WWF King of the Ring (NES) Playthrough
149A playthrough of LJN's 1993 license-based wrestling game for the NES, WWF King of the Ring.
This video shows all of the single-player mode played on the medium difficulty level:
0:15 One-on-One, Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Lex Luger
3:00 Tag Team, Yokozuna & Randy Savage vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & Hulk Hogan
5:17 Tournament as "You"
23:10 King of the Ring as Hulk Hogan
Released fourteen months after WWF Steel Cage Challenge (https://youtu.be/-edyPVSqOo4) at the end of 1993, LJN's WWF King of the Ring was the fourth and final WWF game for the NES.
WWF King of the Ring marked the end of an unrelenting, seven-year-long campaign of terror the company had waged on the NES, and like someone who just dropped a hot fart in a crowded elevator, LJN fled the NES scene and never looked back. While the watery-eyed people left behind in that elevator certainly weren't pleased with the gift, once the air had cleared, they collectively breathed a sigh of relief. The nightmare was over.
But credit where credit is due: at least LJN hadn't downed half-a-dozen Taco Bell bean burritos before stepping into that elevator. King of the Ring didn't go easy on the senses, but it also didn't leave people dry heaving like Steel Cage Challenge's cropdusting did.
WWF King of the Ring was produced by Eastridge Technology, the people who created Gauntlet II for the NES and Paperboy 2 for the Game Boy, and the art was outsourced to Grey Matter. The game borrows heavily from Steel Cage Challenge - the controls and movesets are the same, including the lack of finishers - though King of the Ring's wrestlers differ in terms of strength, speed, and endurance, and the flow of the gameplay is a bit more fluid.
It won't hold your interest for long, though. The CPU doesn't put up much of a fight, success is based on your ability to button mash through grapples, and everything the game has to offer can be seen within a half-hour of turning it on for the first time. The gameplay isn't substantial or compelling enough to justify a weekend rental, let alone a purchase.
The unique look makes it stand out, but graphics don't impress. The stylized sprites are huge and feature better animation than Steel Cage Challenge's, but they lack detail, and the heavy lines and garish colors give the game a crude, amateurish look.
WWF King of the Ring is better than the game that preceeded it, but it can't hold a candle to Rare's WWF Wrestlemania Challenge (https://youtu.be/EkrQtnc54Yk) or any of the good, non-WWF wrestling games on the NES.
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