I haven’t played too many games on the Sega Dreamcast. There are a ton of great games on the system, and many of them are ports of arcade games. WWF Royal Rumble falls into that genre.
This is an exclusive Dreamcast game. Yuke’s, the developers of the Smackdown games, handled the Dreamcast port. Both versions of the game were released in the late 2000s.
I wanted to start with this game because it is different. The other three wrestling games on the Dreamcast are versions of games I’ve played before. Sega seems to have gotten screwed when it comes to wrestling games.
TLDR: It Looks Great and has Awesome Controls, but there isn’t much there.
Narrative
There is no story in this game. It is a step backward for wrestling games but makes sense for an arcade game. This is rather disappointing but understandable, as the developers had better things to do than add features to an arcade game.
Gameplay
There are only two game modes. This makes it feel like a spiritual sequel to the WrestleMania arcade game. You can play an exhibition match or do the Royal Rumble in this game.
The Exhibition match is a little odd. You choose two wrestlers, one to play as and one to help with interference moves. The interference moves can be done as often as you want but needs to be recharged.
There are two ways to win matches in the Exhibition modes. You can win by knockout and pinfall. This is fine for an arcade game.
The Royal Rumble match is the big draw for this game. You have to eliminate wrestlers in a specific amount of time. By eliminating wrestlers, you get more time. This is the arcade mode, and while it works well when you’re trying to get player’s quarters, I would’ve expected more from a wrestling game in the year 2000.
The roster is pretty weak when you compare it to the other WWF games released in 2000. There are 19 wrestlers and one secret wrestler. It isn’t bad for an arcade game but is weaker than the other console games.
The controls are pretty great! You can tell this was from the developers of Smackdown. If you’re familiar with that game’s controls, you’ll get used to the controls in WWF Royal Rumble very fast. It is easy to learn the controls in this game.
The manual is available online. You probably won’t need it, but it is helpful if you want to know the controls before you start. I have a complete copy of the game, but I wanted to provide a link to the manual if people wanted it.
The gameplay is pretty good, but there isn’t much to it. There aren’t enough game modes for a console game. If this was released in 1995, it would’ve been an amazing game! Unfortunately, it was released in 2000, which makes this game rather disappointing.
Visuals
This is the best-looking wrestling game I’ve played so far. The ring, wrestlers, and entrances look amazing! It doesn’t make up for the gameplay, but it looks so good!
Seeing how good this game looks makes me wish the Smackdown games had been brought to the Dreamcast. This is very far ahead of the other games released at the same time. I wish there were more to this game to see how some of the other game modes would look.
Every so often, you’ll get teleported backstage. These areas look good as well. The cutscenes for the double-team moves look great as well.
Some minor things looked off, but they were things you would see in other wrestling games from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The animations also look great. I don’t have any real problems with the graphics in WWF Royal Rumble. It is beautiful!
Reviews at the time
I’m only looking at three reviews for the game this time. Most of the reviews put the game in the four to seven range. There is one review I want to highlight because it is so strange to me. I’ll be looking at GameSpot, GamePro, and Maxim.
I can’t believe that Maxim did reviews for video games. For those who don’t know, Maxim is a men’s magazine that shows photos of women who aren’t wearing much, like swimsuits or lingerie. They gave WWF Royal Rumble an 8/10.
There isn’t much to the Maxim review. It is very short, and I wonder how many games were reviewed by the magazine. It is baffling to me that this review exists.
Now, onto the two serious reviews. GameSpot gave the game a 6.5/10, and GamePro gave the game three and a half out of five. GameSpot said it isn’t a bad game. It is just too different from the other wrestling games on the market.
Most of the other publications echoed what GameSpot said. Strangely, there were better wrestling games released on the Dreamcast, but they were only in Japan. IGN pointed this out in their review of the game.
6/10. Great Graphics and Wonderful Controls can’t make up for the lack of Game modes. The developers should’ve added more value to this game for the console release.
Pros
- Spectacular Graphics
- Great Controls
- Very Fun Game
Cons
- Lack of Game Modes
- No Story Mode
- Smaller Roster for the Time
Conclusion
This is an average game. The way I feel about WWF Royal Rumble is similar to the other arcade-style games like WWF In Your House and WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game. It is fun, but I would rather play one of the simulation games.
There just isn’t much to this game. If it was released in 1995 or 1996, I would have a higher opinion of it. The graphics are amazing for the time, and the controls are very good. WWF Royal Rumble doesn’t have enough gameplay beyond two fun modes.
The multiplayer mode can make up for it if you have three friends who want to play Dreamcast games with you. I could’ve seen this being a fun party game back in 2000. Now, it is an average wrestling game that is a little disappointing.
If you liked this post, please check out my other wrestling reviews, like WWF In Your House or my ranking of the PS1 Wrestling games.