Tecmo World Wrestling (NES)

Difficulty - ***
Controls - ****
Graphics - ****
Sound - ***1/2
Overall - 14 1/2 out of a possible 20

Its time to step into the ring and brawl for the gold! Tecmo brings us this fantastic wrestling game from 1990. You take your pick of one of ten different wrestlers as you try to win the Tecmo World Wrestling Title.

As far as wrestling games go, this is one of the more difficult. You take on ten other competitors and losing a single match will send you down the ranks as you must fight the previous wrestler! This can be quite discouraging especially when you get on a roll. But, on the flip side you get to train your wrestler as you don't get a chance to do so if you win.

For those that don't know you get a chance at the beginning of the game to train in one of three mini games. Rapidly pressing the A button fills your power meter. A total of seven power circles can be filled. The more powerful you are, the stronger your attacks will be.

You get an assortment of moves with the d pad. A total of 16-18 maneuvers can be pulled off in this game. As well as your grappler has two specialty moves to wreak havoc on your poor opponent's body! One nitpick, as you move your wrestler around the ring and the action gets intense you may out of nowhere run towards the ropes or your opponent. Which will lead to a lot of annoying collisions.

Not too much variety in the graphics department. The ring stays the same colour throughout the game as does the crowd. The wrestlers themselves are just colour swaps with one another. No difference in size or anything which is a bummer. But on the flip side, you do get treated to some cinematic screen shots when you pull off one of your signature moves. I really enjoy that! You also get a play by play announcer on the bottom of the screen (Tom Talker, lol) which is nice and unique to the NES wrestling library.

Tecmo games usually have great music. And this one is no different. While (once again) there isn't much variety, the music that's there is catchy. A little more emphasis on different sounds for slams or top rope dives would have been nice though. But that's a small complaint.

If your a fan of not only 8 bit gaming (why would you be 'reading' this if you weren't?) and wrestling, you'll love Tecmo World Wrestling. While there is no real diversity of the size of the grapplers, they are clean looking sprites. The music is good and the sound effects serve its purpose. The cinematic scenes of your moves during the match are especially eye catching! Overall, one of the best wrestling games available on the NES. Now show Blue King Demon who's boss and bring home the gold!