WRESTLEMANIA THE ARCADE GAME (ARCADE, SNES, GENESIS, 32X, SATURN, PS1, DOS) Released: 1995

This was another game I played to death on the SNES.  In the original arcade game, you were given 8 characters, in the SNES version, they got rid of Bam Bam Bigelow and Yokozuna, reducing the number to 6: Undertaker, Bret Hart, Doink, Shawn Michaels, Lex Luger, and Razor Ramon.

Everything about this game is as over-the-top as the sport it portrays.  Wrestlers glow when doing special attacks, certain moves require the wrestlers to jump several dozen feet in the air, and when attacked, items fall out of the wrestlers similar to the way they do in the latest version of Punch-Out on the Wii.

The digitized graphics are about as good as you’re going to get for the time; you can’t get much more authentic than having the actual wrestlers portray themselves, complete with posing.  I didn’t play it a whole lot in the arcade, but the SNES version doesn’t look very different.  Each wrestler had their own stage, a la Street Fighter.  You get what you would expect, Doink has a circus themed level, Undertaker’s is a crypt, etc.

There were two different story modes, you could either choose to do the Intercontinental Title mode or the World Title mode.  In the IC mode, it consisted of a series of singles matches, followed by 2-on-1 matches, and culminated with a 3-on-1 match.  The World Title mode, as would be expected, it a bit more difficult.  Starting with four 2-on-1 matches, two 3-on-1 matches, and it ended with a gauntlet match.  You began the match in a 3-on-1 match, and every time you defeated an opponent, he was replaced with a new wrestler, so not only were the odds still very much against you, but you then had to deal with fresh opponents with full life bars.

I really don’t have a lot of complaints about the game other than the limited roster.  Even for a game as good as this one, 6 is still a small amount of wrestlers to select from.  I found it odd that they opted to get rid of Yokozuna and Bam Bam Bigelow, and decided to keep Doink and Shawn Michaels.  Yokozuna and Triple B were certified main eventers at the time.  Some of you may say that I’m wrong about Shawn Michaels, but at that point Shawn had yet to establish himself as a headliner.  He wouldn’t do that for another year.  Regardless, this game is still fun to throw in every now and then, and it’s still one of my all-time favorites on the SNES.