A playthrough of LJN's 1990 license-based wrestling game for the NES, WWF Wrestlemania Challenge.
This video shows all of the single-player modes:
0:55 1 Vs 8 Super Challenge mode played as "Yourself"
10:15 2 Vs 2 Tag Match played as The Ultimate Warriors and Hacksaw Jim Duggan
12:11 3 Vs 3 Survivor Series played as Big Boss Man, Macho King Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan
WWF Wrestlemania Challenge is the second wrestling game produced for LJN by Rare and the direct follow-up to 1989's WWF Wrestlemania ( • WWF Wrestlemania (NES)... ).
A lot of people, including me, have fond memories of the first NES Wrestlemania, but it's no secret that the game was more than a little rough around the edges. Thankfully, Rare was quick to turn things around for this amped-up sequel.
WWF Wrestlemania Challenge overhauls every aspect of the original game. The controls are better laid out and far more intuitive, the isometric perspective and smaller character sprites make the ring feel less claustrophobic, and the music improves on the already excellent tunes of the first game.
And that's before we get to the excellent roster. Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Big Boss Man, "Ravishing" Rick Rude, "Macho King" Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, The Ultimate Warrior, and the inimitable Hulk Hogan are all playable across a range of gameplay modes, including championship ladders, tag-team match-ups, and a 3v3 survivor matches, and each wrestler gets his own special move.
The speed of the game and the controls take some getting used to thanks to the shift in perspective, and the roster would've benefitted from the inclusion of a few more wrestlers, but WWF Wrestlemania Challenge feels like a game with a lot more effort and refinement poured into it than its predecessor. It may not be the top wrestling game on the NES, but it is a very good one, and it's easily the best to bear the WWF license.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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