WWF Super WrestleMania for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo

To start off completely randomly, here's a review I wrote on the classic WWF Super WrestleMania for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. This was actually featured on Sega-16.com (an amazing site, by the way), but in an edited form, as to take out most of the SNES related content, and to shorten its apparent obnoxious length. Here, for the first time ever, is my complete review of the game. I know it's certainly anxiously anticipated.

Before the release of WWF Super WrestleMania for the SNES and Genesis, there was WWF WrestleMania for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It's a nostalgic game to look back at and play, but WrestleMania was, even for its time, hardly a good game, but that's a review for another time. Come 1992, WWF Super WrestleMania was released for the SNES, and, later, Sega Genesis. That same year, 1992, also saw the release of a couple other WWF games for the NES; WWF WrestleMania Challenge and WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge, which also saw a release on the Sega Master System. While notable in that they incorporated what actually resembled primitive grappling systems in comparison to the original WrestleMania's punch/kick simplicity, both games were still pretty bad. There's also the WWF games that were released for the original Game Boy around the same time peroid. But the one game that was actually, to me, decent amongst the bunch was Super WrestleMania. Running on more powerful hardware, it had the chance to show us better graphics and, hopefully, gameplay. Did it deliver? I thought so as a kid, but this game's gotten a lot of hate in the near 2 decades since its release.

GRAPHICS - SNES Let's start with the graphics. On the Super Nintendo, the character sprites are relatively large, colorful, and resemble the wrestler's they're supposed to represent. If there's one thing I could nitpick, and this is simply an OCD-related problem, it's that they gave Ted DiBiase gold colored knee pads and Undertaker plain black gloves. And did Macho Man ever wear tights resembling those? And Earthquake and Typhoon's attires look to be just simple color reversals of each other. But I digress! You knew who you were playing as, and that's all that mattered. The ring itself is kind of generic looking, but the ropes animate nicely when running into them, and, despite its 'generic' feeling, it delivers a feeling of nostalgia thanks to its classic WWF block logo and red, white, and blue ropes. I'm not sure who the referee is supposed to be, but he's some random brown haired guy with the classic WWF referee outfit (and no, he can't be knocked out in this game). The crowd is pretty bland and doesn't have much animation, but at the very least, they're not 'ugly'. So what if everyone has a white, pink, or blue t-shirt and the same haircut? It's the fist pumping that counts, dammit.

Rounding off the graphics you'll be looking at most of the time, there's the announcers who animate, talking to each other behind the ring at their announce table. Now, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty certain the left announcer is Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, which is pretty cool. The right announcer, I have no clue who he is. It could be Gorilla Monsoon or Vince McMahon, but it comically sort of looks like Jim Ross, even though he wasn't under the employ of the WWF in 1992. Finally, there's "Da Fink," Howard Finkle, how introduces the match participants and, afterwards, the winner(s). For the longest time, I thought his character sprite was supposed to be "Mean" Gene Okerlund, until one day I realized that since Finkle was clearly shown, in photograph form, during the winner-announcing, he must be the guy in the ring at the beginning, too. Oh well. We'll meet again, Mean Gene. We'll meet again.

GRAPHICS - GENESIS If you play the SNES version of Super WrestleMania before sitting down to to play the Genesis version, you'll definately notice a lot of differences when you finally do so. For starters, the opening shot of Hogan on the title screen is now a hand-drawn picture instead of the photo as seen on the SNES. Now this isn't too big a deal, and is actually kind of cool, but it'll set the tone for the graphics you'll be seeing for the remainder of your time playing the game.

In game is where you'll notice most of the differences. The character models seem to be a bit smaller and lack some of the color that the SNES sprites have, thanks to the Genesis' limited color pallette. The oddest thing to me was that Macho Man and Shawn Michaels wear the exact same tights, only with different colors thanks to the wonders of pallette swapping. (And if you're wondering, and I know you are, Ted DiBiase actually has black kneepads in this version.)
The audience looks a little washed out, and they don't animate at all. The same goes for the announcers at their announce table. I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do at all with the limitations of the Sega Genesis, but rather is the result of a quick port. The referee also lacks color depth. Another thing you'll also likely notice is the ring itself. Here, the mat is a solid colored light blue, whereas on the SNES it, again, had 'depth' to it. You likely won't care about the ring, but it's noticably slightly inferior, graphically, to its Super Nintendo cousin. And that's the theme of all the graphics in the Genesis version, sadly; the best comparison I can make is that the SNES graphics look pretty much the same, if not slightly lesser, than later Acclaim releases such as Royal Rumble and Raw (and both games were on Genesis, looking pretty good too). It's just not the same on the Genesis version of Super WrestleMania. Console exclusive wrestler Ultimate Warrior looks comical, too. Overall, the Genesis graphics are decent -- definately passable for its time, but is a clear downgrade from the SNES version. This would change in further games in this series, as Royal Rumble and Raw for the Sega Genesis were great improvements and not far behind their SNES brothers.

GAMEPLAY Of course the most important part of the game; the gameplay. This game is of course the 'early model' for WWF Royal Rumble and, later, Raw, and it feels very similar. You can punch, kick, and grapple from a standing position. Grappling is slightly different from the later games in that you don't have a meter to tell you who's winning a grapple battle; you have to mash away at your button, hoping that you'll get the move. Each wrestler shares the same moveset, and there are only three standing grapple moves: headbutt, bodyslam, and suplex. You can also whip your opponent into the ropes, where you can hiptoss, clothesline, or dropkick them as they come off the ropes. Despite these moveset limitations, I still find the game pretty fun to play. It's simple and to the point and, while lacking in moves, it was still a fairly large improvement over the WWF games we had for our home systems before. If there was one problem I'd point out, it's that the game, or rather the characters, move very noticably slower than they do in the later Acclaim games. As such, you'll have to time moves like the dropkick, hiptoss, and clothesline perfectly, or they won't connect.

