Super Fire Pro Wrestling (Super Famicom, 1991)

The legendary Fire Pro Wrestling series began on PC Engine, but it made the jump to Nintendo for the first of seven (!) appearances on Nintendo systems here. What makes Fire Pro so beloved and unique is its emphasis on timing – not only in terms of the fact that button-mashing won't get the player anywhere thanks to a meticulous grapple/counter system but also in terms of its adherence to the rhythms and momentum of a real wrestling match, in which the action sees peaks and troughs before culminating with a spectacular finisher and dramatic kick-outs.

Unlike many other pro wrestling games, the majority of Fire Pro games are not licensed by any major professional wrestling company and instead contain likenesses of real-life wrestlers under alternative names. The majority of the games in the series use 2-D sprite-based visuals, with some later titles including 3D graphical aspects. The majority of the Fire Pro Wrestling championships were first published in Japan, while several have since been released in North America and across the world.

Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System

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