-------- ---- ------ -------- | | | | | \ | | | ----- | | | | | | ----- | | | | | / | | | --- | | | \ | -- | | | | | |\ | | ----- | | | | | | | | | | ---- ---- ---- ---- -------- ------ ------ /-----\ | \ | \ | | | | | | | | | | | | / | / | | | | -- | \ | | | | | | |\ | | | | | | | | | | | | ---- ---- ---- \-----/ ~FOR THE GAMEBOY ADVANCE~ Author: A-J Buwalda Email: the.earth.dies.screaming@gmail.com 1. Introduction 2. Starting out 3. Gameplay basics 3.1 Standing moves 3.2 Grappling moves 3.3 Back grappling moves 3.4 Grapple; opponent lying face-up 3.5 Grapple; opponent lying face-down 3.6 Running Attacks 3.7 Double team!! 4. Plan of attack 5. Audience match 5.1 General Tactics 5.2 Stoic 6. Create-a-wrestler 6.1 Edit skills 6.2 Edit moves 6.3 Edit abilities 6.4 KO-King 7. Email policy 8. Credits 9. Copyright History: Version 1.0 - Base document Version 1.1 - Added KO-King ============================================================= +-----------------+ | 1. Introduction | +-----------------+ Back in the day, and I mean WAAAY back, Human Entertainment started a game series called Fire Pro Wrestling. This game was based on tactical engaging the opponent and good timing. This still lives on in the series to this day, opposed to many other games in the genre who rely heavily on button-mashing until the other guy is KO or pinned. When you played this game against anybody who is used to playing Smackdown or something in that nature, they will scream murder because they can’t seem to get one attack through. That’s what I loved about this game. You actually have to learn how to play over a significant amount of time instead of racking up wins after 15 minutes. It’s like giving a tactical shooter to a Quake-nut; they will go nuts after about 6 bouts. There is hope for everyone, though! Once you get the hang of it, you don’t want fancy graphics anymore where you can see the opponents neck-hear. You just want a deep, exciting game. Well people, FPW delivers in spades. Get your friends to play this and they most likely will be addicts as well (most of mine were). And than it’s multi-player time. I still love this game and want to help everybody get into it. That’s the reason for this FAQ. So, get your face paint and your spandex boxer because it’s time to wrestle! ============================================================= +-----------------+ | 2. Starting out | +-----------------+ When you get to main menu you might be overwhelmed by the options at your disposal. This is not a problem, because I will explain what’s what. So lets go ahead and get a going. - Exhibition This is a match, with no strings attached. You can fill in what rules you want use and what kind of music you want. When this match ends you’ll get the outcome (and a rating if you chose it) and that’s the end of the match. This is the best way to start out, because it lets you figure tings out. Just turn down the difficulty and when you feel confident turn it up a notch. - Tournament This is, as the name implies, a tournament mode where you can duke it out against up to 15 other wrestlers. You can pick fewer wrestler if you wish to. You basically try to win all the matches and become the champ. Note: You have to specifically chose which character is played by you. You’ll notice a little blue square in the lower right corner in the advancement tree screen. Make sure your character’s blue box says “P1”. - League This allows you to create a league of up to 64 wrestlers. It works pretty much the same as a tournament. Knock every one out and you’re the champ. - Elimination This is a elimination match where you pick 5 wrestlers and 5 opponents. You kick the 5 opponents to the curb to win. - Survival Does this really need a explanation? You stand in the ring and keep beating opponents until you get beat. - Audience You have got to please the audience. I will get into this later. (section 5. ) - Edit Make wrestlers and organizations. I will get into this later as well. ============================================================= +--------------------+ | 3. Gameplay basics | +--------------------+ First off, you should know a couple of things. Instead of botton-mashing, you’ll need to time your attacks. When you walk “into” your opponent, he and your wrestler will interlock their hands. When the hands touch, on that exact moment you input the button connected to the move you want to execute and all should be good. Secondly, if you get into a situation where you are pinned, press and hold B to kick out of it. If you’re in a being locked submission push left, right, left, right repeatedly until you break free. This also works for the “Test of Strength” which happens once your you and your opponent time you input at exactly the same time. The wrestler start forcing each other down. Who is faster at tap left and right will execute a move. Button-mashing does NOT work! (it will get you pinned harder) Thirdly, once in a while you see “Critical!” written in bright orange-red letters on your screen. This means that something nasty has happen to either you or the opponent. It heavily depends on your fighting-style what happened. Fighting-style Critical! Power Sheer strength was to much to bare and the opponent KO’d Striking A kick or punch KO’d the opponent Submission A limb was broken and the opponent