NES Challenge - WCW Wrestling in 3:51:34 [194/714]
0FCI, what the hell? You were so close! So not to blame FCI, they were only the publisher, but the game was reskinned from Super Star Pro Wrestling by Nichi Butsu. This game has everything going for it except it's cheap as hell.
The graphics and sound are great. The end boss music was still fine after playing almost 2 hours later of that jerk. The controls are for the most part great - hint, alway use a double tap to run in a wrestling game. That A + B bullshit was a bit to perfect as you see me though tons of kicks and punches when I don't mean to. Without knowing a thing about programming these, it feels like they made the run input a single frame where it should be a 2 frame window since they went this route. Regardless I was not happy with it.
That brings up the other failure of this game; the lack of overall in ring strats. It is all kick and punch with the CPU getting the advantage. That was the best part of the Boss, a spot where he would stop and you could either attack or maneuver. The rest of the lineup doesn't have that. They seem to have a difference in AI though as some wanted to get into the ring more quickly than others and others would toss you out. They were probably different in attacking and maybe power/defense/strength as well, but you didn't seem to notice it... I think Rick Steiner took an extra hit to knock down, so there may be more indepth content to this game than just skins and moves.
Final note on the WCW Master, I learned the pattern to do quick headbutts - start your run as he begins to start moving, execute the headbutt and he will run into it. The match ended up with 18 headbutts and then I started picking him up to be able to attack him faster so he wasn't wasting time laying down. On the 24th, I started climbing the ropes to drop arial knee attacks. By the end of the fight I was able to pin him after 35 total headbutts and 5 successful knee attacks with 14 seconds left. Note - It seems like you need to drop him around 20 times before you can be successful with the arial attack otherwise he rolls out of the way; there may have been some misstiming on previous attempts so it's possible you could do it earlier.
I also want to sneak in here and add that you can't attack the player on the ground, the CPU gets one or two quick cheap shots when you get up but you can't return the favor nearly as easily, and the fact you cant climb the ropes anytime you want. Frustrating.
Back to the good. That power meter for special moves is fantastic! It feels good to give a strong hit and it hurts when you forget about it. :) The move selection and 12 man roster is just right. Also they reproduce Paul Heyman's voice to announce the title: "World Championship Wrestling!" which is an amazing job.
As I said this game had everything going for it, but the ability for the NES to be so quick on the attack to the point you need a turbo controller is crazy. If that would have been working, I'd say this would be possibly a Top 100 game but due to that control sucking so bad and the need to do ring out strats only brings this down to the bottom 500.