fpwarena-blog

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What’s Your Fire Pro Story, PhilParent?

My modding & Fire Pro history. I've had more fun editing games than I've had fun actually playing them my whole life. When I was a kid, I loved Wrecking Crew, I loved Excitebike, I loved Baseball Stars... I loved Battle City which I had on a multi-cart. Why? Because I could make my own levels, and my own teams, and then play them. One peculiar exception to that was Pro Wrestling. Me and my brother played that game so much, and even as a child, the difference between Pro Wrestling, the WWF games and other non-licensed games was very evident, Pro Wrestling was so much better. My first distributed mod was renaming all the players in Ken Griffey Baseball for the SNES and lending out the cartridge to my friends. 1994-95. Griffey Baseball and Triple Play Baseball Gold Edition on Genesis were my modding fun for a long time. I bought Fire Pro Wrestling G from a shop that sold by mail that advertised in a magazine after I saw a review for it in the Import section. I don't remember the name of it, but I remember the page having a bright yellow background with black lettering, it was like a huge listing with prices. Loved it. Modded it for myself so much. I still have those files. In the late 90's / early 2000's, I started modding text sims. After doing the rosters for Promotion Wars, and helping it being more popular than the much inferior Extreme Warfare Deluxe, I showed what kind of whore I was and jumped sides and did the rosters for Extreme Warfare Revenge, the game ostensibly created to be a Promotion Wars killer. And that it did, killed it deader than the dodo. I was put in charge of keeping EWR updated for a couple years. While I was doing that, Fire Pro D came out and I imported it and the Japanese Dreamcast and released a very small pack starring Montreal wrestlers, including what must have been the very first Kevin Steen edit. It's now lost. Played it so much. Hated that controller. Then came the most awesome year of my life. 2004. I met my wife. Extreme Warfare went commercial and became Total Extreme Wrestling, so my work on it was now actual work. Created TEW's storyline & angles system. And Fire Pro R came out. Preordered it. Loved it. Did the Anthology. Won Modder Of The Year in 2004. Got into a fight with Adam Ryland over the direction of Wrestling Spirit. Left GDS in 2006. Kept the Anthology going until Agetec blessed us with the American port then I ported my save in 2007. Compiled a database of Fire Pro data which will be very useful in like 90 days. Made the Pro Wrestling Simulators Hall Of Fame in 2012. Started doing a 1994 mod, resonating my Griffey Baseball mod, for the MLB The Show series on Operation Sports in 2014. Was the most downloaded classic roster in 2015. I was thinking this was going to be my last mod before I retired and concentrated on my career as a college teacher. But no. I had to say goodbye to my friends on Operation Sports to be able to announce that... The RaveX Anthology will be coming out for Fire Pro World. 2017. I want to keep going until 2020 and then retire. I'll have been modding for 25 years, then. My hands are already a fucking wreck from typing and inputting so much stuff. One last hurrah as an old man trying to keep pace with the younger and better modders.

by  PhilParent

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, captain howdy?

It was early 2002 and I was working night shift at a job, I would occasionally google pics of wrestlers or wrestling video game characters to send to my friend working night shift with me. I kept seeing pics from a 2-D sprite based wrestling game that I thought looked great. I was seeing wrestlers I had never seen in a game before and they all looked accurate. I was doing research and found out the pics were from a Japanese wrestling game called Fire Pro Wrestling, and there was a Game Boy Advance version in the US. I tried that on emulator and decided to take the next step, so after some research I ordered a Dreamcast, the 'game codes' disc to bypass region, and then ordered the Fire Pro game from Japan. I was also lucky enough to find and order the transfer device to be able to download other players edits and use them. I didn't participate as much in the website/community in those days and after a year or so of fun with the game and entertaining my friends, there wasn't much I could do with having to travel and carry all the equipment with me to houses to set up so we could play. I found the Fire Pro Club in early 2005 I believe, and there had been a new FP game released (FPR). There was also a board member creating a patch to display the game in english ('Iamjoe' I think was his name). This re-sparked my interest in Fire Pro and it was off to the races again, downloading member packs and this time trying to get in on the action by making the "rest of the rest" edit pack where I tried my hand at guys like Papa Shango, Adam Bomb and other lesser wrestlers that were not seeing the light of day by the quality edit makers on the site. With some constructive feedback I learned how to better make edits and made some great board friends, I would say the most generous being orogchigeese! goose was ever helpful in any way that was needed, and also friendly and what I would call one of the bright spots of the FP community. When the US version of FPR hit I started playing with it even more and discovered that by changing the flesh color gradients I could make the edits look like they were '16-bit' sprites, and that kicked off my '16-Bit Mania' tribute to old arcade and console wrestling games. So 10 years later I still stop in from time to time, and I still have my PS2 that's only used for FPR. The game does not get as much play as it used too but it's still going strong. I need to eventually find out how to transfer all of my cards to the PS3 before my PS2 croaks for good lol.

