Retromania Wrestling now out on Steam - comparisons with FPWW?

[Obediah_Iscariot]

I don't think it looks half as good as Fire Pro and, on the face of it, lacks the ability to customize. Customization is about 90% of what I really use Fire Pro for!

But there are some little features which look good in Retromania. I like the touch of having a manned announce table but also an interview/presentation area next to the ring, and the gameplay suits the arcade style as opposed to Fire Pro's more strategic and realistic approach. Depends which style you like and what mood you're in!

I am sticking to Fire Pro but am interested to see if Retromania develops further. At most, down the line, it would be a side alternative to play next to Fire Pro.

[erobotan]

Първоначално публикувано от Carlzilla:

Both did it in 2D actually.

Both use 3D now, but it didn't start that way.

That's crazy, there must be some trick to it!!

are they using the same 2D pixel art that is used in retromania? is the game has a good number of moves enough for a proper wrestling games? It's not lazily animated right?

it's really crazy if it turns out they both did it properly ... .

[Carlzilla]

To be fair, I didn't like any of those either.

MDickie's games focus on being a spectacular trainwreck (you can dismember people in death matches, for example) and AAW was just too simple to be good (and still is in my opinion).

But both had a decent number of selectable moves, etc.

[gahal]

Първоначално публикувано от erobotan:

I'm guessing those 2 games are in 3D where they only need to create the parts once and it will somewhat animate itself thanks to the 3D's magic. 2D doesn't work like that, you have to redraw it for every sprites.

2d is not just sprites. You can do vector based 2d models and slap a texture on them, or go cell shaded (I like 2d cell shading).

Lighting can still be applied to 2d, so shadows and light sources can affect the color.

But anyways, you can texture map a 2d triangle, they don't have to all be sprites.

[erobotan]

Първоначално публикувано от Carlzilla:

To be fair, I didn't like any of those either.

MDickie's games focus on being a spectacular trainwreck (you can dismember people in death matches, for example) and AAW was just too simple to be good (and still is in my opinion).

But both had a decent number of selectable moves, etc.

if they can draw pixel sprites with tons of moves + customization then i have to admit their passion.

i don't like dismemberment either, too hardcore for my taste lol

Първоначално публикувано от gahal:

2d is not just sprites. You can do vector based 2d models and slap a texture on them, or go cell shaded (I like 2d cell shading).

Lighting can still be applied to 2d, so shadows and light sources can affect the color.

But anyways, you can texture map a 2d triangle, they don't have to all be sprites.

what i mean is in general if you have to redraw the sprites for every frames then you're qualified to be compared with Retromania. The important factor here is the nostalgia of that pixel animation.

if you're talking about Fire Pro style, yeah they do still give nostalgia feeling even though it's actually 3D but comparing it to retromania is unfair because of the difference of technology. Fire pro only need one spritesheet full of limbs in various angles and it can already do hundreds of moves while Retromania have to draw hundreds of move one by one.

[Carlzilla]

Honestly, it sounds like they picked a style which handicapped them.

If that's the case, they should not be excused from that sort of stupid decision making. Options exist, they decided to make life hard on themselves and provide a huge amount less than what even single developer teams are offering. It's not "too much" to ask them to deliver things that have been genre standards for more than 2 decades, especially if what is holding them back is their own dumb design choices.

The game is pitifully feature anemic, the animations are trash, the roster is garbage, the price point is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

If they're going to take a "we'll see how the game does" approach to future features, ♥♥♥♥ these guys. They delivered a steaming pile, and will only improve it if people bite the bullet and pay for it upfront as is? I don't care how small your team is, that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trash behavior.

[erobotan]

while the animation is easier in Fire Pro, the programming is very tricky and i think not everyone know how to do it.

Also the retromania is suppose to be a nostalgia & a spiritual sequel of an older game so their animation style is tied to it to a certain degree (depends on how much they want to be faithful to the original). There is a chance that the lack of frames is caused by that factor too (ex: there are tons of people who want 8bit NES era animation quality ... . and a lot of these games sells for a huge tons of money)

I read a bit in the forum, someone says the high cost is because it has real life wrestlers in it.

If you don't have any nostalgia to this era/the original game and don't care about all the licensed wrestlers the game will be terrible for you.

also making a proper wrestling games is waaay harder than making a beatemup. So i really think people should go easy on the dev.

[gahal]

FirePro is 2.5D and fully sprite based.
You can pixelate vectors, and do an anti-antialsing on on the sides of the vectors.
You wanna go full sprite... then go full sprite, but don't ♥♥♥♥♥ about how hard full sprite is.

