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User Rating: 8.4 | Rumble Roses XX X360
Two years ago Konami and Yuke’s teamed up to deliver an all female wrestling title. And for the most part it was a pretty solid wrestling title. Now the two team up again to deliver a sequel for the Xbox 360. Is it better than the first one?

Actually Konami does deliver the goods with this sequel or should I say remake. First of all I’ve noticed how unfair many of the reviewers have been with this game. Sure the game has a sense of sexuality but so did games like Dead or Alive and Grand theft auto but people still reviewed those games high. But anyways the main focus of this game is wrestling action with beautiful women. Now on paper it doesn’t sound so much like a bad idea, and it isn’t the end result turns out to be a fun, good looking wrestling game.

Yuke’s has been known for its wrestling engine since it started working with THQ to create the WWE Smackdown series, which is basically the Madden of wrestling games. So you can expect a great wrestling engine for Rumble Roses XX. It may not be as deep or have as many moves as Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 but it gets the job done. Some people will however wish that the girls have some more moves. There is quite a number of female wreslters in the game that are better known as the roses. You first start out with ten of them, as you progress through the game will end up unlocking their alternate ego. What I mean is that theres basically a good guy and bad guy version to each rose. This sounds sorta gimmicky at first but the end result feels satisfying as they each have a different look compared to their alternate other. They also have a difference in moves,attitude, and entrance during the match so its not like its just an outfit change. Using each superstar in certain ways will also raise their popularity, reaching a certain point you will also unlock the new superstar versions of the roses. Theres a superstart version for both the good and bad form. What the superstar versions do is just add stronger variations of the moves that the rose already has before. And they are much more flashier in looks and entrance. So when you add them up all together there is up to 40 wrestlers.

Thats without saying that each character have a unique feeling and persona to them. Aisha the dancing pop star focuses on strike and kicks to work on the opponents head while Makoto Aihara will focus more on takedowns like olympic wrestling. Each wrestler has a fair amount of grapples and striking moves. First there is strike attacks which you can press X for either repeatedly to pull of a combo or X and a directional button to pull of a different strike like a kick or clothesline. Press Y with either < or > to pull of a grapple then press Y again with either directional button to pull of the grapple move. Pressing Y with up or down will take down the superstar to the ground where you can execute a ground upper body or ground lower body grapple. There are aslo a few running attacks, and grapples. Turnbuckle attacks and grapples. And off the top rope high flying moves. As you use more and more moves your momentum meter will rise giving you the chance to execute a finishing move which are broken up in different categories. The Killer move, Lethal Move and Humiliation Move. How the humiliation move works is various moves in from character either submission or strike will also embarass their opponent making their humiliation meter rise, when this meter rises to the top you will be able to execute the Humiliation move which is focused to put the other wrestler in a questionable position, embarassing her making her more likely to tap out to it. Other than that the gameplay feels more or less simliar to Smackdown thanks to the great engine Yuke’s has put together.

The A.I. in the game is pretty tough but not cheap. When you first start out playing chances are they’ll kick your ass, but once you get used to the counters which need right timing they can be taken down. But still after getting used to the game the A.I. can still beat you. I was once in a match for eleven minutes and I still lost against Aigle...

There is also now an edit mode where you can edit your favorite character, by adjusting their muscles or even making their bust bigger. You can also change the outfits of the characters aswell. Now there is also a a create a wrestler mode but it isn’t anywhere as deep as the WWE wrestling games. You can thirty slots of characters that go by the default name by of Lambda, so even changing the name the announcer will still refer to her as Lambda. You also get the same face for each edit character you can just adjust her muscles, measurements, hairstyles, skin colors, hair colors, eye color, certain moveset, and lip color. You can tell that the developers didn’t really put much time into this mode and in the end it sorta feels half-assed. But that not to say people won’t want to use it, its a cool mode it just falls short of certain expectations.

The gameplay is where the one of the main focus of the game is as with any other game...you are taken to a menu to where you can choose either three different career wrestling matches that can vary between a singles match, tag team match, handicap, triple threat, or fatal four way. Too bad the horrid story mode in the original wasn’t expanded on to what it could’ve been with branching storylines...but rather they got rid of it all together. Theres even a street fight mode which feels more out of place as the developers try to add a tekken/ dead or alive feel to it. These are the matches you would want to stick to if you are aiming to become the Singles Champion or Tag Team Champion.

Didn’t the other reviewers say that there isn’t any belts? Well guess what there is and it seems that they didn’t put enough time into the game. There is also Exhibition mode where you can choose between the games main match modes. Singles, Tag Team, Three Way Royal, Four Way Royal, Pure Humiliation Match, Street Fight, and Queens Match.

The Queens match is basically a gimmicky match that has that takes place on a ring cover by shallow beach water where the loser needs to perform some action that’ll embarass her whether it be dancing the samba, or having to imitate a cat pose. More embarassing actions can be bought at the shop.

Winning matches will give you money where you can go to the shop to buy many unlockables per character. You can buy quite a number of outfits, some of which you’ll have to unlock first in order to buy. You can also buy more poses for the all new photoshoot mode. The photoshoot mode is where you can choose a rose or two if you’d prefer a pair shot. Put them in a certain outfit if you want and make them pose in certain positions. After you can upload these photos to Xbox Live to share with the world. Many players will get perverted dressing up their character in the skimpiest outfit but some will create great works of art.

The graphics have to be one of the most impressive part of the game which are preferable on an HDTV. The Roses are just beautifully crafted and look damn near perfect. Skin looks pretty natural if you look close enough you’ll know what I mean. Hair also looks pretty good for many of the wrestlers. Although there is some clipping issues as with any wrestling game its not as easy to spot this time around. Arenas although there are only really five including the encaged street fight arena, all look well and the crowd are well made. Although there are some brightness issues that seem to blur the arenas its no big deal. The characters look like they are actually living beings rather than plastic anime like dolls. Clothes textures looks great, looking at Rowdy Reiko’s leather suit shows how much time the developers put into the game.

The sound of the game can be somewhat of a mixed bag. Most of the charcter voice overs fit nicely. The entance music is well put together and the in game soundtrack is interesting little techno tracks that aren’t really annoying. Although the game lets you use music from the your playlist to play at certain arenas which is a nice addition. You can also use you playlist music for the CAW or Roses entrances if you want to replace their current themes. Also the Roses say many different phrases during matches and when in action. Which is a nice touch that adds to the experience.

The online play is pretty basic but a worthy addition to a game such as this. Its broken down into either ranked Matches or unranked player matches, each with the choice of quick, custom or create a match. You can play pretty much every match type singles, tag team, humiliation matches. Sadly there isn’t any three ways or four ways online. Its also a shame that not many people play this game online, but if you are on at the right time you can probaly find a good match. Lag is mostly found in matches with someone from japan or farther from where you live but it just feel like a delay in responsiveness. Ranking is done similiar to that of Dead or Alive where you’ll rank up from a F to a C, B, A, then S. So while not mind blowing the online is a really good addition to Rumble Roses XX.

So although the developers intended the game to have alot of sex appeal the game plays great and theres hardly any flaws to it. Some people will unfortunately get bored with this type of game though. There are some improvements that can be done in the next title that I would like seeing such as more moves, a better Story and CAW mode, and newer characters. But what Rumble Roses XX does is expand the original and succeeds it in many ways. For wrestling fans you need to check this out. Even for people who like a little competition its probably worth a rental. Now if you are getting this game for it’s the woman then by all means have fun. This has to be one of the most fun games I’ve played since the 360’s launch. And like Full Auto, probably one of this years most underrated games.