9/15/20 Beast Wrestler (1991)

Beast Wrestler (1991) by Riot and published by Renovation Products for Genesis. A great concept executed poorly. Beast Wrestler should be rad, you select from a wide range of giant monsters with heavy shades of Japanese kaiju movies, then duke it out in a wrestling tournament. In what is basically the story mode, you can then splice your monster’s genetics with another’s to create a hybrid with new abilities. This sounds great! Then you play it, and are faced with the controls. The actual wrestling in this game is both extremely basic and headscratchingly confusing. You have a punch, tail whip, and grab, but the hit detection is all off; sometimes, due to the isometric view, you and your opponent will be standing half on top of each other and unable to actually hit the other. Grabs feel like a gamble, and though the multiple types of grabs are appreciated, they never feel consistent, and aren’t helped by the fact that the computer opponent always seems to execute them with frame precision. “Can I break out of this? Why are the animations different sometimes? How do I do the headlock? When do I lose?” Oh yeah, for some reason, instead of just having a stamina meter or health bar, Beast Wrestler opts for three white balls to represent your status. When they all turn red, you lose; supposedly, one will turn red faster after the first is lost, or when being hit many times in a short amount of time, but that never feels well-communicated. Overall, a great idea squandered by shoddy programming and poor conveyance. To its credit, the artstyle and graphics are classic Genesis, and the music is catchy, but I wouldn’t recommend beyond just trying it out.