Platform: Super Famicom
Release Date: December 25th, 1992

Before reading this review I highly recommend reading my review for Super Fire Pro Wrestling. Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2 was more of a small step than a big one as they focused on tightening up the graphics and adding some different wrestlers/new moves to enjoy. The gameplay itself was virtually the same so my comments on the original will closely mirror my comments on this game. Sometimes a baby step is needed, I am not faulting Human in taking the time to make some tweaks, but it does make the game one of the more easily forgettable entries looking back at the series.

Graphics: The graphics were definitely a touch better for Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2 than its predecessor. For starters there were less glitches, for example the Romero Special that was glitchy in the last game was fixed in this one. The powerbombs seemed to have been animated better, almost as if they added a few extra frames to make the moves look more smooth. For 1992, no complaints about the graphics here, it was a solid game graphics-wise for the time period and between the outfits and their build it was pretty easy to tell who the wrestlers were.

Controls: Virtually the same as Super Fire Pro Wrestling, if there were any changes I didn't notice them during my several hours of game play. There were still three levels of strikes (the heaviest of which was extremely hard to hit), three levels of grapples, and of course the run button. Sometimes I had an issue with ground moves and doing the move I intended, but beyond that I did not have any issues. The timing for the grapples seemed to be more hit and miss, I swear that I was hitting it at the same time but my success rate was not as high as I would have preferred. This got tightened up in the later Fire Pro games.

Gameplay Options: Similar to Super Fire Pro Wrestling, there was a singles player mode, tag team mode, and a tournament mode. Simple, but still a lot better than having no modes and just having the option to play single player matches (not all games in the early 90s had a lot of game options, you just took what you could get).

Wrestlers Available: Compared to Super Fire Pro Wrestling, Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2 only had one additional wrestler to control to raise the number to 25. It did however have many different wrestlers. Besides the normal crew, SFPW2 included Bam Bam Bigelow, Akira Maeda, Atsushi Onita, Abdullah the Butcher, and Masahiro Chono so that many different promotions both in Japan and in the United States were represented.

Historical Significance: Honestly, this game was a small blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things. It was only a slight step up from Super Fire Pro Wrestling, as while it did a lot of things better it did not break any new ground and the grapple timing still seemed a bit off. Since these games were being produced at least once a year, there just wasn't a lot of developmental time to really make big changes. The later games that improved the fight engine and added a full CAW section were the games that really had an impact on the industry, unfortunately Super Fire Pro Wrestling 2 didn't break any new ground.

Overall Thoughts: As I mentioned, not terribly different from Super Fire Pro Wrestling but still better. One of the things I really liked is that they added more moves so that each wrestler felt even more unique. From biting to fork stabbing to the Shooting Star Press, every wrestler had their own moves and very few (such as the body slam) were shared between different wrestlers. The downside of the game of course is, looking back 25 years later, it didn't really do enough to make it a memorable game in relation to what I know is coming down the road. This may have been a necessary step in achieving what they did later in the cycle, but as an individual entry in the series there were still a lot of things that needed to be improved.

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game reviewed on 3/22/15