Human · PlayStation · 1999 Fire Pro Wrestling G

The Game

Fire Pro Wrestling G (ファイヤープロレスリングＧ) is a wrestling game by Human for the Sony PlayStation, released in Japan in 1999. It was never released outside Japan. Like the rest of the Fire Pro series it is a 2D wrestling simulation: matches are won by wearing an opponent down with the right moves at the right time, not by button mashing. Its 194 wrestlers stand in for real ones from Japan, America and Mexico under made-up names; the translation shows the real names, and the Fake Names patches keep the game's own.

What sets the game apart:

• Fighting Road. A story mode with 522 scenes: train in a dojo, get signed by one of six companies and wrestle a whole career, with dialogue choices, a hidden popularity score and dozens of endings (Fighting Road).
• A big roster and move list. 194 wrestlers in 15 promotions, about 960 moves, and an Edit Mode that builds new wrestlers from the ground up: looks, 57 move slots, ratings and the CPU's fighting style.
• Edit Ranking. Your edit wrestler fights up an underground shoot-fighting ladder under CPU control, and every few wins unlocks new parts for Wrestler Make (Edit Ranking).
• Every way to wrestle. Singles and tag, tournaments, leagues of up to 64, 5-on-5 elimination, battle royals, a bomb death match and no-rules fights in an octagon (Modes).
• A Dojo. The first tutorial in the series in years, teaching grapples, counters and escapes step by step (Dojo).

Which Patch

The English translation comes as patches for your own copy of the game: Fire Pro Wrestling G (Japan), serial SLPS-02065. The later Spike Library reissue (SLPS-02817) is a different disc and won't patch. The download holds five patches; pick one:

Use the Names switch in the sidebar to see the names of the version you play. The patches don't change the save format: saves from the Japanese game work with all of them.

Memory Card Tips

• Everything the game keeps (edit wrestlers, groups, records, unlocks, Edit Ranking progress) goes in one file of 10 blocks on the card in slot 1.
• Save from Memory Card > Save on the mode select, from Save in Edit Ranking, and at the prompt between Fighting Road scenes (three story slots).
• With an All Unlocked patch, loading an old save also unlocks everything in it.

Your First Match

Fire Pro plays differently from most wrestling games: there are no health bars and no button mashing. A match is won by wearing the opponent down and pressing the right button at the right moment. These steps get you through a first match; the Dojo teaches the same with practice.

1. Pick One Night Match on the mode select. The settings screen comes next: leave everything as it is and choose - Next -.
2. Choose your wrestler and the opponent. ○ confirms, × goes back. The opponent is the CPU at level 4 of 10.
3. Strike first. □, × and ○ are weak, medium and strong strikes. Weak strikes are fast and safe.
4. Grapple with one well-timed press. Walk into the opponent and the two lock up by themselves. Press □ once, right as you grab him. Pressing early or repeatedly loses the grapple.
5. Work up from weak to strong. Open with a big move and you'll often get reversed. Use weak and medium grapples until the opponent slows down, then the strong ones (○), and save the finisher for last.
6. Pin. Pins are moves like any other, set in the downed-opponent slots, so which button pins depends on the wrestler: usually × at the head of an opponent lying face up. His profile in Wrestlers and Moves shows them.
7. Kick out and escape. When you're pinned, press × again and again. In a hold, mash the D-pad.

The rest is in Controls and How Matches Work.

Controls

The game has no controls screen; the Dojo is its lesson. Most of what matters happens with a few buttons pressed at the right moment: Fire Pro rewards timing over speed. A DualShock or an analog pad works as well as the standard pad.

Buttons

The game calls its attack buttons A, B and C (weak, medium, strong); Move Edit shows them as the PlayStation's own symbols.

Grappling

Walk into your opponent and the two lock up by themselves: there is no grapple button. Press once, right as you grab him. The first well-timed press wins the grapple; pressing early or repeatedly loses it. A strong move against a fresh opponent usually gets reversed, so wear him down with weak and medium moves first. If both wrestlers press at the same moment early in the match, they go into a test of strength: mash the D-pad to win it.

Running and Flying

Pins, Holds and the Mat

Tag Matches and Outside

Menus

Confirm with ○, go back with ×. On the settings screen, Up/Down picks a row and Left/Right changes it. In Move Edit, L1/R1 move between the columns (shout, finisher mark, move) and ○ on a move opens its list.