by  captain howdy

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, chango?

I think I might be the only person who got in to Fire Pro because of the graphics..... I've been a follower of Japanese wrestling for years mainly NJPW as it was on Eurosport (I think it was late 90s early 2000s based on when people debuted) and whenever looking up wrestlers I'd come across images of Fire Pro.... And loved the look of the characters.( I still think That FPR is the best looking wrestling game there is.) After looking into them bit and realising what it was..... I joined Fire Pro Club,even though I didn't have the game...I didn't say anything to anyone for years.... and only started 'speaking' when we were all coming up with ideas for the Hoax! I didn't actually have the game when I first joined and wasn't sure/ couldn't work out how to get an import due to the whole PAL/NTSC gubbins . So when the PAL release of Returns was (finally) announced I was straight in there, even though it cost me 60 quid and I had to have it imported from Italy....... But I'd been after it /looking at it/ pining for it for years and when I finally got it was everything I wanted it to be. I couldn't wait ..... And I played as Toru Yano straight away.

by  chango

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, tafkaga?

1997.  I stumbled upon Fire Pro S on the Internet and thought it was just too good to be true. My wrestling game at that time was WWF Raw for SNES with a roster of like 12 wrestlers.  The only match I really enjoyed was the Royal Rumble.   Then, I find a game that has better graphics and a roster of hundreds of wrestlers?  There weren't many things that I just *had* to have as a kid/teenager, but this was one of them.  I *had* to own this game. There were a few stumblingblocks, such as it being a Japanese import, and the fact that I didn't even own a Sega Saturn.  At 17 years old, I didn't have that kind of money laying around, but my parents saw how much I wanted it and decided to help me get it.  Picked up the last Sega Saturn at a Wal-Mart in Rolla, Missouri and ordered the conversion box and game online.   Finally, the game arrived and it was beyond anything I could have imagined in a wrestling game.  I became addicted to simming matches long before I realized that there were other people who enjoyed the same thing.  I kept track of all my match results and win/loss records in a notebook.   Back then you could only store 16 edits on the console, so I picked up formulas made by Mysterios Kagura from the pre-FPC Fire Pro community and had Owen Hart, Lex Luger, Nation of Domination, Sid and several others.   I'll never feel that way about a wrestling game again, not even Fire Pro, because I'm spoiled now.

by  tafkaga (now known as Old Baby)

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, Carlzilla?

I got SFPWXP in 1996. It was the summer between 8th and 9th grade. My go to wrestling game at this time was TNM, which, for the youngins, was a Qbasic (at that point), text-based, circuit simulator that might be the only wrestling game to have more lasting appeal than Fire Pro to me. I used SFPWXP to create wrestlers used in my circuit (it was the first non-text wrestling game with a create a wrestler that I ever played) and then sim my "big" cards because it was all nice and visual. Then I'd book the matches to end the same way at the same time in TNM to create the connection between the two. The only major Fire Pro game I haven't played is Six Man Scramble because I never owned a Saturn. I've sort of grown tired of Fire Pro as of late though. I just feel like I've done all there is to do.

by  Carlzilla

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, Nth?

