Now, if only they'd start showing Japanese wrestling on TV...

Now, I warn you before I start that as of late I have become more of a WWE detractor than anything. Their recent descisions have caused me to stray from their brand of sports-entertainment, and this game has caused me to embrace the Japanese technician's wrestling.

In a very short synopsis, this game almost directly embodies the Japanese "style" of wrestling, called Puroresu (Purofesshonaru resuringu, or Puro for short). It has 200+ wrestlers from all over the world (the American ones are re-colored), renamed with names to avoid various copyright laws of the US. It also has 73 Create-A-Wrestler slots and one of the most deep CAWs in any wrestling game. There are over 2000 moves, 4 match types, and 5 modes besides the edit mode (Exhibition, League, Tournament, Audience Mode, Elimination). If I truly wished to do so, I could write a 2,000 word essay on the importance and wrestling significance of this game, but I have neither the time nor the will to do so. So, let's start, shall we?

I guess I should start at the Exhibition mode. You can play 1 or multi player, the former being more fun than the latter, since (at least in my experience) the game is prone to screwing up in multiplayer. You'll be playing the 1-player more than anything. Trust me. So, after pushing (A) while highlighting 1-player, you get a screen asking what type of matches you would like. So, for the benefit of your enrichment, I will explain what each one of them is:

Normal
This is your regular, in-ring exhibition match. You can change all the options for it however you want (I'm not going through all of them) and press start.

Deathmatch
Intrigued? I know I was. The deathmatch is reminiscent of a match frequently seen on the now defunct FMW (Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling). It is basically an electrified cage with big, black boxes surrounding the outside. Now, that's not all. After a certain ammount of time has passed, the black boxes explode, throwing both you and your opponent to the ground. While this looks nowhere near as impressive as it does on the Dreamcast game (Fire Pro D), it is still one of those moments you gawk at. It's fun to see the screen turn white, and push your buttons frantically in an attempt to get to your feet before your opponent. All in all, it is an entertaining mode of play.

Gruesome
This is a knock-off of the patented (and copyrighted) UFC 8-sided cage. Fight it out in any way, shape, or form until either you or your opponent is knocked senseless. Fun!

Battle Royal
Basically, you fight with 4 other people in the ring until only one guy is left. There are 3 modes:

Endless- People who are eliminated can still fight.
Normal- Win by pin, submission and such. Just win..
Over The Rope- Toss your opponents outside the ring.

It provides some laughs, but it's more difficult than it's worth.

All in all, exhibiton is the place you'll be spending your time.

Now, there are Tournament and League modes, too. I'll explain.

Tournament
Choose the rules and stipulations (Normal, Deathmatch, Gruesome) of a tourney, name it, and place up to 16 people in it. You can make the matches go twice as fast by chosing "COM Skip" in the match rules menu as you set the rules up.

League
Starts off the same as the Tourney, but instead of choosing only 16 wrestlers, you can choose up to a whopping 64 wrestlers. Now, a league plays out a bit differently than the Tourney. Basically, each of the wrestlers has to face everyone once. The one with the most points at the end (depending on if you win, lose, or tie) wins. Simple stuff.


The next mode is the Elminiation Mode. In this mode, you pic one of the many 5-man teams, or create your own, to fight another 5-man team. The first match is the first man from every team. The winner of this match goes on to fight the next man down from who he beat, until he gets to the end. This is basicaly how it goes. Of course, the first winner can lose, in which instance the next person down from him will continue. This is, all in all, my least favorite mode, but it does have its purposes, I guess.


Now, onto the meat-and-potatoes of the game: the Audience Mode. The Audience mode asks you to compete in one of 7 different styles. Now, it is a bit more complicated than that. You have to get a set rating in each tier of the mode, as well as win a certain amount of matches, to go onto the next tier. It sound pretty complicated, but it's pretty simple. The styles are:

Strong Style: Have a good and balanced back and forth match with the opponent. Try and "squeak out a victory" (barely win it) for the highest ratings.

King's Road: Basically, the same as Strong Style, but they want decisive wins here. Go back and forth for 20 minutes, get some near falls, and then slaughter the opponent for the win.

Showman Style: Basically, the WWE. Taunt. A LOT. Pull off your signature moves several times, and win after a finisher. Fans love it.

Stoic Style: Beat the H3ll out of the opponent in the shortest amount of time possible.

Lucha Style: A lot of Shoman Style, but also, you must pull off some impressive high-flying moves and techical maneuvres here.

Hardcore Style: Cheat. Use attacks like the "Fork Attack" (I'll explain later in the review) and chokeholds. Liberal amounts of chokeholds. Try and win outside on the concrete. Make the opponent bleed. Fans love brutality, and that's what you give 'em.

Freestyle: The most ambiguous match. I have yet to play much here, so I can't tell you. Experiment, and find out what works.

The Audience Mode is also what unlocks the many secret wrestlers and moves that are required (IMO) to play the game.

Now, onto what really defines the Fire Pro series, the unbeleivable edit mode.

The Fire Pro edit engine is what "every game has a part of", and that is true. The Fire Pro edit engine is certainly the best Edit (Create-A-Wrestler) mode ever. While Fire Pro for Game Boy Advance isn't the best one (Fire Pro for the Dreamcast gets that award), it is certainly close.

