When All Elite Wrestling launched in 2019, wrestling fans were excited that a new promotion was on its way to freshen up the aging landscape of professional wrestling in the United States. The same goes for wrestling video games during AEW. According to a statement from Fight Forever, there is hope that this new entry in the genre could bring something new or old to the table, as the case may be.
For people who grew up with wrestling, there is definitely a nostalgic connection to what was once considered one of the best wrestling games ever made, known as AKI Games, the umbrella term for the games made by the first AKI Corporation. - including titles like Virtual Pro Wrestling, WCW vs nWo. World Tour and most often WWF No Mercy.
We are happy to announce that Team AEW and veteran developer Yuka have managed to create a modern fusion of No Mercy-style action with SmackDown. mechanic because that's how AEW plays. Fight Forever.
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AEW: Fight Forever feels heavy and fluid, with an impressive amount of moves and ways to perform them, as well as a No Mercy-style emphasis on low, hard hitting and grappling. Throughout the game's development, we were repeatedly impressed by the amount of detail needed to improve gameplay.
The wrestling gameplay shines with the inclusion of mechanics such as chain wrestling, fence jumping, apron moves, outside pinfalls, and even the ability to push opponents over barricades. You can also catch your opponent in the air while diving or when they come off the top rope, and everything feels fast and fluid, and the animations rarely seem risqué.
Wrestlers realistically get into position when you activate your finisher, and turns also feel mostly correct and fluid, rather than over the top or cartoonish like some wrestling matches in the past, which helps fights feel more natural as they happen.
The game is full of details that wrestling fans will appreciate, to the point where Orange Cassidy even has a stand of his own as he wrestles with the push of a button in his pocket.
At launch, the game featured singles matches (including Lights Out and Falls Count Anywhere), tag matches, three-way and four-way matches, ladder matches, and a 21-man casino battle royale.
There's also the famous exploding barbed wire deathmatch, and that round is fun throwing your opponent into the barbed wire as explosions surround the ring. The only regret is that during such matches it is impossible to leave the ring, because it would be better to use the protection of the barbed wire that surrounds the ring in the square.
You can get weapons in the ring and over the rails for all kinds of matches, and the variety and interactivity of the weapons is impressive, from using the table and placing spikes or chairs in your opponent's neck to stepping on them. , to attach ladders to wrestlers and even skateboards that you can ride on.
The tracking and wrestling is good, with wrestlers reacting to armbars and ladder landings. One of the highlights is putting buttons in a bag and attaching them to your opponent's body, after which they stick to his skin for the rest of the game.
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The game's story mode is Road to Elite, a career mode where you spend your created wrestler or AEW star in the company for a full calendar year, with the year divided into four building blocks, each dedicated to a PPV, including All Out, Full Gear, Revolution, and Double or Nothing.
You will work out one of three scenarios for each block, which are basically stories that unfold during your visit to North America, where you can go to the gym, visit attractions, hold press conferences or meet and greets, and you can even : doing squash work in AEW Dark. Each challenge impacts your energy level and momentum, making this a foolproof balancing act that's fun at first, but can get repetitive after lots of games.
You fight wrestlers in hilarious Yakuza-style scenes reminiscent of classic wrestling games, and while the dialogue is poor, interacting with wrestlers and collecting wrestling references can be a bit of fun.
Unfortunately, the main storyline isn't tied to any one fighter, so you'll find scenarios that repeat themselves as you make your way through the many arenas. They try to balance this by offering multiple choices which gives the impression that you can make different decisions but lead to essentially the same outcome and not impact your career.
We were excited to see there was another storyline for the AEW Women's Championship, but then disappointed that another storyline ignored it like it never happened. In fact, there seems to be no difference between each block, and each PPV build contains a separate storyline that ignores previous developments.
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We've played Road to Elite a few times with different fighters to see what's changed, and basically winning and losing doesn't matter. We deliberately gave up and lost every match, but still managed to battle for the AEW World Championship in the final block, which was disappointing as all matches were won under the same scenario. We want to see how our choices and results will affect our career development.
The main motivation for playing Road to Elite is to improve the fighter you create, from improving stats to giving CAW traits and skills.
Traits, known as Action Skills, play an important role in gameplay as they affect what you can do in the game. For example, Gimmick Infringement allows you to steal your opponent's finishing moves, and Guardrail Dive Offense allows you to dive over fences.
Create-a-wrestlers have been a staple of the game of wrestling for some time now and are an important part of player engagement. Unfortunately, AWW. Fight Forever has no customization options, very few presets, and the ability to customize certain facial features or clothing textures.
Assets are clearly placed elsewhere, which is a shame as the game excels in other areas of creativity with a very impressive long list of moves for both singles and tag teams, a rich library of input music, and animations tied to WWE, NJPW. and the AEW star who was left out of the final roster for the game.
We recorded Mike Bailey's Speedball and Kota Ibushi and were delighted that Justin Roberts provided the voices for Speedball and Kota Ibushi that we could use for their performances. There's also arena creation (fun but simple), the ability to edit entries and moves, and the ability to create and edit tag teams.
One of our favorite things to do in No Mercy is customize existing team outfits by changing the color of the outfits or choosing new outfits. Even though AEW. Fight Forever has several alternative outfits for Kenny Omega, Young Bucks and Britt Baker, you can't change the existing colors, you can only change them by adding random t-shirts, which looks pretty pointless.
Still, the fighting gameplay is some of the best we've seen in a fighting game, and Fight Forever's online ranked mode, multiplayer, and replayable challenges give you a reason to come back and keep fighting. play
You're bound to miss some of the game's features, especially when compared to the amount of content in older titles from the same development team. You can't crawl or grab the ropes during submission, only four players can be on screen at once, there's no hitting or interacting with the referee or backs, and there's a shortage of competitors (we need Jamie Hayter ASAP!).
But at the same time, it was built from the ground up and it's a blank slate, so you have to hope they're just laying the groundwork. Let's hope they build one in the future.
AEW: Fight Forever is a solid foundation that takes the foundations of classic wrestling and successfully adapts them to All Elite Wrestling. DNA Without Mercy, SmackDown! and Day of Reckoning are sure to get the new Yuka grappler pumping, and while new players will be able to pick up and play, longtime wrestling fans or longtime inactive wrestling fans will be pleased too.
It's clear that a lot of love has been shown to AEW. To make Fight Forever a fun and engaging game. It's a shame it lacks in some areas of the story, features, and craftsmanship. However, AEW fans have a lot to like here and we recommend it given All Elite Wrestling being an alternative to WWE, it's great to have an alternative in the wrestling game space.
Platform tested on PlayStation 5
AEW: Fight Forever will launch on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC on June 29.
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