against increasingly difficult CPU opponents. After winning five matches, the player fights King Slender, the Video Wrestling Association (VWA) Champion. If the player has selected King Slender for play, then he will face Giant Panther for the VWA Championship, though some versions of the game have a bug requiring King Slender to win more than the usual five matches before being granted the title shot. After winning the VWA Title, the second stage of gameplay begins. As the VWA Champion, the player has to defend the title. Making ten successful title defenses (two against each of the five remaining characters) will result in a title match against the Great Puma, champion of the Video Wrestling Federation. Defeating Puma will make a player the interpromotional VWA/VWF Champion and end the game. It is worth noting that some Nintendo aficionados consider the Great Puma to be one of the most difficult boss characters to ever appear on the NES. Two players The two player mode in Pro Wrestling features essentially the same gameplay as single player, though without the championship quest. Each player selects a wrestler and then proceed directly into the match. The game prevents the same character from being chosen for both players. Unlike the single player mode, each match is a best-of-three-falls match. Two-player matches also lack the five-minute time limit of the single-player mode. Roster Fighter Hayabusa (Japan) Giant Panther (U.S.A.) Kin Corn Karn (Korea) King Slender (U.S.A.) Starman (Mexico) The Amazon (Parts Unknown), which served as inspiration for Amazonian Blanka in 1991's Street Fighter 2. Development Masato Masuda thought up the game system and was the sole programmer while he was at TRY, which later merged with Sonata to become Human. Masuda later created Human's popular Fire Pro Wrestling series. US copyright records list "Try Company, Ltd." as the author. Reception Pro Wrestling was scored a total of 30 out of 40 by the staff of Famicom Tsūshin (Famitsu). Computer Gaming World named it as the Best Sports Game of 1988 for Nintendo, stating that it offered "realistic graphics, non-stop action and realistic wrestling moves. It concluded that Pro Wrestling was "the only wrestling game that really understands what it is simulating". Game Informer named it the 79th best game ever made in 2001. The staff considered it a trail blazer and praised its soundtrack. Famitsu reported that Pro Wrestling was the #1 video game in the