1999, checking out Gamespot of all places one day, an editor their had done a mini preview on a upcoming Japanese wrestling game called Fire Pro Wrestling G. I don't think I had ever heard anybody gush over a non WWF wrestling game.... ever. Now as an aside, I had briefly heard of Fire Pro back in 1997 when my cousin had a copy of X Premium emulated on his laptop and completely hyped it as 'the' game every wrestling fan should have. He showed it to me and I was 'meh', bearing in mind WCW vs NWO World Tour had just come out and we had (for the time) an astounding 3d wrestling game. I was sort of done with the 2d age. Also, I didn't even know at the time wrestling in Japan was not only a thing, but also treated as a sport. So this gamespot editor seemed to be familiar with the Fire Pro series and hyped me on it with some key notes: Simulation gameplay, hundreds of wrestlers, a creation suite allowing dozens of wrestlers to be created with over 500 moves available, exploding ring death matches, and what really hyped me; current WWF and WCW rosters together in one game. HAD TO HAVE IT!!!! New it was only in Japanese so I made my very first foray over to a little place called Gamefaqs where I was told I would be able to find translations and a how to guide on how to get my PS system modded to play Japanese games. Bought a Game Wizard, which I still have and it amazingly still works to this day. I was terrified of modding my reasonably new PS console and a Game Wizard simply plugged into the systems I/O port. I remember ordering my copy from The Rage and had no credit card so I had to use a money order. I still remember getting a money order for $125 (I got the express shipping) and still remember the cashier looking at me kinda weird when I needed to have it made out to The Rage. When the game first arrived and I popped it in, I admit, I did not like it. Couldn't get the grappling down for the life of me, constantly had trouble navigating the menu's and really didn't understand the concept of building a match with small moves and working up to bigger moves. That idea was completely foreign to me coming from the world of WWF games. Eventually, something just clicked. I did the training dojo (tutorial mode) from the career mode in the game and I started being able to land strikes and win grapples. It got to the point where I would have the game running all day. When I wasn't actually playing, to stop for dinner breaks, I was simming matches which I found just as entertaining as playing. I had no interest in the Japanese rosters at the time. Had no idea who any of these people were and had never even seen a Japanese wrestling match. So I started simming random Japanese guys and when I saw someone with a moveset I kinda liked I would end up doing a net search on him. Discovered a lot of people had made music videos of Japanese wrestlers, I got into Japanese wrestling, first through all these music videos people had made. Ended up buying some VHS compilation tapes and I steadily veered away from the western wrestling. I totally became Mr. Fire Pro after that. All wrestling talk with friends turned to Japanese wrestling and all wrestling game discussion turned to Fire Pro Wrestling. I sold that game on a lot of people back then. When my cousin bought his copy, he also on a whim bought another game with it called AJPW: King's Soul. That game would sit on a shelf for years untouched until King of Colosseum Red came along. Now I thought Fire Pro Wrestling G would be it for me. Along came Fire Pro Wrestling D for the Dreamcast. Well I just couldn't justify buying an entirely new game system just for one game... or could I? But that's another story.

by  Nth

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, RJ!?

I bought FPW for the GBA and immediately returned it because I had no idea how it worked. Ten years later, I heard about how good FPWR was, and I would sim MMA matches.  I had no idea how to get save packs, so I never got too much into the game. Fast forward to when I discovered this community, and that the PS3 version was available.  I figured out how to do edit packs, and boom.  I have recent;y purchased FPW again, and I am learning how to use it.  Such a big fan of the mobile FP games.

by  RJ!

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, Gentlemensgentleman?

