One, Two, Threeeeeeeee! Something you will hear a lot if you're not a seasoned veteran of this classic arcade game. Mat Mania Exciting Hour, is an arcade port for the PlayStation 4. The game originally released in 1985 in japan as Exciting Hour, and later brought to North America as Mat Mania: The Pro Wrestling Network. Developed by Technos Japan Corp. the game is the sequel to Tag-Team Wrestling another excellent arcade game. So how does the game stack up on the PS4?
Gameplay is simple you only have two buttons for attack, you'll quickly see all the moves that you can perform, since you only have about a dozen different types of attacks, This isn't a bad thing, but it would have been nice to see a little more variety, but for a game from 1985 this is awesome. You play as the "Player" (sadly they don't let you select a character) who is the "BabyFace" (Goodguy) and your goal is to become the T.W.A Champion. The game has five "Heels" (Badguy), each fighter has a unique moves set and requires different strategies to take them out. Now like all arcade games from the 80's the goal is to set the High Score, sometimes just quickly defeating your opponents isn't the best move especially if you are looking to put your score up on the leader boards. Since the game tracks points by attacks, as well as defeating your opponent. I found it best to let the fight go on as long as possible and then pin closer to when the time is about to run out, this will maximize your score potential.
Visually the game wasn't changed from the arcade, I personally love the character design, each wrestler was inspired by real life Wrestling stars of the 80's, even the names they give your opponents are a dead give away, my personal favorite being Coco Savage (cross between Coco Beware, and Macho Man)
The sprites are large and varied. The background characters are hilarious and include some familiar faces, like Darth Vader for example.
The sound and music in this game are what you would expect from an 80's arcade fighting game. It has an excellent chip-tune track, sadly you may want to turn the music off for really long play sessions because the one track is all you get. I do like the digitized voices the referee has the best count down ever, I have played this game for over a month now and I still laugh out loud every time I pin or get pinned.
Over all Mat Mania Exciting Hour on PS4 is worth picking up if you are either a fan of the game from the arcades, or if you are simply looking for a fun arcade style wrestling game. It's not perfect by any means, but that never stopped me from coming back and playing again. The game is part of the Arcade Archives which so far as the time of this review have released 3 games under that name. Mat Mania Exciting Hour is the second and so far the one I can't stop playing. I look forward to seeing what other arcade classics they bring back.
GET IT!
7/10
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