"licensed wrestlers"..? I doubt WWE is ok with this.

[erobotan]

Retromania is mainly created for people who want to play Wrestlefest again. If you want another Fire Pro then you need to ask someone else.

The team already created a finished product with more content than the original 1991 game. There is nothing wrong If they don't follow up the game with content/feature upgrade.

also i don't think think the dev licensed wwe wrestlers, so whether wwe is ok or not is irrelevant

[Carlzilla]

Първоначално публикувано от erobotan:

while the animation is easier in Fire Pro, the programming is very tricky and i think not everyone know how to do it.

Also the retromania is suppose to be a nostalgia & a spiritual sequel of an older game so their animation style is tied to it to a certain degree (depends on how much they want to be faithful to the original). There is a chance that the lack of frames is caused by that factor too (ex: there are tons of people who want 8bit NES era animation quality ... . and a lot of these games sells for a huge tons of money)

I read a bit in the forum, someone says the high cost is because it has real life wrestlers in it.

If you don't have any nostalgia to this era/the original game and don't care about all the licensed wrestlers the game will be terrible for you.

also making a proper wrestling games is waaay harder than making a beatemup. So i really think people should go easy on the dev.

I liked WrestleFest, but like any other nostalgia, it's got a limit. You can be faithful to something and improve on it...this isn't doing that. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the developers because what they delivered doesn't meet even the low end of what is expected from a wrestling game in 2021, and their response to that to fans is "if you buy this, and a lot of other people do the same, in it's current sub-standard state, we'll consider adding some of the things that MIGHT bring the game up to bare-minimum expectations of what a wrestling game should have in this era...", and that, to me, is damning.

[View The Phenom]

It looks significantly worse than Wrestlefest, which is concerning since that's an old arcade game and Retromania presents itself as the SEQUEL. Not just spiritual successor, but a game representing the original title.

When your sequel doesn't even meet the quality standards of a multiple decades old arcade game, you have a problem. I don't even think you can excuse the quality of their animations, as Wrestlefest also provides better animations and sprites for a game made when technology was significantly more limited.

It's just a poorly made game with the bad marketing decision of tying it to a game that players have a lot of nostalgia for. They would have been better off leaving the reference to Wrestlefest (a game anyone can easily play online in a browser) out of it and making their own thing.

If further development is based on how well the initial version sells then I wouldn't hold your breath for new features.

[Guacamole Anderson]

Първоначално публикувано от erobotan:

I read a bit in the forum, someone says the high cost is because it has real life wrestlers in it.

Maybe so, but the licensed wrestlers are so scattershot that it's kind of a turnoff. I saw they announced three more downloadable wrestlers yesterday... Mr. Hughes, James Storm and a guy I've never heard of. Just so random.

[Obediah_Iscariot]

Lol those are three guys I never heard of!

[erobotan]

Първоначално публикувано от Carlzilla:

I liked WrestleFest, but like any other nostalgia, it's got a limit. You can be faithful to something and improve on it...this isn't doing that. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the developers because what they delivered doesn't meet even the low end of what is expected from a wrestling game in 2021, and their response to that to fans is "if you buy this, and a lot of other people do the same, in it's current sub-standard state, we'll consider adding some of the things that MIGHT bring the game up to bare-minimum expectations of what a wrestling game should have in this era...", and that, to me, is damning.

if you change the animation style to use 2D & bone system like fire pro then you can get your customization but it's no longer a nostalgia wrestlefest game.

i checked the mcdickie's 2d game .. it's like a flash game. The prequel is sprite based but i think retromania's sprites ls better, the animation quality is equally bad though ..

adding customization to a 2d sprites wrestling game is equal to make 2-3 beatemup./shootemup/darkest dungeon games.

Първоначално публикувано от Guacamole Anderson:

Maybe so, but the licensed wrestlers are so scattershot that it's kind of a turnoff. I saw they announced three more downloadable wrestlers yesterday... Mr. Hughes, James Storm and a guy I've never heard of. Just so random.

they definitely don't have much budget. I don't care much about real life wrestlers so i prefer if they go with original characters and use the budget for something else.

[gahal]

Free trial? Like limited to 3 wrestlers or something.
My account is full of crap that I paid $30+ and could not even stand to play.

I'm not paying $30 for this, without some test play.

The ♥♥♥♥ ever happened to Demos?

[Martian Jesus]

was about t buy retromania when i saw fpw and recalled playing the old gba version so now just waiting on a sale