Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium

The Good
For a start, the game is huge. Featuring the top two Japanese Puroresu ("Purofesshonaru Resuringu", you can figure that one out) promotions at the time (New Japan and All Japan), but also others, such as a mix of the WWF and the WCW, WAR and even other styles, such as shoot-style RINGS, mixed martial arts (MMA) Pancrase and even some legends (once you beat the game) and the roster from Blazing Tornado. And of course, with all these promotions running, you get a lot of different styles: Antonio Inoki is Puroresu, Akira Maeda is Shoot, Bas Rutten is MMA and so on. As usual with the Japanese games, no wrestler is licensed, so instead of those three you have Victory Musashi, Akira Sahea and Boz Dokken, but the characters are so well designed and detailed you won't care how they're called. However, if that's not enough, the CaW mode allows to use any body from any wrestler (plus a few extras left outside the game, like Sting, Bam Bam Bigelow and Bret Hart) and a lot of moves, with each situation having around five or more moves. This allows to create pretty much any wrestler, as long as you know their moves (so, making John "Hey look I'm a white rapper with a total of five moves" Cena should be easy enough). To hit the perfect balance isn't just a matter of putting the most destructive moves. There are other attributes, such as abilities (if you add powerbombs to Lucha-rated wrestlers you won't make much damage) and setting crucials and general style. For instance, with MMA wrestlers, particularly Volk Han (Wolf Gamza), you'll panic when you lie face down because they can end the fight in the spot without even if you're leading by knocking you out or dislocating an arm or a leg.

Having hundreds of wrestlers is good, but would be pointless if the game wasn't so fun to play as it is. There are three rankings of moves, and to perform the bigger ones and finishers the opponent must be really worn out. Like mentioned previously, wrestlers have a lot of moves, and knowing which ones is the key to success. As the game is mostly focused on timing (be it after a grapple or simply of fighting strategy), knowing what you are about to do is of the utmost importance. While it can be a little complicated for those used to Arcade or Western games, it will grow as you realize that the depth is required to present a better portrayal of the sport.

The final mention goes to graphics. All moves are well animated, wrestler expressions good, and you can fool around with the CAW without "breaking" the game visually.

The Bad
While technically the game is perfect, there are some flaws in the execution. The isometric views renders the top and bottom turnbuckles pretty useless for some moves, and some regular moves are hard to pull because of it. Sometimes the camera isn't able to keep up with the action, not being able to pan when the fight reaches the far left and right of the outer ring, making survival just a matter of instinct, and fighting outside is a thing that will eventually happen, unless you set lumberjack-style rules. The detection of ropes only happen when a wrestler is running or walking, so it's possible to complete a move (such as a bulldog headlock) and the two wrestlers fall awkwardly over the edge. While the game has a fantastic array of moves, some submission (choke, specifically) holds can knock someone off in a second (see the last screenshot, at the time of writing), while they should become more effective as time passes - the Katahajime, for instance, can knock someone cold in 10 seconds. The wrestler suffering the submission should progressively lose strength as time passes instead, and only pass out if he can't break the hold after a while. The only way to escape is breaking the lock, as there's no chance to escape by reversing or reaching for the ropes, which removes some realism from the game, particularly for shoot and MMA wrestlers. Same with the ability to do moves not being locked with the body - can you imagine Rey Mysterio making a delayed vertical suplex in the Big Show? It's possible in here, and because of this, it's not possible to make huge (or midget, if that's your thing) wrestlers like the late Yokozuna and André The Giant convincingly, as after being worn out, they would be as liable of suffering a powerslam as much as a cruiserweight. There's also not much damage done when a player botches a high-risk manouver or jumps outside the rink into thin air.

If, by one side, the game includes a lot of styles (Lucha, American Professional, Shoot, Puroresu and MMA), the rules are basically the same, except taking out disqualifications, count out or fighting outside the ring. It would be interesting to fight in RINGS rules with a score (Knockdowns, holding ropes all count to a score) instead of being the first to pin or submit the opponent. Same goes to the lack of special match types. No cage, no casket, no tables... and no foreign objects, except Abdullah the Butcher's own fork. While (as far as I know) the use of tables, steel chairs, baseball bats or guitars isn't that common in Puroresu, I don't think it would harm to have at least a chair, so that Sabu (or "Tattoo") doesn't feel lonely, or to make a hardcore match.

The AI is a bit glitchy at times. If you fall outside near a corner against an opponent that can jump outside, it's likely he would go running against a corner, hit it, and then repeat until you enter the ring, even if that includes 19 seconds of headbutting the sand bags. A final mention to sound, which is passable, to say the least.

The Bottom Line
SFPWPX is a great game. In fact, it's the best wrestling game of the 16-bit era, laughing in the face of the official WWF games of the day that included 10 or 15 wrestlers, with generic moves and few more options. It is very realistic, which is made more impressive impressive, by the number of styles available making it even better for those who like professional wrestling, but don't like the theatrical approach of the WWE.

It certainly has its flaws, most noticeably the lack of an official English release (only a fan-translation with a few errors), no additional match types, some occasionally bad AI and average sound, but the extended roster, CaW and fantastic gameplay make up for that.