Maturation can be both a great and terrible thing. I always believed that I would remain faithful to the intellectual properties I held dear as a child. Turning my back on any of them was not only unthinkable, but practically heretical. I couldn't imagine a world where I didn't wake up on Sunday morning and watch Cartoon Express, play with my Masters of the Universe figures, or root for my favorite World Wrestling Federation competitors. I even pledged to play WWF Royal Rumble on SNES until my dying day. However, I was unaware then that the gaming industry and I would both mature, and that both of us would leave antiquated wrestling games like Royal Rumble behind to fade into obscurity. Once there, the influence such games once held would diminish. Royal Rumble in particular has lost so much of its luster that it's difficult to think of it as the definitive wrestling game of its time. Then again, consider its predecessors...
Unlike its NES brothers, Royal Rumble handled smoothly. Not only was the control response as tight as can be, but the control scheme was significantly easier to figure out. Such was the advantage of the SNES's controller setup over the NES. With more buttons, basic commands like grappling, running, and striking could be assigned to a single button rather than awkward combinations of buttons and D-pad inputs. Thanks to that, I spent more time engaging in matches than I did struggling with a steep learning curve brought on by a confusing control scheme.
I didn't utilize the punch or kick commands as much in Royal Rumble as I did in earlier titles. Instead I spent more time executing various slams, since they were easier to pull off than before. All that was required was a single button press to initiate a grapple, followed by wild button mashing in order to fill up a double-sided meter. Since I could mash like no one's business, the computer players never stood a chance. I bodyslammed, suplexed, atomic dropped, and headbutt the living crap out them until they were laying in a pool of their own sweat and misery. From there, I'd unleash further punishment in the form of vicious stops and splashes, sometimes even a top-rope elbow drops.
Community review by JoeTheDestroyer (April 29, 2013)
Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III. |
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