How Matches Work

Wearing Down

There are no health bars. Each wrestler has hidden stamina and spirit, and every move takes some of each. Moves also hurt one or more body parts, neck, arms, back and legs, each with its own damage, and drain breath; some draw blood. A worn-down wrestler shows it: he gets up slowly, staggers, and his big moves get through. A wrestler loses a pin or gives up in a hold when he has too little left.

How much a move does depends on the two wrestlers' ratings (Param. Edit): each move rolls the attacker's main and second attack ratings against the defender's two defence ratings. The main rating counts three times as much as the second. A wrestler's finisher gets +2 on both attack ratings and his signature moves +1.

Criticals

A critical is a sudden finish: one move leaves the opponent unable to go on. Each wrestler has a Critical type (Skill Edit), and each move says which types it can be a critical for:

• Finisher: only the wrestler's own finisher can be a critical. Most of the roster (142 wrestlers) has this type.
• Striking, Suplex, Power, Technical, Submission: any move of that kind can be. Few wrestlers have these: 20 Striking, 16 Submission, 8 Technical, 5 Suplex, 3 Power.

The chance goes up the more worn down the defender is. A Striking, Suplex, Power or Finisher critical knocks the opponent out. A Submission or Technical critical drains everything the move hurts at once but leaves him conscious: with a hold that can make him give up, that wins the match.

Specials

Each wrestler can have one special skill (Skill Edit's Special, 15 edit points). What each does, from the game's code:

Strategy

• Build up. Go from □ to × to ○ grapples, and use the special and the finisher only when the opponent is clearly worn down.
• Time, don't mash. One press as you lock up. Mashing loses grapples.
• Work a body part. Moves that hurt the same part add up; a wrestler's durability for that part (Skill Edit) decides how long he lasts.
• Set up the dives. A medium grapple near a corner leaves him lying there for a dive; a strong one leaves him groggy on his feet.
• Know your submission holds. Only some holds can make an opponent give up; check your wrestler's moves in Wrestlers and Moves.
• Rest. Hold R2 when you have space, to get your breath back.

Match Rules

Match Settings

Every match mode starts on the same settings screen. Each mode fixes some rows (shown grey) and picks its own defaults; - Next - goes on to wrestler select.

Rule Switches

Six ON/OFF rules at the bottom of the settings:

Results

A match ends by Pinfall, Submission, KO (including a critical), Ring-out, DQ or a draw: Time-up, Double Ring-out or Double KO. The winner's screen shows Victory, or Champion after a tournament final, Conquest, and Title Won or Title Defended in Title Match.

Modes

Fourteen modes, in the order of the mode select:

One Night Match

A single match: singles, or tag when a corner holds a pair. Any side can be a player or the CPU, so it is also where you watch two CPU wrestlers. Choose the settings, then each wrestler, promotion by promotion; every roster wrestler has four costumes.

One Night Tournament

A knockout tournament for 3 to 16 entries, each a player or the CPU. Name it, enter the wrestlers, then play the bracket with Match, let the CPU play on with Auto, or Save and Quit to come back later (LOAD on the next visit). Tournament matches have no time limit, one fall and no count-outs, so every match has a winner. The winner gets the Champion screen.

Open League

A round robin for 4 to 64 entries. Every entry meets every other; the table ranks them by points (Pt), with the points difference (Diff), wins, win percentage and streaks. The menu has Match, Rankings, Auto, Save and Quit, and the league can end with a final league among the leaders.

Elimination Match

Five-on-five team battles. Each team has five places, Lead, Second, Middle, Vice and Captain, and there are three formats: Elimination (the winner stays on), Round Robin, and Round Robin (Tug). Pick from about 40 preset teams (WCW Main, nWo Army, AJPW Big 5, RINGS Best and more; ten of them appear after Fighting Road is cleared) or build your own in Team Edit.

Battle Royal

Up to four wrestlers in the ring at once, last one standing wins. Three kinds: Normal, Endless, and Over the Rope, where a wrestler thrown over the top rope is out.

Death Match

A single match or a Deathmatch Tournament in the special death match ring. The Bomb Timer (15 minutes by default) counts down, and when it runs out the ring explodes. Rope breaks, fouls and count-outs are off.

MMA Fighting

A single match or a tournament (the bracket calls it the Gruesome Fighting tournament) in the Octagon Ring: singles only, Submission Only, and no rope breaks, fouls or count-outs. With no ropes to bounce off, win by submission, KO or critical.

Dojo

The tutorial, with Coach Kotetsu Yamamoto. One lesson after another, most needing three successes to move on: weak, medium and strong grapples; the test of strength; grapples from behind and escaping them; counters after an Irish whip; running moves; whipping a foe into the corner and running in; corner grapples; attacking a downed foe; escaping holds; kicking out of pins; and diving off the top rope onto a downed foe and a groggy standing one. It is the quickest way to learn the timing (Controls).