I was late to the FPR hype.I bought FPR when I was in community college. I hadn't bought a wrestling game in years since I had stopped watching the WWE back in 2008. Svr 2007 was the last WWE game I would buy until WWE '13.I think I bought FPR in 2010 when I usually just watched CZW and BJW. I was interested in two things in FPR: the 500 character slots and BJW. I really wanted to play as BJW with Ryuji Ito, Yuko Miyamoto, and others. FPR opened me up to other Japanese promotions that I like to watch now like DDT, K-Dojo, and 666.

by  Gentlemensgentleman

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, Kamen Ranger?

I was in high school when I first learned about the game. I had played the GBA ones here and there before but didn't get into it. I was going to a another website at the time when I saw a trailer for FPR. It caught my attention instantly. I saw death matches,match maker and the extensive edit modes. At the time I had started getting into Lucha Libre and Puro. Before that all I knew was WWE,WCW and ECW. To find a game with all the guys I was learning about on it. It made my day. About a month later I learned about FPC through a forum board. Ever since it's US release I've been playing it.

by  Kamen Ranger

Be sure to share your story on the newly relaunched fpwarena! 

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What’s Your Fire Pro Story, Jon Justice?

My Fire Pro story started with the GBA games as well, back in 8th grade. It was one of those late summer Toys-R-Us gaming runs where all the good stuff was long gone. I bumped into Fire Pro Wrestling Advance in the "not good enough for the shelf" bin among stuff like Shrek, fishing, Olsen Twins, and other abominations. I initially thought it was a Tekken clone, fake Heihachi gracing the cover. Upon closer inspection it read "wrestling", which made me want to throw it down like it was covered in ants. Wrestling games on Nintendo handhelds had been notoriously bad up to that point (ECW Hardcore Revolution on Game Boy Color ). But this one wasn't by Acclaim or THQ, it wasn't WWF, ECW, or WCW, so at the very least it had to be different. I reluctantly gave FPWA a try. Got it home, died repeatedly trying to figure out the controls. But the paper-doll animation style and the logical match pacing grabbed my attention. I became fascinated with all the little systems at play during a match, and soon discovered that I had a degree of control over these systems via CPU Logic. Thus began the addiction. You'll always be one more tweak away from that perfect match. Fire Pro also piqued my interest in what would become my main hobbies. Looking for everyone's real name is how I discovered puroresu and shoot wrestling, of which I became a lifetime fan. The animation style got me interested in spriting and Flash. The thought processes involved with editing CPU Logic eventually got me into coding and game design (and a strange obsession with RNG). I'm still playing Fire Pro fifteen years, several consoles, and dozens of other games later. FPR has pretty much taken over my PS3. And Fire Pro Wrestling 2 has earned a permanent place in my pocket...

...and also my heart, there I said it.

by  Jon Justice

Be sure to share your story on the newly relaunched fpwarena!

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What’s Your Fire Pro Story, HumanBulldozer?

I was in highschool when I got it. I was at like the biggest obsession of wrestling I ever was in. Still pre-smark mode. I loved SvR2006 but I hated that you could only have 30 guys. I found myself on the gamefaqs pro wrestling boards and there was a guy who would run tournaments on various wrestling games and after a few weeks I asked him about the game he was talking about that had 500 caw slots. I didn't think it was real with the wwe games having a mere 30. As soon as I found out as much as I could I lurked over on fireproclub, joined [old screenname withheld because younger me was an idiot] learned some more. Within a week I picked up firepro returns and played it until my ps2 broke. Missed it desperately for years... tried romming it but... wasn't quite the same. Recently my best friend bought me a PS3 for christmas... first thing I downloaded was Fire Pro. Still trying to get back into the swing of things. I've created tons of edits but I just cant quite get happy with logic/movesets as I was way back when.

by  HumanBulldozer

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, orochigeese?

