Game:

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters 2 (2001)

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Big Bang Pro Wrestling is a great wrestling game for the NGPC, which is good because it's the only one on the handheld too.

Developed by S-Neo and published by SNK in late 2000, it was one of the last games published by the original SNK (along with Seta's "Super Real Mahjong Premium Collection", "SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters 2 Expand Edition", and "Pachi-Slot Aruze Oukoku e-CUP" in 2001) due to one unfortunate circumstance after another, which led to an acquistition by Aruze in 2000 and SNK ultimately disolving from them, filing for bankruptcy, and later creating SNK Playmore in mid-late 2001 (due to some less-than-savory under-financing of SNK property within the video game market) as a revival of the SNK brand.

While SNK closed their doors and stopped American operations in the summer of 2000 (the original, not Playmore), it wasn't a decision they particularly enjoyed as they have tried to be quite faithful to their overseas fans; this is partially evidenced in Big Bang Pro Wrestling, which was originally going to be called "Wrestling Madness" (it was commercially scrapped, though its ROM exists) and is one of the rare NGPC games released only in Japan to support Japanese and English dialogue. It was nice to see they were still thinking about their overseas fans. Both versions of the game are basically the same, but if you play it in Japanese, you're treated with slightly different graphic images and an extra ring type (with the NeoGeo Logo) along with Japanese text.

As the game was handled by S-Neo who are no strangers when it comes to making good wrestling games (Fire ProWrestling G, Fire ProWrestling D, and Fire Pro Wrestling Returns anyone?), it should come as no surprise that this game is, well, good. You wanna know something else? It plays a lot like FPW too... I can't for the life of me figure out why that is the case. Sarcasm aside, if you've never played a FPW game before, then you really should. Before that though, I'll explain this game to you as well as the general characteristics it shares with FPW.

In the game, you play with eight characters (with two hidden for a total of ten; nine males, one female) who are fighting to become the International IEW Champion of the world and take the prestigious IEW Championship Belt from the reigning champ, Josef Stile, who is defending his throne. The game has nicely designed characters (some of which resemble famous wrestlers or SNK characters, like Eagle who resembles Tizoc but is leaner), rings, and cool introductions for each character. The animations are quite fluid and characters have nice looking power moves. The music is also cool.

Each character has a surprising degree of moves for a handheld title with only two primary buttons and they have different statistics from power, speed, range, etc. There are several modes from quick matches with different rules and rings to a complete tournament, and the game also outlines what moves you finish an opponent with. The wrestling moves are pretty typical to any other wrestling game, but the grappling mechanics echo that of FPW. In other words, there is no button-mashing; you must time your throws by watching the clenching animations from front and behind.

At first, you can only use weaker moves with the A button, but as you build momentum in a match and wear down your opponent, you can execute more powerful moves with ease by using the buttons and a direction together. In addition to this, you can climb the ropes, get outside the ring to brawl, appeal to the crowd, and you can even pull a chair from the audience section (hitting an opponent with a chair too much leads to disqualification). If you play really quick matches, characters' names flash by default (which allows you to do your "finisher" move).

This is a good game for NGPC collectors, wrestling fans, and casual/hardcore gamers alike. The only drawback is that the game is fairly rare and costs a fair penny when it does turn up (probably not as much as SRMPC, Ni-Ge-Ron-Pa, etc., but still a lot). This is a video showing the game in action with Eagle. Enjoy.