| paleface [sys=PCCD; cat=Wrestling; reg=JPN] |
| | | References added: 81, 331
"Woman's Dream Bout doesn't stack up to later Fire Pros, but the sprites are cute."
The title's full literal translation is something like (babelfishing and googling) "Wrestling Universe - Fire Pro Woman - Longed for Dream Super Woman Great War - All Women vs. JWP." Now that's a mouthful.
What you have in short is Fire Pro, the early kind by Human with full character sprites, rather than the segmented style of the later Spike games (Fire Prowrestling Z, for instance, entry 331), with all female fighters, six-button controller support, four-player support, and an edit mode. Arcade Card required.
There are earlier Fire Pro games on PCE but none of them impressed me at all on quick demo play--they don't seem to support controllers with more than two buttons, which takes away a lot of the possibilities in the classic Fire Pro fighting system, and well they look pretty darn ugly.
Woman's Dream Bout looks better, and you can tell in particular that they were careful to get in some heaving breast animations in those cute sprites. The funny thing is that the sprites look nothing like the digitized character portraits of these real female wrestlers... and I'm sorry to say that for the most part that's probably a good thing (please don't let them catch me or I'm a dead man).
You can do two on two matches with a multitap, co-op tag matches, 5-on-5 elimination tournaments, bracket-style tournaments, and all kinds of things in between. I hope you can play four player with all players in the ring at once but I haven't had a chance to try that yet.
Edit mode looks nearly comparable to modern Fire Pros in terms of being able to set the character's moves and logic, but as far as visual customization goes you can only pick from the pre-existing full character sprites. Aw. I'm not sure how many characters you can store on the PCE's internal memory.
Fighting itself is pretty similar to the more recent Fire Pro's I've played. I haven't found a "breath" button, and there don't seem to be as many actions available to perform on a downed adversary (pin, strike, submission, but maybe only one or two variants per strike and submission), but you've still got the selection of grapples with button press + direction, in a variety of strength types, and also Irish Whip moves, post moves, and so forth. Am I any good at those? Well no, but it's nice to know they're there.
Significantly lacking is any kind of single-player story or adventure mode. By yourself you really just do one-off bouts, or I suppose you could set yourself up in a tournement vs various CPU opponents. But it would have been nice to have some kind of main "Fighting Road" style thing like Fire Pro's G (see entry 81), D and Z.
So there you go. The menu art and character sprites look nice, and the digitized portraits are a hoot. You probably don't need this if you have a later Fire Pro since you could whip up all these characters in the later Edit Modes, but it's kind of fun to have a reasonably full-featured Fire Pro on PCE--and those sprites are cuter than the segmented females in the later games. :p |
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| | | The usual romanization of the title is something like "Wrestling Universe: Fire Pro Joshi - Doumu Chou Taisen."
According to this review https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/turbocd/589293-wrestling-universe-fire-pro-joshi-doumu-chou-taisen/reviews/128656 it's a 1995 port of a Super Famicom game from the year before, "Zen-Nippon Joshi Pro Wrestling Kounin: Fire Pro Joshi All-Star Dream Slam"--and they say the PCE version has inferior graphics and sound FX, although the music is better, being on CD, and it has additional wrestlers.
According to GameFAQs, this port was not handled by Human themselves but by a company called HuneX--who are still around, making mostly romance games. According to Wikipedia, HuneX was formed "as a partnership" between PC Engine maker NEC, and Fire Pro maker Human in 1992. This port was their fifth game. |
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| | | At a quick glance, HuneX's only other wrestling may be their sixth game, which came out a few months after this one: "All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling: Queen of Queens," where it looks like the wrestling graphics are all short video clips, sort of a mini Dragon's Lair type of thing to get through wrestling matches, or, I don't know.
Human's other female wrestler Fire Pro was a month or two after that, only for SFC: "Super Fire ProWrestling: Queen's Special."
HuneX's female sprites are done in a much more cute/pretty style than Human's.
Oh I just got the name, HuneX is kind of Human X NEC.
