Natsume Championship Wrestling

Natsume Championship Wrestling
Cover art
Developer(s)	Natsume[1]
Publisher(s)	Natsume[1]
Composer(s)	Iku Mizutani[2] Kinuyo Yamashita[2] Hiroyuki Iwatsuki[2]
Platform(s)	Super NES Virtual Console
Release date(s)	Super NES NA June 1994[1] Virtual Console NA March 21, 2011 EU February 18, 2011
Genre(s)	Action[1] Fighting[1] Wrestling[1]
Mode(s)	Single-player Multiplayer (up to four players)

Natsume Championship Wrestling is a 1994 Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game that was released in North America.

This game is widely based on a conversion of Zen-Nippon Pro Wrestling Dash: Sekai Saikyō Tag (全日本プロレス’ 世界最強タッグ ダッシュ^?, lit. "World's Strongest Tag Team Wrestling Dash 'Japan ")^[3][4][5], a Japanese video game for the Super Famicom.

Players must become either the Triple Crown Champion or the Triple Crown Tag Team Champions and achieve the limits of professional wrestling. There is no other story line other than this. When a certain wrestler performs a jumping DDT, he slightly resembles Barry Windham; a professional wrestler during the era of this game's release. There are 6-12 different songs on this game to keep the wrestling experience enjoyable every time. However, the computer tends to cheat when playing against it in "tag team" mode.

Summary

This game is considered to be an unlicensed wrestling game due to its lack of WWF (now WWE) and/or WCW licenses.^[6] It is considered to be only game for the North American market that replicates the "feel" of a Japanese Super Famicom wrestling game.

The player has a choice between an exhibition, a round-robin tournament, and a championship tournament.^[6] Players must choose between 12 wrestlers who have ten minutes to knock each other out.^[6] Each wrestlers has a very extensive set of moves depending on their situation in the ring.^[6] Every victory screen with have both wrestlers' taunts, the time of the match, and the condition that caused the victory. The championship tournament has three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and hard. Criticism for this game was mixed from very positive to very negative.^[6]

There are more than fifty moves to master and an intelligent AI offers up plenty of might for the player.^[7] Six levels of energy bars (in order from best to worst: blue, green, yellow, orange, red, black) and the ability to heal help to separate this game from the other wrestling games of that era.^[8] However, recovery time is increased when the player is severely hurt.^[8]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Release information". GameFAQs. http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/588507-natsume-championship-wrestling/data. Retrieved 2011-05-23. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Soundtrack Information". SNESmusic.org. http://www.snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?profile=set&selected=1769. 
3. ^ Japanese-English title translation and Description at Superfamicom.org
4. ^ Japanese title at super-famicom.jp (Japanese)
5. ^ Zen-Nippon Pro Wrestling Dash: Sekai Saikyō Tag at GameFAQs
6. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Basic overview". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/natsume-championship-wrestling. Retrieved 2011-05-23. 
7. ^ "Advanced overview". Neoseeker. http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/Products/SNES/natsume_championship_wrestling/. Retrieved 2011-05-31. 
8. ^ ^{a b} "Health bar information". RVG Fanatic. http://www.rvgfanatic.com/7401/348201.html. Retrieved 2011-05-31.