’t reverse my whip into the guard rails, which is trickier to pull off than you think.

All in all, pro Wrestling is quite enjoyable. the gameplay is a decent combination of arcadey madness, but still has some solid technique and strategy that makes for some satisfying engagement. A fun roster (play Kin Korn Karn for the ultimate challenge), decent visuals, and while there's only one track in the game, it gets stuck in my head.