The FIGHTING Games of ... 1992! | WWF Super Wrestlemania

Hello readers and gamers,

my rating system has now been used for dozens of games, including racing and fighting games, but I never really felt comfortable using it for those types of games. Why? Because my rating system doesn't really fit those racing/fighting games that well. 10 points locked up for story seems unfair considering what fighters aim for and what fighting game fans want. Same for racing games. While storytelling will be more relevant in these games over the years, those few expections shouldn't really factor in that much. 

In addition, gameplay should weigh much more highly in these sorts of games. In my usual reviews, gameplay and related scores make up 50% of the total score. For these games, I went up to 70%. In addition, there is a different spreadsheet where these games are listed. The scores are simply there to put my rankings into perspective, but a different reason why I don't want these games to be on the main spreadsheet is because these usually, especially later on into the 90s and beyond, get much more in-depth than I can really go into, so my rating will never be of satisfactory depth here.

This is why, for every gaming year, there will be two special editions like this focusing on all Racing and Fighting games of that year. These reviews will not go in-depth, but I will rather go over what these games offer and what I thought about these features. There will also be comparisons made to previous years and certain milestones in these genres will be discussed to get a better idea about how these genres evolved over time. In 1992, the following hardware was used most commonly.

• Game Boy
• SNES 
• Sega Genesis
• NES
• IBM PC
• Macintosh
• Master System
• Game Gear

For this year's Fighting games, I have only found one that qualifies. Games qualify based on the following criteria

• Release year is 1992
• It released on a home console, not as an Arcade game
• It is a "notable" game or a game I've heard of, otherwise these lists would be way too large.

With these in mind, the only game that fits is WWF Super Wrestlemania.

WWF SUPER WRESTLEMANIA

Gameplay: 9/25 | Music/Sound: 4/5 | Graphics/Art Design: 3/5 | Content: 2/5 | Innovation: 2/5 | Playability: 5/5

OVERALL: 20/50 (Not Good)

Release Date: March, 1992

Platforms: SNES, Sega Genesis

Developer: Sculptured Software

Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

Moby Score: 7.0

Started: June 24, 2023

Finished: June 24, 2023

Beaten: Not Beaten

Playtime: 1 hour

Sculptured Software are credited for their ports of Doom, Mortal Kombat I-III and the development of Super Star Wars for the SNES. Pretty big names there. Does WWF Super Wrestlemania come close in quality? If you ask me, then no.

Let's get the positives out of the way. To me, this feels like a game made by developers who enjoy wrestling. There is some nice attention to detail here, none more enjoyable to me than the obvious banter you can see in the background between Gorilla Monsoon and the legendary Bobby The Brain Heenan. 

The sound team remixed the themes of the wrestlers into 16-bit glory and hearing them after the end of a fight, whilst certainly not groundbreaking whatsoever, put a smile on my face regardless.

Unfortunately, this is where the positives end. Depending on the version you play, SNES or Genesis, you have different fighters to choose from. Why do this? Also, every wrestler has the same moveset. The SNES version doesn't even include the wrestler's finishing moves, which is the only difference between wrestlers on the Genesis. 

There isn't that much you can do during fights. You punch, kick and go into collar-and-elbow lockups, the winner of which is decided by button-mashing, at least apparently. On easy, I won these lockups maybe half the time, and I button-mashed like crazy, so it seemed random or simply unfair at times. 

There isn't a lot of content here either. You have 8 wrestlers on the SNES version, and again, they all have the same moveset, and you have four modes. 1v1, 2v2 and 4v4. There also is a mode where you partake in a 1v1 gauntlet. If you win all battles, you are crowned the champion. 

Wrestling games will become pretty fun in a decade or so, but this is pretty basic for now. Fighting fans will be better served going for Street Fighter II. This game is for wrestling fans at best, but probably not even for them, especially not anymore.

Aaand that's it for all fighting games in 1992 already. Not much unfortunately. Next year, there are more than 5 fighting games, including another wrestling game in WWF Royal Rumble, two versions of Street Fighter II, a Dragon Ball fighting game and a game you might have heard of called Mortal Kombat, among others. I'll see you then.