Wrestling video games are a pretty weird niche genre in the video game industry. If you’ve never logged on to Twitter, you might not know it, but the Venn diagram representing people who love video games and people who are passionate about pro wrestling is closer to a full circle than one would expect. The genre itself has seen a massive decline from its dizzying peaks in the mid-2000s, as well, with newer iterations from major players falling well short of the kind of glorious grappling simulator I’ve come to think we deserve in this console generation.
Enter Fire Pro Wrestling World, the latest in a series of wrestling games from Spike Chunsoft and the developer’s earnest attempt at making inroads in the West. Fire Pro has been the go-to for hardcore wrestling gamers for years, with graphics being sacrificed for lovely timing-based gameplay and ridiculous knock-off wrestler names to avoid copyright issues. Now, however, the game has embraced its Japanese heritage and recruited New Japan Pro Wrestling to lend its most popular wrestlers to an all-new story mode, complimenting the series in all the right ways. There might be a few issues with the dated way that the game approaches its craft, but Fire Pro Wrestling World is simply the best wrestling game released this generation. Chaos
The first thing I noticed while playing Fire Pro Wrestling World was the sheer freedom it gifts players to approach the game the way they want to. After creating my chara...