| smbhax [sys=PS1; cat=Wrestling; reg=JPN] |
| | | It's like the Dreamcast's Fire Prowrestling D except with less edits, fewer move types and grainier graphics (though they are, as ever, based around those wonderfully versatile compound sprites). So why the dickens would you want it if you already have D?
For me the answer is the "Fighting Road" mode, in which you take this fellow whose name I forget on an RPG-ish journey from a wrestling novice to king of the professional circuit. You have conversations with your current peers and trainers, during which you get to make choices that will develop your skills/attributes in certain ways, or shape the future path of your career, then you wrestle someone, the outcome possibly affecting for who and against who you fight next, and so forth. There's quite a bit of text but there are, thankfully, some very good translations available.
The personal focus and story in this mode, as well as the huge array of well-drawn character portraits, make it much more interesting than, if not quite as broad in scope as, the generic "Victory Road" mode in Fire Pro D. Sure, you can't run your cool edit character through Fighting Road, but at least in the (relative) short term you get a much more story-like experience, and then you can go back to D wiser in the ways of professional wrestling federations. |
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| | | | I seem to have unloaded my PS Fire Pros at some point, dang. |
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| | | This is the last Fire Pro where the 2D segmented style still looks pretty good--after this, with D on Dreamcast, the resolution gets too high and it looks like sticks swiveling around. But play it here in low res--or at minimal settings in DuckStation, anyway--and the sprites still look pretty darn solid.
This one's on the JP PS3 PS Store for 628 Yen, 174 MB. And it's just one track according to the redump .cue, so should be fine to dump and extract. |
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| | | | And I don't mean just resolution as in pixel size--the lighting and colors get more shading etc later, whereas here it's more cohesive big color blocks that don't divide up the forms. |
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| | | I don't know if it was a budget title on actual PS1, but the PS3 version dumped and on the PS Store is labelled "Spike Library."
In DuckStation, the controls don't respond until you set the controller as "Digital Controller" rather than "Analog Controller." |
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| | | | The CRITICAL podcast says fatigue (breathing) started in G. It's on R2. R1 orbits around the opponent. L1/L2 are taunts. /\ is Run / Irish Whip. |
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| | | | Has a Hulk Hogan stand-in. |
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| | | | The characters are smaller and much more chunky pixels than Returns, which is sorta good and bad. ^ _^ |
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| | | Downloaded a rename save from GameFAQs--they're in Dexdrive format but DuckStation can import those:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnPC/comments/m9w3gj/comment/grp716f/
'Assuming you have your memory card to per game (either via game code or game name) and you already started the game in question once (you don't need to have a saved game for it), you can go to the mc editor, select the game mc in question, go to "Import Card", select the .gme file you want, save the card on the "Save" button and you should be ready to go.' |
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The save file is 10 blocks, 10x larger than most PS1 saves, and takes a while to save/load--but in DuckStation you can fast-forward. BUT G doesn't auto-load (I didn't find it auto-saving, either) so you gotta remember to pick the Memory Card option on the main menu--bottom right, then top for Load--and load your save file manually each time you boot the game, or you won't have your renamed wrestlers and edits, Fighting Road progress, etc.
Top to bottom & l to r, the main menu items are ( https://www.thesmackdownhotel.com/games/fire-pro-wrestling-g ):
- ONE NIGHT MATCH (Exhibition mode)
- ONE NIGHT TOURNAMENT (Tournament mode)
- OPEN LEAGUE (League mode)
- ELIMINATION MATCH (5v5)
- BATTLE ROYAL (Up to 4 wrestlers)
- DEATH MATCH (Hardcore wrestling)
- GRUESOME FIGHTING (MMA)
- FIGHTING ROAD
- EDIT RANKING
- EDIT MODE
- DOJO (Tutorial)
- TITLE MATCH (Clear FIGHTING ROAD to unlock.)
then
- OPTION
- MEMORY CARD
Got cranked in TITLE MATCH, did some FIGHTING ROAD but it's all in Japanese so I don't understand the plot or story choices (even back in the day I didn't end up having the patience to go through w/ a translation FAQ), and wrestling as a noob wrestler in complete ignorance is a bit dull. EDIT RANKING is maybe a manager type mode where you just watch? And OPEN LEAGUE can be a watching ("simming" as the peeps seem to call it) mode too if you accidentally set up a 60-man CPU field as I did hah.
Kinda spooked by the non-renamed wrestler who shows up in Battle Arts ("Battration"): ~20 yr old "A rising star" Yuji Yamashita... AH okay that IS the Fighting Road default char name. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/197349-fire-prowrestling-g/faqs/5057 I wish random select (Start button) didn't keep landing on him!
I think I'll probably mostly be doing Exhibition matches in these games, that's where I seemed to have the most fun. Mutoh threw some real twists into that CPU (default) lvl 3 match vs my clunky Goldust with a few insane combos. ^ _^ Pretty entertaining to chill out with the huge cast and their massive variety of moves.
Skipped SFC & Saturn--went from PCE to PS1--so suddenly I have 3 new buttons: Performance 2 (L2), Breathe (R2), & Drag Opponent (R1). There's more you can do in matches in G and the segmented animation--which still looks pretty solid here in PS1 low-res--allows for much more varied and elaborate moves, but I also miss the simplicity of Joshi on PCE--don't have to worry about getting tired and breathing and repositioning the opponent and all that stuff.
(Though Joshi I don't THINK has a free-select Exhibition mode, it's more of an Arcade mode.)
Really good music in both games!
