Move Over WWE, Review Of The All-Women Game "Rumble Roses" Could Be Best Wrestling Video Game Of The Year
Release Date: 10/26/2004
(Article and photos courtesy of GameDaily.com & Gigex.com:)
Game Description
Starring the sexiest female models ever to grace the ring, Rumble Roses - the first and only all-female wrestling game - is a sexy grappler set to deliver intense girl-on-girl wrestling action with jaw-dropping graphic detail. Each of these vicious vixens comes with an arsenal of moves, as well as a little jiggle in all the right places, that will knock gamers off their feet. Providing an experience not found in any other wrestling game, gamers get down and dirty in Mud Mode with intense visuals
Cat-fight your way to wrestling supremacy with Rumble Roses!
What's Hot:
We all know that THQ is the resident king of the ring when it comes to wrestling games. If you watch the WWE on TV, chances are you're looking forward to the various WWE games releasing later this year and early next year. However, those of you who just like the women dressed in nothing pulling off what little clothing they have on will LOVE what Konami has in store for you with Rumble Roses. With a cast full of hot females, mud matches, top notch graphics, a fairly deep gameplay engine, a lengthy story mode, and plenty of unlockables, Konami is ready to become the new king of the wrestling genre.
In-Depth Preview:
Fans of WWE wrestling don't watch the popular TV show for the half-naked men. They watch for the drama and the laughs, but more importantly, they watch for the scantily clad females who strut their stuff for all to see. Well, wrestling fans are in for a treat this November when Konami takes the beauty babes of wrestling, and gives them their own game with Rumble Roses.
Now before you go thinking Rumble Roses is about the babes and nothing else, Yuke's Media Creations is behind this title. If for some reason you're unfamiliar with Yuke's, they're the same people who brought you the Smackdown series of wrestling games for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and the various WWE games for the GameCube as well. That fact alone should tell you that Rumble Roses will have some solid gameplay behind the beautiful bosoms. After spending some time with the game at Konami's recent Gamer's Day, we can confirm that Roses is about much more than hot babes.
Rumble Roses will feature two modes of play; an Exhibition Mode and a Story Mode. The Exhibition Mode can be played in Normal Mode, Mud Mode, or Title Match Mode. This is also where players will be able to unlock characters and galleries for each of the wrestlers. When you first start the game, you'll have ten characters available, and ten more can be unlocked as you progress through the Exhibition Mode.
Everything can be unlocked via the Promise System within the Exhibition and Story Modes. Before a match, you'll need to set specific promises. For example, you may promise not to use any weapons during the match, or perform any Lethal Moves. If you successfully get through the match without breaking any of your promises, you'll move up in your Heal or Face percentage. Once you reach 100% Heal or Face, you'll be able to challenge for a title match and unlock some of the hidden secrets in the game.
This also directly relates to the characters in the game. Every character has a good and evil side. The good side is known as Heal, while the evil side is known as Face. Players will start at 50% and be able to work their way to 100% Heal or Face depending on the promises they make. The harder the promise, the higher they'll move up in percentage. Characters, stages, galleries and more can be unlocked through the Promise System. This includes a beach stage with a special mud area where the ladies fight in bikinis.
The Story Mode will be a unique experience for each character. Even the good and evil sides of each character will have a different experience in story mode. It's not simply the same story recycled over and over again. In addition, the Story Mode will take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes to complete with each character.
Not only will Rumble Roses keep players occupied for a good amount of time, but the game itself plays more like a traditional fighting game than shallow wrestling games of the past (in terms of the fighting engine). Square handles your basic attacks. Just pressing Square alone will perform a punch, while pressing Square and holding down will perform a kick. Use the Triangle button and any of the four main directions to initiate a grapple, then perform the same action again for each different grapple technique. Once in a grapple, your opponent will have to tap the buttons rapidly in order to escape. If buttons are not pressed, you will lose from a single grapple, so stay on your toes.
So far everything sounds pretty normal, right? Well, this is where the fighting game aspects come into play. R1 is used to reverse an attack. Press Square and R1 to reverse a punch or kick, and Triangle with R1 to reverse a grapple. Now you may be asking yourself what's so hard about that. Well, you can't just throw out reversals. You have to perform a reversal before your opponent attempts to attack. So you'll have to anticipate which attack your opponent is going to use, then perform the appropriate reversal.
A missed reversal will leave you vulnerable to attack, but if you connect with a reversal, your opponent will be dizzied for a short period of time, giving you a free attack. While this isn't as deep as most fighting games out there, it does take the basics found in many wrestling games to new levels.
The reversal system is assisted by damage to individual body parts. Every character's arms (right and left), body, head, and legs (right and left) has an individual health meter. As you inflict damage to each body part, their respective health meters will decrease. If any one body part reaches zero health, you can be pinned. So a good player will use the reversal system to create openings, and use the openings to focus on a single body part for the quick pin.
While the reversal and damage systems add a bit of depth to the game, Yuke's didn't stop there. Since depth without fun is no good, weapons and various special attacks have been included in Rumble Roses. Players will find everything from bats and brass knuckles, to fly swatters and spatulas. And as you battle, your Lethal Move meter and Humiliation Move meter will begin to fill.
Just attacking your opponent will slowly increase your Lethal Move meter. You can fill it up multiple times, so if you're falling behind in the match, you can pull out a couple of Lethal Moves to get yourself back into the groove. If you attack your opponent with certain moves that show panties or put them in an odd position (which is fairly common if you know what you're doing), hearts will float up to the top of the screen and fill up your Humiliation Meter.
Once your Humiliation Meter is full, your opponent will get a special cut-scene indicating that they've been humiliated enough and you can now perform the ultimate humiliation. The few that Konami showed were fairly over the top and basically showed off some choice positions for an all female wrestling game. During either of these special techniques, the camera can be manually adjusted to get just the right angle for your viewing pleasure.
After spending a good amount of time with Rumble Roses, we feel confident that this could easily be the best wrestling game of the year. Not only do you have the best part of wrestling (come on, you know the women are the main reason you watch), but the fighting engine has a decent amount of depth to it, and the added special attacks further add to the action. Top it off with a lengthy Story Mode, plenty of unlockables, and some of the best graphics we've seen in a wrestling game, and Rumble Roses looks to be the cream of the crop. We'll have more on Rumble Roses as its late October release date approaches.
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