1908: Small town bar in Boulder, Colorado. I was a prospector . Just finished up my shift, had a bit to drink. Said the wrong thing to the wrong person. 12 hours later, I was up to my ass in FP6MS templates. 6 hours later, I woke up to find myself in the Arena. I still don't get what a CAW is. ----------------------------------- After my No Mercy copy glitched for the 10th time in Spring 2002, deleting my edits again, I gave up on it. I had previously bought FPD in April of 2001 but I didn't really "get it." I decided to give it another try in June '02 and was more patient this time. I understood it's value and went onto the GameFAQS FPD board to find out more about it. The people there were AWESOME and I was as drawn in by the community as I was the game itself. I joined my first e-fed (GWF, GameFAQS Wrestling Federation) a few months later, started my own fed a little over a year later, and was off to the races!   Never got to ole Californee though

by  orochigeese

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, wet_dog_smell?

About 6 years ago I wanted to find an alternative to the latest WWE game as the legends of wrestling series was like drinking your own piss, just awful. After a google search I found Fire Pro Wrestling Returns. After watching a youtube video or two I decided I had to by this game. It was not on amazon or ebay as its the PAL version. After reading in the old FPC i found out about an Italian website that sold the game at the time for around £40. So I bought a copy and I have beeen hooked since.

by  wet_dog_smell

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, fullMETAL?

My memories of my first FPW experience are hazy ("stuff"'ll do that to you), but my first FP game was Fire Pro Advance, sometime near the end of high school. I was looking for non-WWF/WCW games and found out about that.

by  fullMETAL ( @Adz_FM )

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, robthorn24?

I discovered a highlight video of Fire Pro Wrestling, while searching for videos of the old AKI WCW games (my all time favorite wrestling games at time). As soon as I saw the Fire Pro video, I read up on the game and it sounded like a wrestling fan's dream. I discovered and joined Fire Pro Club soon thereafter, and the rest, as they say, is history.

by  robthorn24

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, Timberwolf?

I actually was a fan of the coin op game "Mat Mania". I was so good at it that I could pop in just 25 cents and play for hours for my quarter. Thankfully, the game was at a local bowling alley that had older arcade games so it wasn't too busy, so I didn't have to worry about hogging the game from other players. Anyways, I liked the cartoonish play of Mat Mania that I did a search for a similar game for my PS2. I found an article of FPWR somewhere online and knew this game would come close. I went to a local GameStop and searched for one. Lo and behold, they had a copy for 7 bucks. I grabbed it and played it for a bit. At that time, I was a member of the gaming community Neoseeker. They got assholes over there, too, Desertpunk  Anyways, I was in the FPWR board over there. Someone there mentioned the FPC. So I went there and made an account long before MDK closed registrations to new members. It was at the FPC that I discovered simming and how logic plays a part into it and the rest is history.

by  Timberwolf

[fpwarena-blog]

What’s Your Fire Pro Story, desertpunk?

Long ago I stumbled onto a weird SNES game my brother borrowed from a friend of his. This game turned out to Be Fire Pro Premium X. It was in Japanese, we sucked at it and couldn't get anything to work... Years later I was reading some gaming magazine (I forget which) and they where running down upcoming games, I think if was mostly fighting/wrestling games of something...anyway...there was a tiny blurb about fire pro; A Japanese wrestling game getting ported and translated to the USA. My memory flashed back to a game of old, and now a chance to play a english version! Not only that but during this time I was a wrestling game junkie, all the WWE games, the Legends of Wrestling games, even the ultimate muscle NGC game   So I HAD TO HAVE Fire Pro Returns, I had to have it....but it wasn't released yet. Thus I descended into ROMS and ISO files. I played the GBA games, FPRZ and more.....PC didn't play them worth a damn lol. Then FPR finally came out, I picked it up for 20 bucks (found it at Wal-Mart for 5 bucks 3 weeks later, so I bought 4 of them as spares lol). I was hooked right away, read manual after manual, all the bill wood stuff, ect. I first joined caws ws who at the time had a FPR section, and I met assault driver there. He told me about Fire Pro Club and so I joined.....and most of them HATED ME  You newer guys have had it so easy in this community. Back in the day the old school vets (excluding guys like Geese and Wondy and some others) hated us noobs with a passion. Hell the mod MDK hated us too  but here I remain and they all left (to SSS mostly, fuck SSS beside the way  )

by  desertpunk