.:: Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 ::.
Review by Jay, 23rd July 2002

After a great number of requests from someone (hi Kroaker!), I’ve decided to deviate from the theme of the site for one review, and tackle Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 on the Nintendo 64. Widely regarded as one of the best ‘next generation’ wrestling titles, up there with Sega’s Giant Gram series and Human’s Fire Pro Wrestling D, Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 is from the creators of the WWF No Mercy/Wrestlemania 2000 and the WCW Revenge/nWo vs. The World series, THQ and Aki. My aim here is to provide a little bit of info on the game, but more importantly, help those of you trying to decide between importing this game and buying the Western equivalents.

Firstly, it’d be worth outlining how it plays for those of you unfamiliar with Aki’s play mechanics. The game operates on a simple grappling system – press or hold A to execute a grapple, and once grappled you can perform a number of moves by pressing A or B and a direction. Simple as it seems, the possibilities are endless, with the obligatory Irish whip grapples (down C), go behinds (L button) and special attacks (the analog stick – can be done off corner/irish whip grapples and off the top rope too) being present. There’s also the usual set of submission holds (which are very funky in this game – you have to work to reach the ropes!), top rope moves, planchas and slingshot/springboard attacks. Oh, and if you’re bored of grappling, you can always grab a sickle or barbed wire bat from the crowd :)

Straight away one main difference is present. In VPW2, unlike No Mercy/Revenge etc, some people have an extra grappling special move, named the ‘burning’ special. These can be done once a match, and are activated by taunting again when on your special attack. Just to clarify, special attacks are achieved when your ‘spirit’ meter is full – taunting when this meter is full allow you to execute specials for a short space of time, and thus taunting again allows you to perform a ‘burning’ special. Back to the point, these burning specials can be used once a match, and more or less guarantee victory, but your special meter decreases quickly when activated, meaning you have a tight time limit to work with. So if you want to perform the Burning Hammer instead of the sleeper suplex, or Exploder ’98 instead of a regular Exploder, you’re going to have to be quick!

So with the basics out of the way, what modes are present. If you’ve played Wrestlemania 2000, you’ll feel at home. There are the same battle royal/exhibition options, and the career mode is very similar. There are a few extra modes for localisation, such as Real World Tag League instead of King of the Ring etc. Then there’s the obligatory create-a-wrestler mode. As usual with Aki, it’s a masterpiece, and for once has a fairly good range of masks! Every trademark move is present, from the mist to the iconoclasm, and it makes the task of correcting the unlicensed wrestler’s costumes (for example, to get around not having the license for NJPW, Liger has Ka Shin’s costume, Hayabusa has a Naniwa shaped mask etc) very easy and straightforward.

You must be wondering however, why it is worth buying this over the Western counterparts if there are very few differences other than the language barrier and some localisation (masks, tag league etc). Well, firstly, the language barrier WON’T be a problem. It is very, very easy to get around, and there are plenty of great FAQ pages for the incomprehensible bits (such as the rules menu). On the note of rules, one great addition is the MMA rule set, allowing you to maximise the use of the PRIDE characters. As trivial as it seems, the introduction of burning attacks is fantastic too, and you will find yourself using them (plus it looks great, especially with the likes of following your burning lariat with a burning hammer with Kobashi). I can’t work out why, but I also seem to prefer the career mode. It seems much more entertaining, maybe because of the greater number of leagues/tournaments over No Mercy/Wrestlemania.

Really, unless you’re not a puroresu fan, there is no reason to choose the WWF/WCW series over this. WWF No Mercy is a lot slower in places (especially the ladder matches), and it is nigh on impossible to faithfully create puro stars. Meanwhile, VPW2 already has most of the big names, and it is easy enough to create the others (I made a picture perfect Honma in no time at all, for example). Perhaps the only downsides are that it is a tad too easy (again, localisation coming into effect, supposedly the Japanese prefer easier games), and as it is a version back from No Mercy (it is the Japanese equivalent of WM 2000), some of the great new features (being able to move from a back grapple to a front grapple rather than just front to back) aren’t present. 

In conclusion, I would say that if you have access to a foreign N64, or can afford to buy the converter to allow your PAL/NTSC machine to play Jap games, it is definitely worth picking up over the Western equivalents. Really, you cannot go wrong with Aki games. However, if you’re not too fussed about having Japanese wrestlers and would prefer a more updated game engine (with a ladder/cage match), then WWF No Mercy would be the better choice for you. It is all down to personal taste!

CONCLUSION:

ENTERTAINMENT - 10 - Off the scale

LOCALISATION - 7 - A lot easier than the US/UK/Aus equivalents, and a lot of Japanese text, yet easy to navigate without knowledge of the language

LONGEVITY - 10 - Potentially endless

.:: FINAL RECOMMENADTION – A must have for any puroresu fan! ::.