Don't think Hoost can pin? He's a kickboxer so maybe he has to go for KOs, more or less? Goldust has a poison breath []+X strike; don't think I managed to hit with it. |
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1:06 - Randy Savage vs "Dark Night"
10:00 - Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs Ultimo Dragon
Oh ah it was actually Hiroyoshi Tenzan -- probably couldn't fit the full name in the name bar so whoever did the rename file just cut the last letter off: "Tenza." : PPP (And put "Tenzan" as the nickname. : PPPP) (Personally I would'a put the name as H.Tenzan.) (Okay so I've started switching the name format, got some of 'em done...)
Can't find any info on Dark Night! Their nickname in Japanese Google Translates as "The Last Warrior." This rename file seems to have moved some wrestlers into FREE, where Dark Night is... Like people who since left the WWF/WWE (aka "WFW" in G) for instance. I've moved them back to WCW or WWF... AH okay "Dark Night" is one of three edit characters included in this rename file--the other two are "Great Sasuke-II" and Yuji Yamashita (in Japanese). I've deleted them now. : PPP ; PPP
Okay so it looks like CPU level 3 is about where I'd better work for now. ; ) Gotta remember I have to load the rename file manually after starting the game! (Had a take before this I trashed 'cause I forgot to do that. : P)
This is the first FP with fatigue and MAN they went a bit heavy on it, keep getting to the point where anything I do tires me, bleh; like Tenza and Ultimo just sitting/laying there huffing and puffing, blah. : P Possibly it didn't help that the random select gave me big beefy guys vs small guys?
Might just be my imagination / lack of button timing but it feels like maybe it's harder to start getting in medium or heavy grapples in this one. |
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| | | There was also a mysterious entry for Roland Bock, a German wrestler from the '68 Olympics; he isn't listed in the rename FAQs, so I unlisted him. ... AH the rename FAQs skip him; for some reason--he's listed in a regular FAQ.
So, names should be all straight now, and per the original groups. Man, now I'm gonna have the urge to do this for the PS2 Fire Pro now. ; P |
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| | | | Oh hey, the PS2 Fire Pro (Returns) doesn't do that name distortion stuff as far as I can see, nice. : D And I did my own rename for D. Should be all straight for names in my Firpros now, then. ^ _^ |
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| | | | Wolf Hawkfield (Virtua Fighter wrestler) is in here--he's in D, also. |
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| | | | Just ran a random match and got a smaller guy vs a bigger guy and pretty much just dominated right from the start. Didn't particularly notice the bigger guy being tired per se--he didn't really do much--but my little guy was all over and only huffed like once. Could be that this first implementation of the fatigue system was particularly hard on the bigger characters. |
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| | | | Most likely my sample size is too small and I just need to play more. ^ _^ |
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4:10 - Mr. Gannosuke vs Kodo Fuyuki
18:44 - M. Yakushiji vs MEN'S Teioh
28:41 - Maurice Smith vs Hiroshi Hase
37:17 - WING Kanemura vs Masahiro Chono
47:07 - wrap!
I'd had the impression fatigue was too strong in this I think first implementation of that mechanic in the series, but I didn't seem to have a problem with it in these matches, in fact this felt like the most solid Fire Pro I've played! Some very satisfying matches! : )
Oh except that I couldn't get used to the different button layout vs the later Fire Pros. For next time I'll just remap the controls a bit in DuckStation: Breathe from R2 to L1, Taunt/Performance 1 from L1 to Left Analog Up, and Taunt/Performance 2 from L2 to Left Analog Down. |
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4:12 - Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn
21:58 - Akira Nogami vs Hulk Hogan
32:02 - wrap!
You know, I was thinking Fire Pro D (Dreamcast) was gonna be my go-to for Spike wrestlers, but actually, not counting the not-very-well-balanced-at-all DLC characters, it barely has more wrestlers than G: G has 193, and D has 220--probably about half of the newcomers there are the newly added female wrestling wing.
And I like G's less cartoony, less super-deformed character art style way more! And it's more bright colors and less grays than the later Fire Pros. ^ _^ (The G look lived on in the GBA Fire Pro games a few years later.) And G's AI is tougher and less twitchy, and I don't think you can exploit kicks to the abs against it like you can in most of the later Fire Pros. |
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| | | | AH the previous Fire Pro, "Fire ProWrestling S: 6Men Scramble" for Sega Saturn, had a fatigue system, and the one before THAT--"Super Fire ProWrestling X Premium" for Super Famicom--did not; so anyway contrary to what I'd been saying, G wasn't the first Fire Pro with the fatigue system! |
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3:17 - W.Hawkfield vs T.Kohsaka
18:01 - B.Bulldog vs M.Fuchi
44:30 - GameFAQing
Difficulty 4 is definitely harder than 3 was, oof! ; D Couldn't get an Irish whip off the ropes on the first opponent, for instance, and just couldn't seem to wear the 2nd down past a certain point--heck, he seemed to be getting stronger by the end! = P
But in that case I didn't realize there's a Light-plus-Medium move off the turnbuckle--which as it turns out is like Bulldog's big move, according to the FAQs! And I guess his one turnbuckle attack on a grounded opponent--so without knowing that, all my turnbuckle climbing was totally useless, and that definitely didn't help. Oh well next time I'll know about this L-plus-M thing off turnbuckles at least, if I remember.
Hm and the FAQ says to land one of those turnbuckle dives for standing opponent moves, you pretty much have to have a Strong punch/kick combo move that knocks them down, since that will cause them to get up dazed on their own, giving you time to climb the turnbuckle and dive at them.
Also I completely failed to win a corner grapple with Bulldog. 'p'
OH in this Fire Pro it isn't Strong-plus-Direction for another strike, it's Light-plus-Medium, according to the FAQ. OH! |
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