submits (mostly) Suplex The neck was broken by the Suplex Technical Surprise pin (or broken leg by dragon screw) Note that every wrestler has a chance of a Critical! with his finishing move. Some wrestlers have a affinity for a forcing a certain type of Critical! Such a fighter can do some on more moves than just the finisher. +--------------------+ | 3.1 Standing moves | +--------------------+ Buttons Action B Weak punch/kick A Medium punch/kick A+B Strong attack (varies strongly) L Breathing R Run This is the position where you start out in. Although you’ll mostly want to grapple because it causes more damage, standing attacks can really aid you. Weak and medium attacks can usually down a already tired opponent, in which case you can go ahead and attack them further on the ground or catch your breath. Strong attacks are somewhat sluggish but damaging attack. These attacks can vary from a heavy punch to a arm-lock. These moves need good timing and as such takes practice to execute. Its often best to create some distance and when the opponent is at the right distance pull the trigger. As said before you can catch your breath. This is of the utmost importance! At some moment during the match your wrestler will get tired and he will be less effective. This can be fixed by holding the L while standing and see your wrestler take some deep breaths. If you keep your breath up, your chances of winning are increase in a big way. I would go as far as to say this is the most important part of the game You also have the option to run into the ropes or across the ring. This is not really useful unless your opponent is in the corner and you want to ram him, but will get into that with running attacks. +---------------------+ | 3.2 Grappling moves | +---------------------+ Buttons Action (*)+B Weak grapple (*)+A Medium grapple (*)+A+B Strong grapple L Dragging opponent (*)+R Whip opponent in the ropes/ring-post (*) = direction on the D-pad This is what you’ll be doing mostly. Grappling consist of a wide array of moves. From bone-crushing submissions to thundering punch combinations. Basically you do what your fight-style consists of. Once your hand connects with those of your opponent, after you walked into the opponent and you enter your input, your wrestler will execute a grapple. You should first weaken then opponent with weak grapples before heading to the heavier ones. Build up the damage gradually until you can successfully execute more powerful move. If you directly jump to the heavier moves, you’ll be countered on every move. Most moves will make the opponent drop to the floor, enabling ground based moves which will be talked about later. L is used for the dragging the opponent around the ring. The main use for this is getting the other wrestler in a position where you can to either throw him in the ring-post or do some nasty submission/stretch which you don’t want to rope-break. Throwing the opponent in the is done by standing between the posts (draw a imaginary line between the two) push left/right+R. Whipping the opponent in the ring is done by simply pushing R. +--------------------------+ | 3.3 Back Grappling moves | +--------------------------+ Buttons Action (*)+B Weak grapple (*)+A Medium grapple (*)+A+B Strong grapple L Hold opponent (*)+R Whip opponent in the ropes/ring-post (*) = direction on the D-pad This is where you really put down the hurting! A back grapple is achieved by walking into the back of the opponent. This often easiest when the opponent is dazed. This happens when you’ve put some serious hurting on the opponent and the stand up dazed or when you press B at the opponents feet while he lying on his stomach. Just like normal grappling you have weak, medium and strong grapples. When you walk into the back of the opponent you will have to time it in a somewhat similar way that you would do a normal grapple. you will grab the opponent and when he grips him push your command. You will not be able to the strongest move at ones, but usually you can pull of a medium move pretty early on. So go ahead, it will work out fine 99% of the time. This can dish out some serious pain early on. That will often give you an edge on the opponent. You can push L to hold the opponent. The use of this eludes me completely and as such I never use it. Whipping works exactly the same as it would in a normal grapple, but why whip him when you are in a back grapple? +-------------------------------------+ | 3.4 Grapple; opponent lying face-up | +-------------------------------------+ Buttons Action B Pick up/turn A Weak grapple/stomp A+B Strong grapple/pin L Drag opponent R Run into ropes This is the way your opponent mostly will end up after a grapple; on the ground, face-up. Once they are on the ground you are not going to wait until he gets up again. No, you want to kick him when he’s down, literally! This is quit possible in FPW. You walk up to him and stomp or strangle him. The thing that you need to keep in mind is that it makes a difference if you at the head or the legs. As such, you need to know what does what. So here goes. You have can use the B button to roll the opponent face-down to get him the position you need. You can also pick him up by standing at the head and pressing B. If he has taken a decent amount of damage they will usually