Aside from the standing moves, it's also possible to stomp the opponent while they're on the ground, or deliver what looks to be a combination of a jumping leg/elbow drop. The same move can also be performed off the top rope. As I previously mentioned, you're unable to knock the referee out in this game; however, you can still fight outside the ring. I don't see a real point in it, however; there are no weapons, and you can only trade punches and kicks. The only reason you'd probably want to throw your opponent out of the ring is because throwing them out actually depletes a fair chunk of health from their meter. It's worth noting that you can exit the ring at anytime in the Genesis version, but can only exit the ring in the SNES version after tossing your opponent out. Also, you can only exit the ring from the two sides, not the front or back.

Differences in the gameplay between both versions are small. However, the Genesis version seems to run a bit faster. Also, and this may be a big one for some fans, the Genesis version contains signature moves for each wrestler in the game. This is the only thing that differs each wrestler's moveset. However, there's a problem; the special moves can be performed at any point. This makes facing British Bulldog pretty difficult, as he'll hit you with his powerslam move (which doesn't look like his running powerslam) constantly. Also, while the inclusion is appreciated, some of the moves are just weird. Macho Man's elbow looks kind of like a splash, Shawn Michaels does a simple variation of a vertical suplex, and the Ultimate Warrior just does his goofy running clothesline. Still, at least they're in there.

Finally, the control. Control is easy on the SNES, as you have the 4 face buttons at your command. It can get a little tricky on the Genesis, however, as the three button pad makes it so you have to press two buttons simultaneously to pull off certain moves. You'll get the hang of it eventually, but it can be pretty difficult at first.

SOUND Being an early 16-bit game, the sound is expected to be simple, and it is. The menu music is generic but it sounds fine, and it becomes catchy after a while. During the select screen, highlighting a wrestler will cause their theme song to play after a few seconds; the song of the victor also plays after the match ends. It's a pretty cool little feature, but of course the quality of the songs are nowhere near their real life counterparts. The music of the Genesis version is, again, noticably worse than the SNES version. The music sounds more 'tinny,' thanks to the notably low sound capabilities of the Genesis. Still, the songs are recognizable. No music plays during a match; the only thing you'll hear are ambient crowd noises and the sound of punches, kicks, and slams onto the mat. While these noises don't stand out in any way, they accomplish what they need to and never distract you.

ACCURACY/ROSTER If you didn't know by now, the Super Nintendo and Genesis versions of Super WrestleMania both have a different roster of wrestlers. Some guys appear on both consoles, but some are console-exclusive. Now, this could be either a good thing or a bad thing in your eyes. From a 'good' standpoint, having two different rosters offers 'variety' and, if you get both versions, more wrestlers for you to use than if you had just one version. On the other hand, back in the day if you had just a Genesis or just an SNES, you were left out of the loop with some of the guys. But which game carried a better roster? Let's have a look.

SNES version:

Animal

Earthquake

Hawk

Hulk Hogan

Jake Roberts

Randy Savage

Sid Justice

Ted DiBiase

Typhoon

The Undertaker

Genesis version:

British Bulldog

Hulk Hogan

Irwin R. Schyster

Papa Shango

Randy Savage

Shawn Michaels

Ted DiBiase

Ultimate Warrior

As you can see, the SNES version contains two more superstars than the Genesis version. If you want my opinion, I muchly prefer the SNES' roster. It's all up to certain taste, though; remember that all the guys on the Genesis have their own special moves, too. SNES contains two actual tag teams, plus favorites like Jake Roberts and The Undertaker. Genesis has the popular British Bulldog and Ultimate Warrior, along with the odd inclusion of a young Shawn Michaels. It has no 'real' tag team, unless you count Money Inc., with DiBiase and IRS. There's also the perpetual Sega-exclusive Papa Shango.

Something I should mention about the SNES version and the lack of special moves: while it's true that no one has their own unique moves, the AI for guys like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage is actually pretty smart. Hogan will attempt to finish you off with a running leg/elbow drop, and Savage will attempt to finish you off with the flying leg/elbow drop off the top rope. Pretty good.
One last thing I'd just like to poke fun at is the fact that, in the SNES instruction manual, The Undertaker is listed as 6'6," and Hawk from LOD is somehow 6'10".

GAME MODES For such an early game, Acclaim added some decent modes to Super WrestleMania. Besides from singles and tag team matches, you also have 4-on-4 Survivor Series elimination tag team matches, which I think was the first inclusion of this mode. The Genesis actually wins this category handily, though: it has a one player 'WWF Championship' mode not seen on the SNES, where you try and win the title with a wrestler. Nothing major compared to the season/story modes of today's games, but it was pretty cool back in 1992. Also, when playing 1-on-1 matches against the CPU, Genesis actually lets you pick your opponent, a feature oddly not present on the Super Nintendo.

CLOSING COMMENTS WWF Super WrestleMania didn't set the world on fire, but I still think it's overlooked by most people today. I thought it was a solid game when it came out and, while it's aged pretty poorly, I still think that it's playable fun. Back then, all a new wrestling game had to do to excite us would be to have clean graphics, a roster of our favorite main eventers (or WrestleCrap stars), and have some good multiplayer fun. Now as to whether you should get the SNES or Genesis version, that's really up to you, as both have their strong points. You could probably buy both at the same time for less than $6 now, so go for it if you own both systems. Don't expect an amazing game, but WWF Super WrestleMania was the basis for the greater Acclaim wrestling games we got later on.