Fire Pro Gaiden: Blazing Tornado

*Originally Written: 7/15/2000 Rewritten: 3/11/2002

Fire Pro Gaiden: Blazing Tornado is an arcade style spin off of the deep simulation based Fire Pro series. Hence the Fire Pro Gaiden, or side story, tacked onto the title. Since this is an arcade style game, and a "side story", do not go in expecting the depth of a Fire Pro game. If you do, you will be sorely disappointed. Just ignore that this game was made by Human and ignore the "Fire Pro Gaiden" part of the title. Go into the game expecting a no frills arcade wrestler, and maybe, just maybe you'll have a good time. In fact, to make it easier on you, I'll refer to the game as Blazing Tornado rather than it's full title from now on.

Gameplay is similar to the Arcade Capcom classic "Saturday Night Slammasters", only less over the top, less fun and less wrestlers in the ring at a time. A maximum of two to be exact. That's right, no Battle Royals, no tag team matches, just plain old one on one action. One thing you have to keep in mind while playing this game, is it's roots. It is an Arcade game, first and foremost. It's not designed to allow you to recreate your favorite matches from TV. In fact, the lack of any "real" professional wrestlers and the lack of a create a wrestler make this feat an impossibility. Instead of talking more about what you don't get, let's talk about what is present. You have "Comic Book" style exaggerated wrestlers, a few weapons and a very small set of moves. Well, that's about it. To recap, there is no create a wrestler mode, no "real" wrestlers, no tag or battle royal matches, a small moveset for each wrestler and a couple weapons to use. In other words, like a lot of arcade games, Blazing Tornado is about as shallow as a kiddy pool. Shallow does not always equal bad though.

One thing that is bound to turn gamers off is the small roster of wrestlers. You've got a grand total of eight wrestlers to choose from. Nine when you unlock the boss. Those used to Fire Pro may have a hard time adjusting to this number, but we must keep in mind that this is originally an arcade game. Adding insult to injury is the lack of any "real" wrestlers. A lot of people play wrestling games to have dream matches with their favorite professional wrestlers. Those folks are out of luck with Blazing Tornado. The wrestlers here are crazy. You've got your typical strong man, a Kung Fu Master, a little wimpy guy and even a masked man on a motorcycle. One positive aspect about having this small amount of wrestlers, none of them share a moveset. However, their movesets are so small it's not that big of a deal.

This game can be somewhat difficult at times, and sadly this isn't just due to your opposition. Sure, your opponents take every opportunity to beat the snot out of you and they will do a good job until you get used to the game, but the poor hit detection can be a problem. Hitting your opponents can be a matter of luck. I've seen worse hit detection before, but that doesn't excuse this. At times it can be quite hard to land a hit. Barring the hit detection problem, the move sets are so limited that the game can become boring rather quickly. You can only see so many body slams before it becomes dull.

The control is livable. I noticed a slight delay in response time, nothing major though. It might take you a couple minutes to get the control down, but it's learning curve is nowhere near as high as the real Fire Pro games. This game is a lot more friendly to a first time player, which is probably due to it's arcade origin. So, don't let the Fire Pro name scare you off. The opposite can be said as well. The trade off for the simplified learning curve can be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask. You obviously lose a lot of complexity. However, those looking for a quick thoughtless fight won't mind.

As I've noticed in most games, the music is a mixed bag. It went from good to blah, but thankfully it never crossed into the realm of annoyance. Something that I found to be cool were the wrestler entrances. While the game loads the match, you see your wrestler run to the ring with the announcer announcing his name and stats in English. The voice acting is lame, but it's good for a laugh. No commentary, as is to be expected. Sound FX are your typical crunches slaps.

The graphics are pretty much average, but you've gotta remember, this is a port of an Arcade game from 1995. The game is completely 2D so those of you who see only 3d should look elsewhere. The animation is sub par. The character sprites look pretty good and apart from when the game zooms in for a devastating move, there isn't much pixelization. No slowdown as far as I could tell. In the Loading screen entrances there are some cool "lighting" effects. It's probably nothing special for most people but I thought it looked worthy of being mentioned. Speaking of entrances, they look great. One in particular deserves mention, it involves a wrestler riding a motorcycle to the ring. Pretty cool if you ask me.

This game is very import friendly. Unlike the main games in the Fire Pro Series, just about the whole game is in English, and the little that is in Japanese is unimportant. Besides it is an arcade style wrestling game, do you really need English text? Concern over import friendliness should not stop you from getting the game, let the flaws handle that.

Any replay value? Nope, zilch. Though, what do you expect, it is a bare bones arcade port and is missing many of the things that give other wrestling titles their replay value. Such as a create a wrestler mode and a wide variety of matches/multiplayer modes. Options are severely limiting featuring the standard difficulty, time and controller config. Like I said earlier, shallow as a kiddy pool. You may get a little more replay value if you've got a friend to play with, but as with AJPW Featuring Virtua, the lack of match types kills any longtime playability.

Overall, I'd say, only get Blazing Tornado if you are curious to see how an arcade style Fire Pro game is. Be warned, it in no way comes close to the others. Lack of any extra options or play modes and a horrible hit detection really killed Blazing Tornado for me. I went into this game expecting great things, and I was sorely disappointed, don't do the same thing. If you are dying for an arcade style wrestling game for Saturn, grab AJPW Featuring Virtua. At least with that you get real wrestlers, just make sure you check my review of that before getting it as it isn't without it's flaws either. If you don't mind a simulation style wrestling game, by all means pick up one of the true Fire Pro Games. I'd recommend either Fire Pro S, D or G, depending on your system of choice. Each game has it's ups and downs. You might also want to check Fire Pro A to get some Fire Pro Action on the go.

©2002 Ed Finnegan

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