There are games for the masses and there are games for the fans. In recent times, we've seen an example of that in racing, with GT Legends most definitely welcoming fans of the sport more than casual consumers. Now, we see what game accommodates fans of the world of professional wrestling.
We can all name a WWE game, even if we have to think back to our childhoods when it was known as the WWF. Casual games for casual consumers. Nah. If you want to prove you know wrasslin, you list off one of the many games in the Fire Pro Wrestling series. You name something like Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.
So I'm told by all the smarks.
Fun Times
On the surface, it looks like a joke. It looks like a football game desperately trying to be a FIFA title, but barely making it to the bargain bin. To be fair to it, it doesn't look like an awful shovelware title either, and when you see the staggeringly long list of games in the series, you start to get an idea of who this is aimed at: the kind of folks who work to hunt down their video game purchases. The dedicated. The nerdy. The ones in the know.
Not me, basically. I know some stuff about wrestling, but I am a lapsed fan. I recognise Fire Pro Wrestling Returns not as a game that comes from a long line of other Fire Pro titles, but as 'that weird looking one that I hear is insanely customisable, but looks old and janky.'
Just look at these menus. Not even Geocities websites had this many animated fire gifs. Actually, just look at that list. When I think 'exhibition', I picture 'basic match types'. When FPW Returns thinks 'exhibition', it thinks 'deathmatch'. It is surely the only wrestling game that does.
I know very little about the Fire Pro series, but I do know that it is ridiculously customisable. Renaming wrestlers, editing their attire, creating your own, of course. And it doesn't stop there. Rings. Belts. Company logos... If you don't find something in the 327 wrestlers that can be found here already, you can make as many as 500 more.
We haven't even got to a match yet, and I'm wondering if I want lumberjacks surrounding the ring. Which WWF game gave you lumberjacks as an option for your match? Could they even render lumberjacks in WWF games?
In the wrestling world, as in football, money talks, and licensing is always an issue for the little guys. As such, all these hundreds of wrestlers - well, I say all, I've not checked - are lookalikes of real wrestlers, as are the companies they work for. I assume 'View Japan' is a reference to 'New Japan', and 'Olive' to their competition 'All Japan'. That's about my limit for Japanese wrestling, so finding anyone recognisable here is a long shot.
Oh, well, that's Bull Nakano then. Now unrecognisable as a wrestler, let alone as Bull Nakano. Still, there must be someone here who I can wrassle as. Japan this, Mexico that, Female - probably more than there are in WWF titles too. Finally, tucked away under 'AWG' are some familiar faces.
It's a right mash-up of figures. Andre the Giant, Terry Funk, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. "Drunk character with a huge body"? That's a little below the belt, isn't it Fire Pro? We've all got demons, don't need to make them that obvious.
There can be only one choice. For an easy time, just pick the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, Blood Love. Whoever he is.
I actually wish I spent more time trying to work out who was who, as I only spotted the inclusion of AJ Styles after the fact. What a match that would have been. Instead, it's the battle of the sharpshooters:
Well, it's not fancy, and perhaps isn't emulated accurately, but that's your entrance for this evenings main event. The wrestlers don't seem to care. The fans are at least trying. This is Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.
Frustrations
And holy shit is it difficult. On an opponent difficulty of 4/10, I could not land a single hit if my life depended on it. Fire Pro Wrestling isn't about button mashing, but about timing. With no visual indication as to the state of your wrestler, good luck working out when to time anything.
The face buttons deliver light, medium and heavy strikes, with a grapple button setting you up for an encyclopedia's worth of moves to unleash on your opponent. Whip them into the ropes, taunt at them from a distance, smack them in the head with a weapon. If it's happened in a wrestling match, it seems it could very well happen in Fire Pro Wrestling, though how the hell you manage to pull any of it off, I do not know.
At one point, I found a gasp for air button. There is a dedicated button for your wrestler to gather himself up and recover. Again, absolutely no indication that they need a lungful of air, but I'm sure it makes the world of difference.
Minutes in and Blood Love is just getting stomped on. I have no response. I know not what to do. I know the buttons, but they're not doing what I expect them to do.
I went into this game thinking it was an underappreciated gem, a game by fans, for fans, that allows you to do damn near anything your wrestling brain can imagine. It is a dream match factory. A blank canvas awaiting your fantasy booking.
But good Lord does it demand you get good.
Failing to beat The Spike, I went straight into a landmine deathmatch - because that's a thing - as Terry Funk vs Abdullah the Butcher. And I actually got some attacks in, this time. Proof that Terry Funk is a better wrestler than Bret Hart.
It didn't last long. Once again, knowledge of buttons does not equate to successful wrestling. I could not get the upper hand, even with barbed-wire tables standing up in the corners of the ring. This isn't a game for casuals to have a laugh, unless, I guess, you're up against your mates.
No, this is some kind of Hell.
How does a landmine deathmatch end after 5 minutes to an elbow drop, for crying out loud?
Final Word
The creation suites of wrestling games were always the first place I'd head to in wrestling games. We all want to create the best - or stupidest - wrestler and see them dive off the top of cages to what should be their deaths, but somehow never is. Everyone did it. As soon as you learned how to break through the top of the cell, that's all you tried to do, and you'd try to do it with Scotty Too Hotty, because why not? He deserves a shot.
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns - and seemingly every other game in the series - allows you to do such a thing, but with more creative options than you ever knew existed. Providing you can get a grasp of the controls.
I can't. I just can't. Am I trying to play it like a WWF title? Am I trying to play it like Tekken? Neither is correct. I should be trying to play it like Fire Pro Wrestling, but I can't for the life of me work out how it wants me to play? Should I be breathing more often? I mean, why include a breathe button if I don't need to use it?
To the wrestling fan, recommending Fire Pro Wrestling Returns is a no brainer. Even today, players are making sure games of the series are up to date with current wrestlers, and legends from the past, and celebrity figures and whatever else springs to mind. It's a cult hit. It's the promotion you follow but the rest of us haven't heard of because you're a wrestling hipster who reads all the dirt sheets. Or something.
What I'm trying to say is that Fire Pro Wrestling isn't for the masses who like WWE today. It's for the jaded fans. It's for those who wish Sting wasn't put out of commission by Seth Rollins, or the Undertaker was always in his prime. It's for the impossible matches that would never happen. It's for the fans. But it's for those who put in the work - or for those who watch the Twitch streams.
I really hope there are some Fire Pro Twitch streams.
Fun Facts
The series dates back to 1989 and is still going - and is still more or less a complete unknown to anyone outside of Japan, and wrestling.
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns, developed by Spike, first released in 2005.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2007, via emulation.