WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game (Genesis)

[Melf]

Tired of the same old wrestling matches and stiff moves? Then this is the game for you! Taking everything you love about professional wrestling and tossing it, Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game pits eight WWF legends against each other in some hilarious matches. If you’re a fan, then you need to check this one out! Read our full review for more wrasslin' details!

[Barone]

Very nice article.
100% agreed with the reviewer score, comments and highlights!

The Genny version is "ugly" when you compare to the other ports, but it still plays better then the 32x version most of the time, just like with MK II; but without have been cut down.
The amount of voices and comments is very very good for a 16-bit game IMO (sometimes you can miss how many samples really are there, 'cause there are different ones appearing from fight to fight, it's a huge amount when you sum them all), surely Sega-CD could not handle that due to its tiny 64KB PCM sample RAM...
SNES version was butchered... But I think they did not include the big fat fighters 'cause SNES could not handle that. With 3 "regular" fighters on screen SNES almost stops already... Also, with the 3-fighter on screen limit, SNES version broke the cooperative mode completely.
32X version has great visuals and slightly better music compared to the Genesis version, but that "thing" of locking the framerate at 30fps really annoys me... The same with MKII... You can feel the missing frames and IMO it's better to have slowdown with 4 fighters on screen and full speed in other moments (Genesis) than a little sensation of slowdown all the time (32X). Genesis version controls are more responsive IMO too.
The Playstation version has nice visual always at full speed but no music during the fights...
Genesis version is the best package overall.

[shinobimusashi]

Very interesting that the Genesis port is the concensus pick for best overall port of the game, but this game to me is not nearly as good as everyone claims. I was a bit dissapointed with it after I recently gave it a try. Excellent looking graphics, with huge sprites(I'm a glutton for huge 2d sprites), but I just can't get into the gameplay. I was disapointed in WM. Not a very good wrestling game, and not a very good 2d fighter IMO.

[profholt82]

Used phone, double posted, my apologies

[profholt82]

Yeah, it really is a very fun game, and an admirable port. I'd probably rate it 7 out of 10. I used to play the crap out of the arcade with my buddies at the bowling alley when I was a kid. I was thrilled when it came out on the Gen. And I've since played the SNES version and found it almost unplayable. I love when the Gen gets the better port, just like Earthworm Jim, Mortal Kombat and Mickey Mania, but pretty much nothing else unfortunately.

[Orchid87]

Great fighting game with an amazingly deep gameplay

[Crackdown]

I hate this game I think its awful. Possibly the worst game in my collection. It couldn't be futher away from a proper wrestling game if it tried.

[Curryman123]

This game blows balls! Am I playing Mortal Kombat here?

Cheap cash in!

[M4R14NO94]

Best wrestling title on the console, period. Well, this and Slam Masters.

I wish WWE All-Stars had been as frantic and fun as this one, instead of being a simplified and more arcadey SmackDown title. It even had some of the same guys behind this one too (Sal DiVita, for example)

And the commentary is awesome. Vince and Jerry screaming "PIN HIM!" is absolutely hilarious, mostly Vince's over-the-top "PIN HIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!!!". And "WHAT A RIP-OFF!"

[shinobimusashi]

Popped this in the other night for some random wrestling on my Genny, and I had a surprisingly good time with it. I never could get into it before, but for some reason the gameplay clicked with me and I really enjoyed it. I've been on a bit of an old school wrestling binge lately, so that may have been a part of it. Bam Bam Bigelow was always one of my favorites(RIP), and his sprite looks fucking amazing in this game! The way the flames pulse up and down his outfit, his winning match pose, and most importantly the animation quality of that sprite is amazing for the Sega Genesis graphics. Pop this in, pick Bam Bam Bigelow, and jump out of the ring to walk around(animation is smoother out of the ring for some reason, maybe because the other sprites are off screen at times while out of the ring) and admire the slick animation of that sprite. Really impressive. Somebody should hack that sprite/character into some other fighting games. That would be awesome.

So I got into it, and finally got a grasp of the controls, and I really liked it. It's all exaggerated, but there are a lot of actual wrestling moves you can do with some pretty smooth arcade style controls.

Pretty good game with some great nostalgia, including the awesome voice clips from Vince Mcmahon as previously mentioned above me. Bigelow looks amazing in the game, and The Undertaker is one of my personal favorite fictional characters ever created. I think I would have went a different direction with the roster. Replace Doink, Yokozuna, and Lex Luger with Diesel, 123 Kid, and maybe Goldust and this game would have been that much better. Not sure if Goldust was even around when this game was released, so maybe throw in Adam Bomb or Owen Hart.

I'll be writing up a pretty long winded reader roundtable entry for this one soon. I think the reviewer hit the mark with this review though. Definitely a fun little button masher for sure, and the graphics/sound is really impressive.