We’re going to be looking at the Game Boy port of WWF Raw. This is one of the LJN games that started on the SNES and Sega Genesis before coming to Nintendo’s handheld. I’ll be playing it on a Retron 5 for this review.
I don’t have high hopes for this game. I didn’t like the LJN games on the 16-bit consoles, but I’m going to try and put that aside for this review. There will be some necessary changes to get the game on a Game Boy cartridge, so it isn’t look as good as the console games.
I am glad that most of the LJN games weren’t brought to the handheld. They have fans and I can see people enjoying them. I can’t get past the button mashing tug-of-war control scheme.
TLDR: Horrible Controls, Bad Graphics, but at least it is Playable.
Narrative
There isn’t a story for this game. It is a simple arcade experience, which isn’t a bad thing.
Gameplay
I’m going to do my best to keep an open mind here. I’m just hoping that this game is playable. If I can play a few matches, then I’ll be happy. I know this is a low bar, but you would be surprised how many wrestling games did not clear it.
There are three game modes:
- One-on-one match
- Tag Team
- Survivor Series
There is also a sub-menu after you make a selection. For example, when you select a One-on-one match you have a few options:
- One Fall
- Brawl
- Tournament
The roster consists of eight wrestlers:
- Lex Luger
- Bret Hart
- Shawn Michaels
- Razor Ramon
- Diesel
- Doink
- The Undertaker
- Yokozuna
The controls are horrible. I didn’t like the controls for the SNES and Genesis versions of the game, but these are so much worse. I could punch and kick. Nothing else seems to work. I had to check the manual to make sure I was doing this right.
GameFAQs has a list of the button commands and a quick tutorial for this version of the game. It reinforces what I already knew. I guess I just need to adjust to the crappy controls.
Every wrestler has the same moves. This makes things very annoying and is what I’ve come to expect from a wrestling game published by LJN. It is a very disappointing experience. This is another port that was pumped out to fulfill a contract and nothing more.
It feels like characters have different stats. Some are stronger or faster than others. I have nothing to support this, but it feels that way when you play the game. At no point are you presented with the wrestler’s stats aside from height and weight. I got this impression from playing the different wrestlers.
The gameplay isn’t very good. I would rather play one of the console versions, which is something you could say about many of the Game Boy ports of SNES, NES, or Genesis games. I didn’t like the gameplay from the console ports of this game, and I think the Game Boy’s port is much worse.
The game was playable, so that is something. There is no reason to go back and play this one if you have one of the console ports or if you want to do a retrospective on wrestling games or LJN games.
Visuals
WWF Raw on the Game Boy is an ugly game. I’m not just saying this because it is in black and white, it looks bad. The sprites are small, look the same, and are really bad. The animations, digitized photos, and presentation look okay.
The animations for the wrestlers and the moves are good, and the ring looks fine for a Game Boy game. These are the only two things I like about the graphics. Everything else is a mess.
Like many of these LJN published games, every wrestler uses the same sprite. Minor graphical changes let you tell them apart. They made a good attempt at making Doink look like a clown. He still looks like a jumble of regurgitated pixels.
The graphics aren’t good, but they are better than the controls. They don’t make it harder to play the game. It isn’t a good looking game, but the graphics aren’t the worst part of the game.
6/10. The controls are horrible, the graphics are bad, but at the very least it is playable.
Pros
- Decent Roster
- Playable
- Decent selection of Game modes
Cons
- Horrible Controls
- Bad Graphics
- Boring
Conclusion
This isn’t a good version of WWF Raw. I didn’t like the console games, and the Game Boy version is much worse. The controls are worse and the graphics aren’t very good either.
There are a few things that the game does well. They don’t make up for all the bad things. This isn’t one of the Game Boy games I would ever want to revisit.
If you liked this post, please check out my other reviews of Game Boy wrestling games like WCW Main Event and WWF Superstars.