Title Match

Locked until Fighting Road has been cleared once (open from the start with an All Unlocked patch). Four belts: HWA Heavy Single, HWA Heavy Tag, HWA Jr. Hvy Single and HWA Jr. Hvy Tag. Each starts vacant; the first winner is the 1st Champion, and the game keeps the lineage with each champion's defenses (Past Champions). Vacate Title strips the champion.

Options

Memory Card

Fighting Road

Fighting Road is the story mode: you create a young wrestler, train at Coach Kotetsu Yamamoto's dojo beside your classmate and rival Koichi Sakagami, and at graduation one company signs you. That decides which of six careers you play, from rookie to the top or out of the business. The story is told in scenes of dialogue with matches between them: 522 scenes, about 360 of them with a match. One playthrough is roughly 20 to 25 matches.

Choose Fighting Road on the mode select, then NEW GAME or LOAD.

Starting Out

• Your wrestler. You build the hero at the start with a limited number of edit points: 160 at first, more once the story has been cleared (Clearing Fighting Road). Before every story match the game asks Ready for the match?, and Edit my wrestler. lets you change him, moves included.
• Moves open up as you go. Move Edit offers the story hero a short list of moves early on, a longer one later, and the full lists from the middle of the story.
• Saving. Between scenes the game asks Save your progress so far?: Don't save., Save. or Save and quit., with three save slots. Pick up again with LOAD.
• Losing doesn't end the story. The story takes a different path after a loss, often toward a worse ending. There is no retry: if a match matters to you, save before the scene and load again.
• The matches are set. Each story match has its opponent, partner, venue, rules and CPU level fixed; the CPU level climbs from 1 in the dojo to 6 at the top.

What the Game Tracks

Hidden values steer the story. None of them is shown on screen.

Choosing Your Company

The dojo takes four scenes and three matches (two against Sakagami, one against the coach), with seven three-way answers in the dialogue. At graduation (scene 3) one company makes you an offer:

1. If your wrestler is not a heavyweight, Great Sasuke recruits you to Michinoku Pro, whatever your answers were.
2. Otherwise your most-used fighting style in the dojo matches gives one company 3 points and another 1 (table below).
3. Each dojo answer gives a point to one company or more. The company with the most points makes the offer; ties go to New Japan, then All Japan, FMW, America, and UWF last.

The answers and the points each gives are in Choices and Checks.

The Six Routes

Tips

• To reach a company, wrestle the three dojo matches mostly in a style that gives it +3 (table above) and pick the answers that favour it.
• Michinoku Pro needs a junior. The hero's division offers only Heavyweight until the story has been cleared once, so on a first game the junior route is out of reach. Clear any route first, or use an All Unlocked patch.
• Your style keeps mattering after graduation: it picks your faction on most routes.
• Star Points decide most good and bad endings. Win the big matches and take the bold answers in promos.
• Any ending unlocks everything the story unlocks, bad endings included (Clearing Fighting Road).

Route Map

Every scene, choice, branch and ending, read from the game's own scene scripts. Pick a route, then click a box: the panel beside the chart shows the scene's summary, its match, every answer with what it changes, and where each exit leads. Dialogue shows or hides each scene's lines in the chart. Links like #scene-3 open the map on a scene.

Choices and Checks

Every dialogue answer in Fighting Road and what it changes, and every point where a stat, the match result or your style decides the path. Answers with no listed change only alter the dialogue.

Notes: the weight class check at graduation reads the first byte of your wrestler's record (1 for every heavyweight). The game also keeps two promotion scores that your answers raise but nothing reads, and scene 3 holds an offer from New Japan with Liger that can never be picked: traces of a cut route (Cut and Unused Content). Scenes 520 and 521 are only used by the title screen's demo.

Edit Mode

Edit Mode makes new wrestlers and groups. Its menu: Wrestler Edit, Group Edit, Rename, Move Wrestler and Mode Select. Wrestler Edit holds the editors:

Edit Points

Skill Edit and Param. Edit share one budget of edit points. Every Skill Edit choice above the cheapest costs points (the costs are in the table below), and every rating costs one point for each step above 1. Skill Edit shows how many points the next step needs, and refuses it when the budget is spent. The points come from:

• the wrestler's starting budget;
• Edit Ranking: one point for each win, and a bonus at the top (Edit Ranking);
• PocketStation training, applied in Edit Ranking with Pocket St.

