| paleface [sys=PS4; cat=Wrestling; reg=NA] |
| | |
Playing the sumo wrestling game Arcade Archives Shusse Ozumo on PS4! Arcade Archives creator Hamster Corp's page says of the 1984 Japanese arcade game by Technos Japan that "'Shusse Ozumo' is the oldest sumo arcade game."
The arcade game been spelled "Syusse Oozumou" elsewhere.
Unlike most Arcade Archives, there is only one mode; also, since the 1984 arcade game was Japan-only, the screen text is Japanese; the in-game manual is English, but the brief move list is a bit inscrutable.
As far as I could figure out, you hammer the action button to shove the opponent; if you shove them out of the ring, you win. They may reverse your positions suddenly; this is the "Downward Slap" move done by pressing down ("Throw" is up, didn't really get that one to work); it's similar to a counter move in fighting games; I'm terrible at those, and I was terrible at this.
Some CPU opponents use the reversal frequently. Each opponent has different facial features, belt color, and fighting tendencies, and you may face them more than once; they may be tougher later.
A match can also be won by knocking the opponent down. You can do this with a motion direction + button when winning a grapple you initiated on the opponent; grapples are initiated by moving into the opponent and won by hammering the action button quickly; this is easy at first, but has to be done more and more rapidly against later opponents. They may initiate grapples on you, in which case you have to hammer the button to fill the gauge so as not to be thrown/floored/moved backwards.
Outside of grapples, pressing up-forward+action slaps at the opponent's face; if it hits, they turn a deep, angry color, and fire a flurry of slaps at YOUR face; if enough of these connect, you are knocked down, losing the round. I couldn't find a way to fire a flurry of slaps of my own, so I think the purpose for your own, single slap is a) as a caution against sloppy shoving (forward+action), or b) to set the opponent up for a Downward Slap counter.
Winning moves builds up your "marks," shown as red blocks in rows below the top game UI. Expending a mark with the secondary button gives your wrestler a brief burst of energy, allowing them to land one or two super-powerful slaps on the opponent, bashing them backwards, or, in a grapple, to raise the grapple meter faster.
There's timing to shoving, tricky due to the hopping steps your fighter takes; later opponents come in aggressively, leave you little time, and aiming very successful shoves, or landing grapples that require more and more rapid mashing to survive.
For me, after the first few matches or so--which can be prolonged, by management of the opponent, to build up a large supply of marks--the game becomes resource management: knowing the opponents' tendencies--and strengths and weaknesses--so that you expend your supply of built-up marks most efficiently; the supply will tend to dwindle vs the increasingly tough opponents, but in theory, intelligent management and accurate use will see you through the top rank of opponent, if there is one.
You don't have to win every round. White or black circles appear on either side of the upper UI: a white one for winning, and a black one for losing. Your opponents may come in with their own circles already.
If you have one black mark, you can't afford to lose another match--but if you win the match, the black mark is cleared. With a win, you get a white mark; two white marks gets you to a BONUS GAME round--but I'm not sure how those differ from regular rounds. The opponents seem to come, stay, go, or come back as they please; maybe the Japanese text between rounds explains this.
I could build up a row or row and a half of marks in the early rounds: enough to see me through a certain number of rounds, but no more, as the opponents just got too tough to beat without more boosts. I think I'd have to learn the opponents better.
I got to 19950 pts: ranking 236 on the leaderboard.
236 is, I will just happen to mention, the exact number of M.U.S.C.L.E. action figures Mattel brought out in the States in the mid '80s. |
|
|
| | |
