Big Bang Pro Wrestling

Genre: Pro Wrestling

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 bundle, along with Baseball Stars Color, Biomotor Unitron, Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun, Mega Man Battle & Fighters, NEOGEO Cup ’98 Plus Color, Puzzle Link 2, Pocket Tennis Color, SNK Vs. Capcom Card Fighters’ Clash, and The King of Fighters Battle de Paradise.)

Big Bang Pro Wrestling is a Pro Wrestling game first released on the NEOGEO Pocket Color in 2000 and brought to Nintendo Switch in 2022. This release of the game includes display settings, a selection of borders, zoom controls, a rewind function, and a copy of the original game’s manual, but there are no significant enhancements to the game itself (unless you count the addition of same-screen multiplayer).

Unfortunately, these technical limitations really keep Big Bang Pro Wrestling from being a particularly good Pro Wrestling game, and it’s not even the graphical and sound limitations that hurt this game the most – it’s the simple 2-button controls. The game’s lack of additional control inputs means that to try to add nuance, it’s forced to use combinations of button presses and directional inputs, and this simply does not work in a way that’s enjoyable – either you feel like the game isn’t doing what you want it to, or you end up just sticking with simple attacks to avoid the problem altogether.

There’s another issue here that has nothing to do with hardware limitations, though – hit detection. Big Bang Pro Wrestling’s hit detection is extremely finicky, counting virtually anything other than being on exactly the same place as your opponent vertically as a miss. This means that you’ll frequently whiff attacks you feel like should have connected.

With this combination of control issues and hit detection problems, Big Bang Pro Wrestling ends up being a pretty poor Pro Wrestling game, and while there aren’t many good alternatives on the Nintendo Switch, that’s hardly any reason to settle for this sub-par release in the genre.

tl;dr – Big Bang Pro Wrestling is a Pro Wrestling game first released on the NEOGEO Pocket Color, but it unfortunately suffers from the original platform’s limited controls, as well as some extremely finicky hit detection. The result is a pretty bad Pro Wrestling game, and not one I recommend playing.

Grade: D

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