/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8428463
Neither. I prefer King of Colosseum II over pretty much all wrestling games old and new. And since from the (timing based) controls, the AI logic and the in-game stats it's essentially a slower paced 3D Fire Pro Wrestling game, I would put those games, but especially Fire Pro Wrestling Returns (PS2) and/or Fire Pro Wrestling D for Dreamcast on my second place. Just for the sake of the outstanding graphics and animations but less in terms of gameplay (and the shallow roster) I'd put Squaresofts All Star Pro Wrestling III on second place.
1. King of Colosseum II (PS2)
2. Fire Pro Wrestling Returns (PS2) /Fire Pro Wrestling D (Dreamcast)
3. All Star Pro Wrestling III (PS2)
4. AJPW: King's Soul (PS1)
5. Giant Gram 2000 (Dreamcast)

Of course I played the Smackdown games and the other Yuke's games like Wrestle Kingdom too, but I really grew tired of these quickly. IMO did Yuke's peek with Toukon Retsuden 3 (PS1) and everything when downhill from there. Sometime during the PS2 era I completely quit that Yuke's shit and started getting into the japanese wrestling games and never went back.

But I can't judge AKI, since I never had a N64 and haven't played their games. Some say they were great, but I can't state an opinion until I actually played the games. Some compared Yuke's two Wrestling Kingdom games to the AKI games since those had light and hard grapples etc., but I can't say that I liked those either. Many aspects of Wrestle Kingdom were better than the Smackdown games, but still I don't like WK that much. Also those two games used just an updated Day of Reckoning engine, which was pretty obvious.

The problem that I have with western wrestling games in general and the Yuke's games in particular are the small rosters, the small variation in grapples and moves per wrestler, overall small movesets per game and the shallow unrealistic gameplay. Even the last "issue" can sometimes be fun like Giant Gram (Naomi Arcade ports) if done right.