Wikipedia gives the SFC and PCE titles of this game as "Fire Pro Women: All Star Dream Slam" and "Wrestling Universe: Fire Pro Women: Dome Super Female Big Battle: All Japan Women VS J.W.P," respectively. |
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| paleface 15:04:09 03/22/23 [title updated] |
| | | | I had titled this "Wrestling Universe: Fire Pro Woman Dream Bout - All Women vs JWP" for some reason, that seems to have been my own fanciful take on the literal title translation. : P |
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| | | | HuneX's "All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling: Queen of Queens" was for PC-FX. |
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| | | This is the last Fire Pro game that used full character sprites. The SFC game after it--another female wrestling game, Fire Pro Wrestling: Queen's Special--introduced the segmented sprites the series has used since: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fire_Pro_Wrestling_games
But check out the game right BEFORE it, "Fire Pro Gaiden: Blazing Tornado" on Saturn--the route not taken! = oo
Dang. There IS a apparently non-piratical means of getting a Saturn BIOS using a Saturn console, an old Action Replay Plus cart with the 25 pin connector on top, and a "Sega Saturn USB Datalink" gadget from GamingEnterprisesInc on Etsy ( https://www.etsy.com/listing/205863217/sega-saturn-usb-datalink -- but they say the software is on their site, then link to an archive.org archived version of it that doesn't have the downloads archived : P), apparently:
And Blazing Tornado is super-cheap. But well yeah it looks nice but it's just simplified Fire Pro touch timing gameplay. But why aren't there more super-huge-sprite wrestling games since then?? |
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| | | | I mean I guess for me it would have to be Big Bang Pro Wrestling (see entry 420) for NGPC, when run on a big screen. ^ _^ |
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| | | | Big Bang has some mechanical problems despite its Fire Pro lineage, though. Thinking about it more, big sprite wrestling also happened in 3 Count Bout (see entry 1435)--with terrible mechanics, or at least ones that are way too much for me to handle--and--slightly less big-Saturday Night Slam Masters (see entry 1662), which is quite playable. |
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| | | CRITICAL The History of Wrestling Video Games podcast said in their episode 44 that the breathe button didn't come along until later Fire Pros. So I think there are only 5 buttons in this game: light, medium, heavy strikes, Irish whip/run, and taunt or celebrate or whatever. At least, I can't find that the other button does anything.
In Mednafen I seem to keep having to toggle to 6 button input mode each time I run the game (currently have it on M, no idea if that's the default). |
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| | | Tag is toward opponent and light attack button.
Main menu--leftmost is matches. Rightmost is options (minimal).
After matches, pick if you're playing VS human or CPU.
Then up/down on next screen to go through the player combinations: 1 on 1, tag, tag co-op, 2 on 1, etc.
Screen after that with six text blocks is match settings. Press Select to toggle them. |
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| | | In the menus, Select can toggle options, not sure what Start may do, [] and /\ can back out, X and O can select. (Oh shoot these are um I have [] on whatever light attack is, X on medium attack, O on heavy attack, and /\ on uh the other one.)
On the wrestler select screen, different face (oh hm haven't tried others) buttons pick different colors (costumes?).
IMPORTANT! On the options screen right before wrestler select, where Select toggles options, both X and O advance--but pick a DIFFERENT GRAPPLE SCHEME! (And this is not the Normal/Random "Timing" option in the upper right, whatever that does exactly.)
X = instant stiff-arm lock, can't figure out the button press timing at all
O = arms thrown up and come together, easy timing!
Always advance there with O!! |
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| | | Ah you set 2 or 6 button controller default for PCE in .cfg w/
;Default position for switch "Mode".
pce.input.port1.gamepad.mode_select.defpos 6
(Values = 2 or 6) |
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| | | | Okay I've made it like Fire Pro G control w/ Run / Irish Whip on /\. L1 is taunt (L1/L2 in G), R1 is nothing (R1/R2 are breathe and orbital movement in G, J doesn't have those). |
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| | | Wait now the confirm-options-w/ X/O makes arms stiff or loose at grapple has reversed itself? I don't know how this works, dang it.
GameFAQs: set SE to 3 and Voice to 5 to get secret characters when you pick the edit character slots
Does this save? There's a save format utility but I'm not sure when the game actually makes its own save, particularly for something like that. Maybe it doesn't. |
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| | | | Okay, now, choosing a character/color with [] (light) or O (heavy) goes to a fight with the stiff-armed grapples whose timing I can't read, whereas choosing character/color with /\ (run/whip) or X (medium) goes to a fight with loosely flung grapples whose timing I CAN read. |
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| | | | PowerISO was able to extract 19 audio tracks from my rip of the game disc--the first was just a woman's voice talking about audio tracks or something (it was mostly in Japanese), and another was a short 7-second riff, but the rest seem to be decent music tracks. I'm putting these in the BGM folder in Fire Pro Wrestling World to use as selectable audio tracks--since that game only comes with three rather boring tracks to pick from! ^ _^ |
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Playing Wrestling Universe: Fire Pro Joshi - Doumu Chou Taisen, aka "Wrestling Universe: Fire Pro Women: Dome Super Female Big Battle: All Japan Women VS J.W.P.," for PC Engine CD-ROM-ROM² in the emulator Mednafen! A PC Engine Arcade Card is required--gotta have that extra RAM for all the full-body sprite animations, I guess. Played on the default CPU difficulty setting, 01.
