All Japan Pro Wrestling Featuring Virtua

*Originally written: 8/14/2000, Rewritten: 3/3/2002

As the title may lead you to believe, All Japan Pro Wrestling Featuring Virtua, henceforth AJPW, is a wrestling game. Surprise, surprise. Bet you didn't see that coming. As the title would also imply, the game features real life wrestlers from the former All Japan Pro Wrestling federation. Wolf and Jeffrey from the SEGA smash hit Virtua Fighter also make an appearance, hence the "featuring Virtua" tacked onto the title of the game. AJPW is more of an arcade style wrestling game that features controls akin to Virtua Fighter. Is this game worth your time when the Fire Pro Series exists? Read on to find out.

Take Virtua Fighter, add in Wrestlers and wrestling move sets and you've got AJPW. What we've got here is your basic bare bones Arcade style wrestling game. It's more akin to a fighter than wrestling.It plays very closely to Virtua Fighter, only tweaked a bit, since this is wrestling, and not fighting. As you can probably assume, Wolf and Jeffery feel right at home in this game. In some ways, the game feels too much like a one on one fighter than a wrestling game. Some like this, while others, like me, prefer the simulation aspects not found in this title. Forgetting about all the missing elements, let's talk about what's here. Sadly, there isn't much. You've got one type of match, a one on one match. Yes, you read that right, there are no tag matches and no battle royals. Things certainly aren't looking up for this game. If you can get over the lack of variety in matches, let's continue. As stated above, the game plays just like a simplified Virtua Fighter, so if you enjoyed that, even just a little, you should like the way this plays. Moves are accomplished with various button taps and what not. Just choose your grappler and duke it out. As I've said, this is much more akin to a fighter, than a wrestler. Ring psychology isn't really important in this game.

The game has three basic modes of play; Arcade, Versus and Featuring. They also tacked on a nifty training mode, plus the usual options mode. Arcade mode is very straight forward. You just fight your way through 11 opponents ala your standard fighter. My main annoyance with this mode is that the order in which you fight your opponents is the exact same every single time. Small annoyance, I know, but an annoyance nonetheless. The versus mode is your standard two player mode. Nothing exciting here. The fact that you are limited to one on one matches pretty much kills the multiplayer aspects, unless you are in the mood to play a slow paced fighter with wrestling moves and no jumping. Featuring mode acts as a create a wrestler mode. This is not your standard create a wrestler mode. The game asks you questions to determine what type of wrestler you'll be. Unfortunately for a lot of us, these are in Japanese. After the questions you choose your body style and ring name. The body styles are, unfortunately, pre-made. However, they do have a nice variety and some are pretty cool looking, such as the ones that wear various animal masks. I just wish there could've been a tad more interactivity. I haven't delved too much into this mode, but from what I understand, you learn your moves from other wrestlers. Seems like a cool mode, but you'll definitely need a FAQ should you not be able to read Japanese.

One of my early problems with this game was that it had energy bars. I just don't feel energy bars belong in a wrestling game. I had feared that you won by draining someone's energy bar. Thankfully, this is not the case. It's just there to show how weak the wrestler is and if you have a chance to pin them. Located underneath the energy bar is another bar. This bar lets you know what moves you can use. It starts at 0% and gradually raises to 100%. The higher it is, the more moves you have in your arsenal. This prevents you from attempting big moves at the outset of the match. It is very arcade like, but not very realistic. I prefer the Fire Pro method of letting you use powerful moves at any time, but if your opponent isn't weakened enough it will get reversed. I do not exactly like the idea of having an energy bar there. This is a wrestling game, not a fighting game remember. That's just a nit pick though, it just seems out of place. It seems to me like all signs point to this being a fighter.

One thing that gives the game a serious cool factor is a feature that isn't present in most wrestling games. What is it you ask? The ability to break bones! Repeated hits to the head, spine, arms and legs can result in a break. Once you break two bones, the match is called. To help aid you in breaking bones, whenever you hurt one a little X-ray pops up and shows the percentage of damage. When it reaches 100% the bone is shattered. For instance, lets say a wrestler breaks his neck. After his neck is broken, when you knock him down again he will squirm in agony holding his neck. Pretty cool if you ask me. Two things that are missing are weapons and blood. Not big losses, but it would've been nice if they were included.

The control works well enough, though as stated above moves are performed by tapping buttons ala Virtua Fighter. So, those of us who prefer wrestling game controls are left out. Unlike Virtua Fighter, however, the controls are not quite as complex and most moves can be learned quickly. Learning moves is made even easier thanks to the training mode that is similar to the one present in Fighters Megamix. My main complaint with the controls deals with running away from your opponent. Or, should I say, the inability to. Sure, this is more an in-your-face arcade brawler, but I'd still like the ability to retreat and think of my options. To get away you have to slowly inch backward, leaving yourself open for an attack. You can however, run toward your opponent.

Graphics are a mixed bag. The wrestlers themselves look great. However, the crowd is just a motionless picture. Looks like they just pasted a picture and said "Here is the crowd". The game has an annoying graphical glitch dealing with the ropes. At times, the ropes will just disappear from sight. They will still be there, for all intents and purposes, but you cannot see them. Doesn't really affect gameplay, it's just a minor annoyance. Other than those two nitpicks the game looks great, by Saturn standards anyway. There is a short FMV sequence of real life matches between the wrestlers, minus Wolf and Jeffery of course. The FMV is of good quality, nothing special.

The sound FX are par for the course. You've got all the painful sounds associated with wrestling. The "picturesque" crowd cheers and calls out your name. In a strange twist of events, the game pulls something that adds a bit of realism. Apart from the menus and entrance music, there is no music present. When you wrestle all you hear is the crowd cheering and the sounds of a wrestling match. No background music at all. The cynical side of me thinks that they were just lazy, however, it is possible that they wanted to add something to the atmosphere and realism.Would've been nice to have the option for some background music.

Apart from some hurdles, AJPW is, for the most part, import friendly. Much of the menus are in English, however, there is a bit of Japanese in the option menu. The main problem lies in the Featuring mode which is entirely Japanese. Thankfully, there is a FAQ available. So long as you don't mind using a FAQ, the game shouldn't be too tough to play.

Replay value is a tad low in this game. Due to the lack of variety in matches and nothing to unlock, all of the replay value lies in the Featuring mode. This is definitely a low point for the game. Multi player doesn't really help it as you are confined to one on one matches. This all adds up to a short lived experience. It can be fun for a bit, but after a while, it's just boring. There is nothing to pull you back.

Overall, I can't really recommend AJPW. To be honest, there are better games out there, even if you are looking for an arcade style wrestling game. There are better arcade style wrestling games out there, most notable being this game's two sequels on Dreamcast, Giant Gram and Giant Gram 2K. Those looking for a serious wrestling game should pick up one of the many Fire Pro games. They feature a higher learning curve, but are a lot better in terms of simulation. If you can find it cheap enough, it might be worth a look, if only to see how much better Giant Gram is. Keep in mind that there isn't much to do in this game, so if you must get it, try not to spend too much.

©2001 Ed Finnegan

Back to Review Directory