be dazed for a couple of seconds, waiting for you to put some more pain on him. The A is for some additional injury. Often it’s a sort of stomp, kick or weak submission move. These hardly ever get countered unlike the A+B version, which often gets countered early on. The A+B on head (and torso) is almost exclusively the pin. This is pretty significant, because that’s the way to win a match. Sometimes the opponent is near the ropes, which means that submissions, stretches and pins are auto-breaks. It does not have to be that way. Press the L button and drag them from the ropes. You’ll drag him in the direction of which part of the opponent’s body your standing. +---------------------------------------+ | 3.5 Grapple; opponent lying face-down | +---------------------------------------+ Buttons Action B Pick up/turn A Weak grapple/stomp A+B Strong grapple/pin L Drag opponent R Run into ropes This works pretty much the same way as a opponent lying face-up, with some subtle differences. You can flip him to, only you have to stand at the head-end instead of the legs. You can pick up your opponent when standing at the legs. There is a twist here; when you pick him up the opponent is standing with his back turned to you. Opportunity anyone?! The A and A+B work exactly the same as a face-up version, only with some other moves. The A+B at the head-end is mostly still a pin. Dragging the opponent works the same as well. +---------------------+ | 3.6 Running attacks | +---------------------+ Buttons Action B Running attack A Running attack A+B Leg drop and such L Leapfrog R N/A Running attacks, that’s what makes wrestling great. These work quite easily; you throw the opponent in the ropes and start running yourself. On the return you just hit him with a clothesline or a flying cross-arm lock by pressing A or B. This requires good timing, but what doesn’t in FPW? You can also storm up to a opponent hanging in a ring-post. After throwing him in the post press left/right+R and you’ll run up to the opponent. Before you cross more than half the ring (with little more than half a ring to go) press and hold B. You’ll smack or run into the post if your opponent wakes up and moves out of the way. You can also leapfrog over the opponent by pressing L. This is ludicrously hard to time and absolutely useless. +-------------------+ | 3.7 Double team!! | +-------------------+ If your in a tag match, this is the way to go. Gang up on your opponent attack him with 2 or even 3 guys and kick the crap out of them. This is to fun for words. Just walk into you opponent at proximally the same time, then press A or B. These moves are just too cool! And they are really damaging to boot. Note: to tag your partner by walking into him and pressing L. Well that’s about it for the gameplay basics. ============================================================= +-------------------+ | 4. Plan of attack | +-------------------+ In FPW you need a game-plan to win matches. It starts by selecting a wrestler; what kind do you want? Do you want a puncher or rather some one who is a submission expert? Ones you have chosen a wrestler that is to your liking you than you got to think of how you want to beat your opponent. For example if you have a weak grapple that gets the other guy on the mat in the right position to clamp on that painful submission than that’s a good start. Work on limb no matter what style you’ve got. It will either give him serious pain (sometimes they will roll around if you hurt them enough) or even give you a Critical! Either way you’re in business. Build up to heavier attacks. You can test if you’re ready to advance to heavier attacks by executing one, are you countered hit him with a few of the previous level and try again. If you have hurt him enough you have a couple of options: Pin him Make him give up (submission or stretch) Score a Critical! (other words KO him) Or force a ring count-out Either one will win you the match. Congrats! ============================================================= +-------------------+ | 5. Audience match | +-------------------+ This is a cool feature. You do not necessarily have to win, but you have to please the crowd. Pleasing the crowd is kind of hard sometimes. The descriptions are somewhat vague to say the least, but ones you get it, it’s a riot. It brings a whole new layer to the game. Not only do you need to kick the crap out of the opposition, you also have to please the crowd. Now let’s what makes a winning match. +---------------------+ | 5.1 General tactics | +---------------------+ General tactics work in general, EXCEPT for Stoic which is just a plain odd style. Things to do: - Near falls; almost getting pinned, breaking on the third second - Taunt (press select) - Cause a Critical! - Pin wrestlers after a finisher Things not to do: - Win by submission - Finish to quickly This a rule of thumb, it will work in general. This said; it does not always work full-proof. There is nothing like Critical!