Anyone who was an 80s or 90s baby would know that the gaming genre was dominated by the beat-em-up genres. Not that it was a bad thing cause they were very good for their kind. But the two more popular franchises, now dubbed as fighters, were Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. And at the time, the WWF (now WWE) were also given the beat-em-up treatment in the arcades. Also during this time, Nintendo and Sega were at war with one another with the Super Nintendo and Genesis respectively. While the SNES port of this game was weak in comparison to its Genesis counterpart, it was still a heap of fun to play as an adolescent.
Gameplay: Unlike the Genesis, the SNES version had 6 wrestlers (Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Lex Luger, The Undertaker and Doink The Clown) with two in particular (Yokozuna and Bam Bam Bigelow) omitted from the roster, but were retained on the Genesis edition. If you are familiar with Mortal Kombat, which is what this game is based on, then expect the same here......minus the blood, gore, violence and fatalities. During the mid 90s, the WWF was extremely cartoonish and in a way that style best suited this game. A vast majority of it relied heavily on punches and kicks with quite a few wrestling moves added in (this was an arcade wrestling game after all) with "finishing moves" (sort of like Mortal Kombat's fatalities that were in the actual arcade edition) replaced with pins. The objective was to deplete the opponent's health bar and pin them before they can get a "second wind" and turn the match around. This went on until someone can win two rounds out of three.
Game modes: Single player and Two player. In Single player, you had two options: either compete for the WWF Intercontinental championship or the WWF championship. The Intercontinental championship option pits you against one wrestler at a time until it eventually you had to compete with two wrestlers at a time with the final match pitting you against three of them at a time (chosen at random). The WWF championship option, Hard difficulty to be more precise, pitted you against two at a time off the bat which went to three as you progressed and then the grand finale: a gauntlet against ALL of the wrestlers, which was rewarding if you were capable of surviving such a grueling gauntlet like that. Two players had you either facing a friend or working together to become the WWF tag team champions. This was much harder since BOTH of you shared the same health bar and both players HAD to work together.....or else.
Presentation: Unlike some of the titles that are out right now which are realistic simulators, WrestleMania: The Arcade Game stood up to its name, delivering a fast-paced arcade style environment featuring six (or eight) WWF wrestlers with over-the-top traits that suited their in-ring personalities. For example: Doink The Clown would use a hand buzzer to give his opponents a shock of a lifetime, Razor Ramon's arms turned into blades and The Undertaker used (well) tombstones to bash opponents over the head with them. The colors that rocked the Super Nintendo were out in full force, but the sprites which were real-life portraits of the wrestlers on the game (well when your game is published and developed by Midway it's bound to happen) kinda did not mix well. Commentary is done by Vince McMahon and Jerry "The King" Lawler with some quotes missing and the music/sound effects slightly inferior due to the limitation of the SNES.
WrestleMania: The Arcade Game on the Super Nintendo is indeed the weakest of the console ports. It still retains the core elements from its superior arcade counterpart despite lacking 2 of the 8 wrestlerrs and was fun to play thoughh the SNES limitations did not help matters in the long run.