The Fighting Road hero has his own starting budget: 160, and up to 280 once the story is cleared (Clearing Fighting Road). The 30 wrestlers of Edit Ranking were built on 200 to 500 points.

Appearance

Wrestler Make builds the look from rows: Stance (the idle pose: Strong, Technic, Amateur, Power, Lucha, Shoot, Mystery, Koppo, Kobudo), Size (S, M, L), Face, then eight body parts, Chest, Waist, Bicep, Arm, Wrist, Thigh, Shin and Ankle, and finally the colours.

• Faces. 284 heads at the start, 298 with every Edit Ranking reward. Picking a roster wrestler's head also brings his costume, colours, stance and size; other heads come with a plain body.
• Parts. Each part has its own list, from trunks and boots to gis, suits and tights; many come in up to four builds.
• Colours. 34 colours in ten groups (skin, trunks and gear, pads and boots, gloves and mask, hair), each with red, green and blue from 0 to 31. A colour can be copied to another, and a whole group can step through the game's stock colour sets.
• More parts come with the Edit Ranking rewards: bear, scarred, sumo, women's, panda, tanuki and kappa parts, mitts and paws (Edit Ranking Rewards). The English All Unlocked patch also adds 13 unused heads and some unused body parts found on the disc, as Extra 1 and Extra 2 in the lists.

Skill Edit

Every row of Skill Edit, with the edit points each choice costs. Rows without costs are free.

Every wrestler's Skill Edit values are in his profile in Wrestlers and Moves.

Param. Edit

Ten attack ratings and ten defence ratings, each 1 to 10, at one edit point per step above 1. Every move names a main and a second attack rating and a main and a second defence rating; the main ones count three times as much (Wearing Down).

Move Edit

A wrestler has 57 move slots, one for each situation and button: four standing strikes, running attacks and counters, dives, thirteen front grapples, six from behind, two reversals, eight on a downed opponent, three in the corner, two taunts and six team moves. Each slot offers the moves of its kind, and a stronger button offers the weaker moves too: a strong grapple slot can hold any grapple. Moves lists them all.

• Finisher (the red 必 mark): exactly one. It shows on wrestler select, gets +2 on both attack ratings, and is the only move a Finisher-type wrestler can score a critical with.
• Signature moves (the blue 得 mark): up to four, +1 on both attack ratings.
• Shout: each move can come with his first voice, his second voice, or none.
• Move Edit shows the chosen move's Main and Sub ratings and how well it suits the wrestler (Chem.).
• Two moves, Muscle Buster and Phoenix Kick, join the lists at Edit Ranking reward level 9.

CPU Logic

CPU Logic sets how the CPU wrestles with him, situation by situation: apart, grappling, behind the foe, after an Irish whip, foe in the corner, foe down (near a corner, mid-ring, face up, face down), foe dazed, foe behind him, foe outside, taunting, and his Persona (Stubborn, Caution, Adaptable, Teamwork). Each situation has a column for how hurt the foe is (low, medium or high damage, nearly out), and each action a percentage: the chance the CPU picks it. Actions named after a button use that slot's move.

Every wrestler's CPU logic is in his profile (Wrestlers and Moves, the CPU Logic tab).

Groups, Names, Saving

• Group Edit makes your own promotions, with a logo painted in Group Logo. Move Wrestler moves a wrestler to another promotion; Rename renames the roster.
• Name Entry uses the game's kana and letter grids (they stay in Japanese). Move Name gives his finisher a name of your own.
• Save Menu: Save, Load and Delete. Deleting a wrestler also removes his records in Title Match, Open League, the elimination teams and the tournaments. The edit wrestlers are kept on the memory card with everything else (Memory Card); Trade copies them to another card.
• An edit wrestler has one look: all four costume choices on wrestler select show it.

Edit Ranking

An underground shoot-fighting ladder: in an arena funded by the Bellwood Foundation, the world's rich watch fights between men too strong or too brutal for the spotlight. Your edit wrestler enters at the bottom of a ranking of 30 and challenges those above him. You don't control the matches: you shape him with his ratings and CPU logic, and the CPU fights.

Each win earns an edit point, and wins raise the reward level, which unlocks new Wrestler Make parts, voices, two hidden moves and two music tracks for every edit wrestler (Edit Ranking Rewards). The level is kept in the save and never goes down. The 30 opponents are built-in edit wrestlers, each with a profile of his own; their moves and ratings are in Wrestlers among the Edit Ranking group.

