If you’ve ever had the oddly particular dream of rising via the ranks of a toy-based wrestling world, then you definately’re in luck. WrestleQuest enters the ring with a lethal combo of late-’80s wrestling nostalgia and mid-’90s JRPG mechanics, celebrating each whereas not fairly managing to ship the three-count on the finish. However, in case you grew up in these very particular eras, it’s best to discover sufficient right here to energy via to the championship combat.
Mega Cat Studio’s newest providing builds a captivating world proper from the beginning. The populace of a youngsters’s toy field has develop into obsessive about skilled wrestling, idolising the likes of Macho Man Randy Savage and Jake the Snake. Life within the toy field revolves round wrestling and each battle is settled within the ring with flashy strikes and high-stakes motion.
Aside from just a few inconsistencies, similar to not everybody realising that wrestling is – spoilers – pretend, the world is the perfect factor about WrestleQuest. There is a wholesomeness to it, as if a toddler with a handful of official wrestling motion figures is bringing the remainder of their toys into the ring. The writers clearly know and love their wrestling and terminology; there are ample heel-turns and babyfaces to cope with. At occasions, WrestleQuest feels extra like Toy Story than a wrestling recreation, with vivid and vibrant visuals and characters that really feel stiff and plastic but unusually energetic.
The story follows two essential toys on their journey to greatness. Muchacho Man has, like many youngsters of the period, primarily based his total persona on the larger-than-life antics of Randy Savage and is making an attempt to rise via the ranks to tackle his idol within the ring. Meanwhile, in a winter-themed space of the toy field, is Brink Logan — a extra refined however nonetheless recognisable send-up of Bret “The Hitman” Hart — who struggles to stability his loyalty to his household and his personal desires for stardom.
Neither storyline is especially compelling, although Logan’s quest has a contact extra depth to it. The paper-thin plot largely consists of going to a brand new space stuffed with enemies till you attain the inevitable boss combat. You can see the affect of video games like Chrono Trigger in WrestleQuest. There aren’t any random encounters; you’ll be able to see the enemies on the display earlier than they method you. Once they do, your occasion is transported to a wrestling ring the place the true motion takes place.
Combat is each quite simple and needlessly complicated on the identical time. Even fundamental assaults require a timed enter to do most harm or to keep away from an occasional counterattack from the enemy, which implies you’ll be able to’t change off at any level throughout a combat. Even the particular strikes, referred to as Gimmicks, generally use this mechanic however will do a major quantity of harm anyway. Early fights gained’t require you to make use of these Gimmicks fairly often however by the mid-game battles, you’ll discover you depend on them virtually totally.
Each combat contains a Hype Meter, which reveals who the group is cheering for. Gain hype and also you’ll deal extra harm and earn more cash, however let the momentum shift to your opponent and so they’ll reap these rewards as a substitute. It is an efficient technique to hammer residence the wrestling theme even additional, but it surely seldom turns into vital sufficient to deal with.
The largest draw back to WrestleQuest’s fight is an absence of stability. There is a reasonably vital problem spike round ten hours into the sport that feels prefer it ought to require a contact of grinding to get via, however, as a result of the enemies don’t respawn, you gained’t have the chance to take action. This is especially problematic since new characters be a part of your occasion at stage one and are simply overwhelmed. This makes it unlikely you’ll wish to swap out your core roster of wrestlers for contemporary faces, particularly when you’ve constructed up a strong synergy of double and triple tag-team strategies.
In its effort to pay homage to old-school RPG mechanics, Mad Cat Studio doesn’t give itself the possibility to make WrestleQuest one thing distinctive and particular. Mid-to-late-game fights drag on far too lengthy, with every battle changing into predictable outdoors of the boss fights that punctuate every story arc. The world map feels too giant, requiring you to traverse massive, empty areas to get to the subsequent signposted goal in your listing. Things simply really feel a bit barren, which doesn’t encourage you to probe for hidden gems, which is often among the finest elements of any RPG of this kind.
There are additionally a handful of bugs that cropped up throughout our playthrough, and we did not begin the sport till a long-awaited launch patch was utilized. The recreation crashed often whereas transferring to the subsequent part of the map. Thankfully, we didn’t lose a lot progress but it surely was definitely a supply of frustration. Character well being bars didn’t refill throughout fight even whenever you had healed them, which means you misplaced the visible cue to patch them up that each RPG has all the time given you. Neither of those points had been game-breaking however had been definitely noticeable once they reared their heads. Hopefully they are going to disappear with future patches.
The results of this style mash, then, is a flashy, competent RPG held again by some stability points and fight that rapidly turns into a slog at greater ranges. If you’re a fan of each old-school wrestling and RPGs, you’ll most likely discover sufficient right here to maintain you going via the 30-ish hours it can take to finish WrestleQuest’s story, however in any other case it’d wrestle to maintain you engaged.
Conclusion
WrestleQuest is a surprisingly healthful recreation that’s laser-focused on interesting to a particular demographic and can probably fail to seize the eye of anybody else. If you grew up watching the likes of Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair throw one another across the ring and also you additionally occur to like 16-bit RPGs, you’ll most likely be charmed sufficient to miss the repetitive fight and empty world. We definitely fall into the goal demographic right here, however the idea is best than its execution.