The edit mode has an obscene amount of moves. Sure, there are moves missing, but ever other night, some dude like Rey Mysterio is inventing new moves, so you can't really include every move ever. That is physically impossible. But still, Fire Pro has some great ones. All the WWE moves (shrug) from about 2 years ago are here, for the fans. Remember, though, this was a launch title for the GBA coded by Japanese programmers, who had probabl not seen ever WWE match known to man, so they are forgiven. Pick your moves, and assign them as either Signature (S) or Finisher (F). This you do with the L Button. You have 4 Signatures to distribute, and one Finisher, so chose wisely. But, you do have to un-assign them from previous settings to re-assign them, which you do by pressing L. When you press Start, you get to name your finisher. Fun. Also, the only "weapons" in the game happen to be attacks. There are 2 specific weapons: the fork and the sickle. The sickle is a favorite of Japanese Garbage-Wrestling "legend" Mr. Pogo. In the attack, the attacker produces a sickle, and proceeds to rip it across the forehead of the opponent while he's on the ground. The fork is a mainstay of independent legend Abdullah the Butcher. In the "Fork Attack", which is done from both the front and the back, is basically a maniacal stabbing of the opponent with a fork. Those are the weapons. As said, there are obscene amounts of moves, so you should be able to make infinite amounts of movesets.

The appearance edit, while not being as detailed as some other things, are as good as you can get. There are a few costume pieces for each bodypart, which ensures almost infinite creativity there. Also, there are 336 (I think) heads to chose from. These include the 200 wrestlers, as well as a few heads for different people that weren't included in the game. This makes it even more creative. Then, there's the color editing. It's quite complicated at first, but you get the hang of it after a while. In short, just the appearance mode makes for infinite creativity.

Then, of course, you name the dude, give him a fighting style (I'm not even going to bother listing them, since there's quite a few) and other stuff as such. Once again: infinite possibilities.

Now, then there's the CPU logic. This is by far one of the best features in the Edit mode. Have you ever created a wrestler in, say, No Mercy and think he was invincible, only to have him be beat by the lowliest of jobbers when you put him in a match? Well, Fire Pro dissuades all this by letting you chose which moves he does how many times in each situation. It is very complicated, but like I've said about other modes, it doesn't take that long to learn.

The cool thing I like about the edit mode, though, is that it doesn't take an hour to make a good edit, a la SmackDown and No Mercy. A good CAW can be create in 20 minutes, complete with Logic. This saves a lot of time that you can spend playing. A nice feature, to be sure.

Also, in the Edit menu, there's several options. I'll list them:

Edit Wrestler: What I described in length above.

Edit Federation: Make your own federation to place your wrestlers in. Give it a short name (Initials) and a long name (part of the name), as well as one of a few logos. Pretty cool.

Rename: This is how you go about renaming the original wrestlers. And trust me, every single original wrestler in the game, while being severely discolored, in the case of the American wrestlers, or renamed in the case of everyone, they are all real wrestlers or fighters. Every 200+ one of them. I've gone through and renamed everyone, thanks to a rename list I got off of the internet, and I'm now content that I know exactly who I'm fighting as, and exactly who I'm fighting.

Move Wrestler: Say you want one of the originals in another federation. This is how you go about doing it. I agree there are many different ways BAM (or Spike) could have gone about making this easier, but they didn't. Basically, everyone that's an original is lined up in a big list. You find who you want to move, and the select bar (which is green) moves down to a list of the federation. Pick one you want to move him to. There is also a "Retire" option at the end of the federation list. This takes the wrestler off of the roster so he is not visible. It is a nice touch if you want to re-edit the horribly colored costumes of the American wrestlers, and you don't want the originals showing up on the rosters.

Trade Wrestlers: Simple: Trade original Edits back and forth between your friends who have the same game.

That is basically it. I will explain what the buttons do, though, so you're not left completely in the dark.

Standing Before a grapple.
B-Weak Strike (punch or kick)
A- Medium Strike (punch or kick)
AB- Strong Strike/Attack (Dropkick, High Kick, ect.)

Grapple
A Grapple happens when 2 wrestlers get close. When they do, they grab each other. Touch the buttons as soon as the grapple is set. Start with the B, then move up.
B- Weak Attack (Body Slam, Snapmare)
A- Medium Attack (Suplexes, Piledrivers
AB- Strong Attacks (Stunners, "Rock Bottoms" and such)

L- Breathe (Yes, you need to breathe. You can get tired)
R- Run

Now, I would go in depth, since the manual leaves a lot to be desired. It is mostly in Engrish (or Japanglish, if you will), so the explanations are a bit shaky. Complain to BAM for not translating well enough.

As for the music, it sucks. Well, that's not really fair, since it is a GBA, but they could have done better. On the other hand, the music is just a neccessary evil of wrestling games. Not once have I ever played a wrestling game with truly good BG music. The sound effects, however, are wonderful. The referee will count the 3 count, and "uh" the rest of them. The crowd is also pretty animated, with several different cheers and roars for different occasions. It's also quite satisfying to cut someone wide open, and proceed to hear the anonymous lady in the audience scream in horror.

When we've got the sound done, II might as well move on to the graphics. The graphics are quite good for a handheld. The ring is from a 3/4 down view, which means the view is right above one of the corners, and the ring is diagonally alligned, like a Diamond. Speaking of the ring, it is antirely too big for the sprites (or vice versa). The wrestlers seem like small children inside the ring instead of real people. Speaking of the wrestlers, the are quite well animated. All of their moves are incredibly detalied, and are quite snazzy to watch. The people themselves, while not being as detailed as they could have been, are lightyears ahead of any other handheld title ever made. While there are some (obligatory) pixels sticking out here and there, they still look amazing and realistic.

Now, for you buying this, I warn you. Fire Pro is definitely not an easy game. It took me a good 2 days to get the timing down, not to mention to win. It takes a lot of strategy to win. So, if you're buying this for an 8-year old, I would not reccomend it. If you or the person you're buying it for has the patience, go ahead. But as said, the learning curve is incredibly steep for a Wrestling title, which brings down the "Pick up and Play" value of the game. But if you truly love wrestling, and you do have the patience, buy this it is more than worth it. I would reccomend this to any wrestling fan with a brain..