This is the last Fire Pro game with full body sprites; the next Fire Pro, "Fire Pro Wrestling: Queen's Special" on Super Famicom, introduces the segmented sprites body style the series has used ever since.
Wrestling Universe was made by HuneX, a studio formed as a collaboration between Fire Pro studio Human Entertainment and NEC, the company making PC Engine. HuneX are still around, making mostly romance games. Their sprite style was much prettier than Human's--good choice for a female wrestler game, I think.
After ripping the disc with ImgBurn, I extracted 17 CD audio song tracks from the ISO with PowerISO! I'll be using those as BGM music for Fire Pro Wrestling World--put them in the BGM folder and you can select them from the options menu when setting up a match in that game. = )
Okay so first I was wrestling with one of the hidden edit slot characters (3, I think) and that was confusing because she didn't have a taunt/performance move, and couldn't climb the turnbuckle!
Looking at a FAQ for the SFC game from the previous year of which this was a port--with added CD music and more wrestlers--Zen-Nippon Joshi Pro Wrestling Kounin: Fire Pro Joshi All-Star Dream Slam https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/581896-zen-nippon-joshi-pro-wrestling-kounin-fire-pro-joshi-all/faqs/72580 helped me work out that you can climb the turnbuckle with Medium--and from there maybe it's Medium or Strong that do jump moves? Not sure on that. And possibly each character has two unique-ish Light+Medium+Direction moves.
And in trying to figure out what a "top rope move" might be, I did find that hitting Strong while running toward the rope inside the ring when your opponent is outside does a flying body slam onto the opponent outside the ring!
On my current pad set-up using a DualSense and DS4Windows, advancing from the CONFIG screen with X (Medium) or /\ (Irish Whip/Run) puts the succeeding match in the usual Fire Pro timed grapple mode; but advancing from CONFIG with [ ] (Light) or O (Strong) puts the succeeding match in a uh different grapple mode in the wrestlers instantly lock up, stiff-armed. I have NO idea how to win the grapples in that mode, and can't get in a single throw.
Those cheats from GameFAQs are:
SE 03 & Voice 05 = hidden characters on edit slots
BGM 02 = "masked" referee--actually looks like they're wearing big specs or protective goggles
BGM 03 - female referee
That hidden edit slot character I was using had a Strong biting and/or headlock or something move that would instantly bloody the opponent; and my opponent kept bloodying HER by Irish whipping her into the turnbuckle! Gory cute sprite game! = ooo
Selecting a character with different buttons gives you different colors. (I had that confused with the grapple mode confirm button from the previous, CONFIG screen for a bit. : P)
As far as I can tell there are just five action buttons in this game: Weak/Medium/Heavy, Irish Whip/Run, and Taunt/Performance.
(~18:50 I said the Breathe button didn't come along until the Super Famicom era--that was wrong; it's definitely in Fire Pro G (PS1, 1999), but from FAQs it looks like it was also in the previous game in the series, "Fire Pro Wrestling S: 6 Men Scramble" (SAT, 1996)--but NOT in the game before that: the last SFC Fire Pro, "Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium.")
There was a lot of bleeding! That secret slot #3 woman would just bite people! And then get her face busted open on the turnbuckle! = oo |
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| paleface 14:38:40 05/27/24 [title updated] |
| | | https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=wrestling-universe-fire-pro-joshi-dome-choujo-taisen-wowow-vs.-jwp-model-hmcd-4008&page=detail&id=58466 gives the Japanese title as "WRESTLING UNIVERSE ファイプロ女子 憧夢超女大戦 全女vsJWP.
Google Translate renders this in text as "WRESTLING UNIVERSE Fipro Joshi Somu Chojona Taisen All Women vs JWP"; in their spoken version, rendered in text as "WRESTLING yunibāsu faipuro joshi dōmu chō jo taisen zen on'na vsJWP," the "j" sound is clearly audible after "chō," and "zen on'na" sounds like "zenjo."
MobyGames lists it (as an aka to the earlier SNES game) as "Fire Pro Joshi: Doumu Choujo Taisen - Zenjo vs. JWP"--"Choujo" rather than "Chou" as GameFAQs and Wikipedia have it. I think I'm going to go with "Choujo." |
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| | | Japanese sources seem to ignore the "Wrestling Universe" English lettering in the logo.
For instance, developer HuneX's "Works" listing for the game is "ファイプロ女子 憧夢超女大戦 全女vsJWP" (ie it starts just with "Fire Pro"): https://www.hunex.co.jp/?works=pc-engine
So I guess I'll take that out of my title for it! |
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| | | | AH the straight-armed, knee-bend grapple timing style was used in for instance the first Fire Pro, "Fire Pro Combination Tag" for regular PCE. |
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