-ing a wrestler in minute 15 to get that rating to 95%. For the rest chose wrestler which is appropriate for the fight style. If you play hardcore chose a cheap bastard, if you play showman chose a APW kind of wrestler, that kind of thing. +-----------+ | 5.2 Stoic | +-----------+ Stoic is a strange style. They want you to fight efficiently; in other words kick the crap out of the REALLY fast. Things to do: Chose a wrestler with striking Critical! Critical! your opponent Things not to do: Submission in general Taunt That’s all there is to it; punch his lights out! Got to love that ============================================================= +----------------------+ | 6. Create-a-wrestler | +----------------------+ This is the best part of FPW! Creating your own stable and wrestler. You can make 70+ wrestlers. Not just that, but you have a million options to chose from. But first things first; you need a plan. You need to decide which kind a wrestler you want to make. Do you want to make all-out, I’ll nail your balls to the wall, American style wrestler or do I want a crazy, bone-snapping kung-fu master. After you got your plan to getter on what you want make go to the edit screen and get cracking. +-----------------+ | 6.1 Edit skills | +-----------------+ This is the screen you should go. Here you will find the base options. Stable: In which stable he is placed in the selection screen. My advise is create your own stable. Fight style: This basically decides what kind of moves have your affinity and as such tire you less. Critical type: What type of moves you can use to Critical! Special Skill: What kind of special skill you have. Although entirely optional, it is sometimes a good idea to chose one to have an edge. Limbs: These show how strong individual limbs are. Medium is a must or you might get certain Critical!s to often for comfort. Breathing: Should be on medium as well (and not higher) Good special skills: - One hit finisher (your finisher is a weapon of mass destruction) - Stardom (taunting increases power) - Guts (lets you kick out of nearly any pin) +----------------+ | 6.2 Edit moves | +----------------+ As stated before wrestlers have affinity for certain moves. These moves take less effort to execute and thus tire you less. The are graded from A to F. Now there are certain fighting-styles who are generalists and there are specialist. You should chose the moves you like with your affinity. Grade Effort A Least effort; great!! B Small effort; good C Decent effort; OK D More than average effort; hardly worth it E Big effort; not worth it F Huge effort; useless Now pick moves in the A to C category and D if you really need to. You should pick a certain part of the body you want to stress, because if you target a certain part of the body you cause more Critical!s, submit and pin more easily. Aside from that, it’s pretty much up to you to pick your moves. It might be handy to write down the mains and subs your using (kick, submission, rough and such) for the next step of the Create-a-wrestler. +--------------------+ | 6.3 Edit abilities | +--------------------+ This is basically an extension of the previous screen. It allows you to distribute points to enhance the wrestler’s damage done by moves of that category. No it’s very tempting to increase it as much as your points allow, but I don’t advice it. It is more fun to have some weaknesses. None of the wrestlers in the game use all the points, so why would you? Now, for your defense. You want everything on 6 at least. This is important, because otherwise you run into unnecessary trouble. That can really annoy you and that’s not what you want. Note: Remember that you can always edit a character if you want. Now the only thing left to do is create look for your wrestler and than your ready to get started. +-------------+ | 6.4 KO-King | +-------------+ After playing Fire Pro for a while you've probably honed your skill to perfection. You're going to want to make your own character. If your like me, you want more than a simple pin/submission, you want to force a Critical! There is a art to making Crit!-heavy wrestlers. I'm going to help you make one. First choice, Power or Striking. Now here is what you need. Characteristics: - Critical!: Power/Striking - Power-moves on one/two part(s) of the body (body and/or Torso) - Power/Punch and Kick attack value of atleast 8 - Finisher should be A+B grapple to the body part of choice - One hit Finisher Great Power moves: Choke slams Pile drivers Powerbombs Great Striking moves: Anything with Punch or Kick atribute ============================================================= +-----------------+ | 7. Email policy | +-----------------+ You can mail me with additional info or constructive advice. My address is at the top of the document. Please be civil; if you did not like something that your opinion, but its not to much trouble to say that without spewing garbage. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks in advance. ============================================================= +------------+ | 8. Credits | +------------+ I like to thank: BAM! and Spike for revitalizing FPW CJAYC for this great site All my mates everywhere All the FPW-fans for support FPW Me for writing this document ============================================================= +--------------+ | 9. Copyright | +--------------+ Ok, If written this document. You want to use as a game guide? Fine. Don’t sell it for profit. In all fairness, its called common decency. Alas there are still people out there who need to be told. Consider yourself warned! Copyright 2007 A-J Buwalda [END OF DOCUMENT]