Wrestling Empire [Switch]
MDickie’s Wrestling Empire is a classic style wrestling game, with plenty of in-depth features. Playable solo, or with up to a total of 4 players in local multiplayer, you can take on a number of wrestlers in one on one bouts or going through the stages of different championships in Career Mode. It’s easy to feel quite lost as the menu options are quite intense - everything is so customisable that it can feel like quite a lot going in, especially if you’re just looking to play casually. There’s a robust tutorial within the Wrestling School that will teach you everything you need to know, but even this can feel a little information-heavy.
There’s a huge character roster, with over 350 wrestlers for you to unlock and face off against. The roster consists of a variety of original wrestling characters, as well as many that are in clear reference to existing wrestlers (just with fake names). Each wrestler can be edited, to adjust costumes, stats and even their names - so if you feel like renaming them after the wrestlers they’re inspired by, you can! As well as them visually looking like various famous wrestlers, their ‘fake’ names are often either audibly similar, or have clear connotations, such as Essa Carrera for Eddie Guerrero, Hal Coogan for Hulk Hogan and Cliff Hanger for Edge.
Done in a very PS1 era 64-bit style, loyal to the original 2004 title. There’s a lot of wackiness to things, with fighters picking up different throwables including dynamite that can just blow up right in their own face, a lot of randomly climbing the ropes and cages, opponents getting tossed hilariously out of the ring, etc. You can alter how match settings look when playing single matches, changing up the arena, as well as the audience (including a virtual audience option, very COVID-relevant!), lighting and more. You might even spot some familiar faces in the audience, includes Stone Cold Steve Austin and Joe Rogan! It all has a super retro look and feel to it, which might put some people off, but fans of many classic wrestling titles are likely to appreciate its endearing qualities. Music is very authentically ‘wrestling’ sounding, with lots of very punchy, rocky tracks such as Wolves’ My Time, although sadly these only play within the menus and there’s no music during the matches themselves. Sound effects are pretty fun, with lots of cheering going on from the crowds, as well as the crunching of bones and creaking of tight little wrestling pants as you roll around the floor.
After completing a match, you’ll see how your progress and ranking changes (either positively or negatively), and the same for your opposition. You’ll see updates to rosters, and how other fighters have done, as well as any moves in fighters’ careers. You can even get asked to fill in for commentary on other fights, and give opinions on who you think will come out victorious - which is a really fun, interesting addition to the gameplay. There’s also some random encounters with hecklers after matches, where they’ll confront you in the hopes you’ll pay them money to leave you alone - or you can take them on in a physical confrontation to save yourself some bucks.
The controls are quite extensive, and as mentioned before, you’ve got a huge tutorial to get through to learn all the tips and tricks, so it’s quite easy to just default to pure button-mashing during a fight. There are 10 different championship rosters with belts to win: Wrestling School, Weekend Warriors, Federation Online, Super Lucha Libre, Maple Leaf Grappling, Rising Sun Puroresu, Strong Style Wrestling, All American Wrestling, Wrestling Revolution, and Hollywood. You can sign contracts, and can tweak what you want to counter their offers and see if they’re willing to budge to sign you, and as you progress through the Career you’ll unlock more and more wrestlers to use in Expedition matches, too.
There’s so much content here to keep you coming back, from working your way through all of the Career, playing with friends and even the recently updated Booking Mode where you can run an entire promotion yourself, hiring different wrestlers and planning out the most entertaining bouts to draw in viewers, and ultimately earn more money whether than be through normal TV viewing or Pay-Per-Views. It’s surprisingly fun to try out this alternate mode, and again just gives so much more replayability to the whole game. If old-school wrestling games are your thing, then you can find Wrestling Empire on the Switch eShop for £19.99.
In the end, we decided to give Wrestling Empire the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Have you played Wrestling Empire yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Mat Dickie for the Wrestling Empire Switch review code!