Wrestlers and Moves

Every wrestler and move, from the game's own data. Click a wrestler for his full profile: his Skill Edit values, his ratings, every move he uses and how the CPU fights with him. Each profile has its own link to share, and can be compared with a second wrestler.

Secrets

Fire Pro Wrestling G has no unlock codes: everything opens by playing Fighting Road and Edit Ranking. The All Unlocked patches open it all from the start.

Locked Wrestlers

25 wrestlers start locked, and clearing Fighting Road frees all of them at once (any ending will do):

Clearing Fighting Road

Reaching any ending of Fighting Road, good or bad, unlocks:

• the 25 locked wrestlers;
• Title Match mode;
• the FR:GOOD and FR:BAD tracks in the match music;
• ten more preset teams in Elimination Match;
• Staff Credits in Options;
• Junior Heavy for the story hero, which opens the Michinoku Pro route;
• more starting edit points for the story hero: 200, then 240 with the top Edit Ranking reward too, and 280 when you have also seen 30% of the story's scenes (Options shows how many).

Edit Ranking Rewards

Wins in Edit Ranking raise the reward level. Each level opens new things in Edit Mode for every edit wrestler:

Button Codes

Cut and Unused Content

• A cut recruitment. Scene 3 holds a New Japan junior offer with Liger ("Liger would be on board with you, too.") that can never be picked, and the game keeps two promotion scores nothing reads: a cut route.
• Moves never made. 113 named moves have no animation, among them the Gory Special and the Spine Buster.
• Unused heads and parts. 13 heads and some body parts sit on the disc unused. The English All Unlocked patch adds them to Wrestler Make.
• A developer menu, with a story scene jumper, an arena viewer, a sound test and a move editor, is still in the game code but can't be reached. The patches leave it closed.

More in the translation's hidden content notes.

Japanese Glossary

Terms you'll see in the original Japanese game. The translation shows the English.

Q&A

Is there an English version?

Not from Human: the game was only released in Japan. This guide was written alongside an English fan translation, released as patches for your own copy of the game.

Real names or fake names?

Your choice: the English patches come with the real names or with the game's own stand-ins (Which Patch). The Names switch in the sidebar changes this guide to match.

Is this the Fighting Road of Fire Pro Wrestling World?

No. Fire Pro Wrestling World named its story mode after this one; G's Fighting Road is a different story, set in the Japanese and American wrestling of the late 1990s.

How do I unlock the hidden wrestlers?

Finish Fighting Road once, with any ending (Clearing Fighting Road). Or use an All Unlocked patch.

How do I get a particular company in Fighting Road?

Your style in the three dojo matches and your answers decide it; a non-heavyweight always goes to Michinoku Pro (Choosing Your Company).

Why do I keep losing grapples?

Pressing too early or more than once. Walk in and press once, right as you grab him (Grappling).

Why do my big moves get reversed?

The opponent is still too fresh. Strong moves only work once he's worn down: use weak and medium moves first (Strategy).

Why won't he give up?

Only some holds can make an opponent give up; others only wear him down (Pins, Holds and the Mat).

What are the three move fixes?

Three moves behave differently from the same move in another slot, and the All Unlocked patches fix them: the face-up Arching Boston Crab can now make the opponent give up, Low Blow from behind counts as a foul, and the Haruki Special from behind can be a critical. The other patches keep them as released.

Will the patches touch my saves?

No. The save format is unchanged, and saves from the Japanese game work with every patch. With an All Unlocked patch, loading an old save also unlocks everything in it.

Does the translation work on an emulator?

Yes: the patches make a disc image that runs in a PlayStation emulator. It has been tested in DuckStation.

How do I make a wrestler fight like someone in the roster?

Start from him with Base Wrestler in Wrestler Edit: you get his moves, ratings and CPU logic, then change what you like. His profile in Wrestlers and Moves shows everything you start from.

Credits and Legal

This guide is a non-commercial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Human Entertainment, Spike Chunsoft or any successor. Fire Pro Wrestling G and its names, characters and trademarks belong to their owners.

The text is written in our own words from the game's code and data, its own Dojo lessons, and the sources below. It contains no scans or images from any printed guidebook. The screenshots are from the English fan translation.

The controls draw on BrownDerby's Fire Pro Wrestling G controls page on StrategyWiki and the PSX Data Center entry for the game. Details of the modes draw on the Japanese Wikipedia article on the game.

AI assisted with this guide.

The guide text is shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0; see LICENSE). You're free to share and adapt it, as long as you credit this guide and share alike.

Contributing

Corrections welcome: open an issue at github.com/kactusken/Fire-Pro-Wrestling-G-English, or with anything you would like added.