History of WWF/E Games Part 15-2
WWF Wrestlemania The Arcade Game
Release
1995
Format
Super Nintendo
Sega Mega Drive
Time to look at the the 16-bit version’s of this awesome game.
Background
**Hi guys welcome back to the second part of this three parter. Next week we will look at the Playstation, Saturn, PC and 32X ports**
If you remember from last week I mentioned that Wrestlemania The Arcade Game was one of my all time favourite video games. Now while time and time again both the Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive proved that they could give us some great arcade conversions. By the time this game was released in 1995 some developers were shifting focus on to the 32-bit platforms like the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn.
Wrestlemania The Arcade Game is clearly a game where most of the attention was given to the 32-bit ports. It also makes a return to the two games having a different roster like in Super Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble, but unlike those games the roster difference in the 16-bit ports is nothing to be happy about.
Presentation
I am not trying to start a flame war here, but for me as a kid I always felt that the majority of games that got multi platform ports looked and sounded better on the Super Nintendo. Do not get me wrong, I loved my Sega Mega Drive, but the Super Nintendo games just looked a little better. Wrestlemania is a rare case of where the Mega Drive Version is superior in pretty much every single aspect.
First of all the characters. Like in the 16-bit ports of Mortal Kombat the digitized characters have been shrunk down from there arcade counterparts. They still do look quite good, and have most of there animations. The first big difference is in the roster. For whatever reason the developer had a real tough time porting this game to the Super Nintendo, so much in fact that the Super Nintendo only has 4 of the 8 characters that all the other version have. Yokozuna and Bam Bam Bigelow were both taken out of the Super Nintendo version.
Sound was always one of the Super Nintendo’s best features in my opinion, but again here the Mega Drive wins. The Mega Drive still manages to keep a great deal of the commentary far more than the Super Nintendo version. In addition the Sega Mega Drive version is capable of having four wrestlers on the screen at once, while the Super Nintendo can only handle three, and even then the slow down is really bad.
Game Play
One advantage the Super Nintendo does have is that it has a six button controller as standard. You can play this using the Mega Drive’s three button controller, but it can be a real pain in the butt. Of course you can use the Mega Drive six button controller, because really think that to get the most out of this game you really do need to have a six button controller.
Wrestlemania has the exact same game modes that the arcade has. Both Intercontinental and WWF Championship modes are here. Now in the arcades only having two game play modes really is not that big of a deal. I always felt that they maybe should have added a little extra to the home ports. Maybe even a exhibition match to let you practice combos and special moves.
Slow down is in both these versions. I would not go as far to say it is game breaking, but it is certainly worse on the Super Nintendo version. As the Super Nintendo version only allows three players on screen at once, and it also loses some of the frantic and fun game play that the arcade and the Mega Drive version has.
Final Thoughts
I still to this day cannot believe how badly they messed up the Super Nintendo port of this game. Considering just how good the port of Mortal Kombat 2 was on the Super Nintendo, I wonder why they struggled so bad with this. I remember when it was released and in my local Woolworths the Playstation version was £44.99 and the Super Nintendo one was £59.99. Thank god I waited a few months to get the Playstation version. I have to give credit to the great job that they were able to do on the Sega Mega Drive, and if you have a six button controller then you really have a good solid port on your hands.
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