AKI Corporation · 13 September 1996 · PlayStation Virtual Pro Wrestling

Winning and Losing

This page explains how a match of Virtual Pro Wrestling works: what hurts, what makes a pin stick, when a man gives up, how the computer opponent thinks, and what every option does. The buttons themselves are on the Play page; each wrestler's stats and moves are in the Wrestler Database.

Hidden health

Every wrestler starts the match with 255 points of hidden health, whatever his size. There is no health bar: the only gauge on screen is the SPIRIT icon in each bottom corner. You read your opponent's health from how long he stays down and how fast he kicks out.

Health keeps falling below zero. Around −100 a wrestler is finished: that is where pins stick, holds make him give up and KO moves can end the match.

How a match ends

There is no tag-team match: every bout is one against one, including the 5-a-side Elimination Match.

KO and the TKO rule

With TKO on in Rule Settings, a match can end by knockout. All four of these must be true at once:

• the move is one of the wrestler's KO moves (listed below);
• the man it hits is left at −100 health or lower;
• he is inside the ring and not in his special;
• a 1 in 4 roll succeeds.

Ordinary throws and throws that end in a pin can never KO. Only 100 moves, belonging to 42 wrestlers, are KO moves; the other 18 wrestlers cannot win by KO at all. With TKO off there are no KOs.

Ring-out

With Ringout Count on, the referee counts while either wrestler is outside: one number every 2 seconds, shown big on screen. At 20 (40 seconds) the man outside loses; if both are outside, the match is a draw. When both are back inside, the next count starts again from 0. With Ringout Count off you can stay outside as long as you like.

Going over the top rope to the floor, thrown or by a fall, costs 7 health and 5 spirit.

Time limit and draws

The Time Limit can be Unlimited, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes. The clock at the top right always counts up, in real time; when it reaches the limit the bout ends as a draw (Time Up!). A match is also drawn by a double ring-out.

The result screen shows the winner's name with a phrase such as Total Victory!, then a bar with the time and how it ended: ○ beside the winner, × beside the loser, △ beside both after a draw. Choosing Skip Match on the pause menu (Start) ends the bout as a Time Up Draw.

One fall or three

With Falls set to 3 Falls, a match is best of three. It ends when one man leads 2-0; otherwise all three falls are wrestled. A drawn fall counts as a fall won by both men.

Between falls, spirit and body parts start fresh (50 each), but health carries over, topped up:

Spirit and the Special

Spirit is each wrestler's fighting spirit, from 0 to 100. Everyone starts every fall at 50. It decides whether you can be pinned, whether you give up, whether you can counter, and at 100 it gives you the special move.

The SPIRIT icon

The SPIRIT icon in your corner of the screen (bottom left for 1P, bottom right for 2P) changes colour with your spirit, in steps of 10 (table below).

Spirit drifts back toward 50 on its own: about every 4 seconds it drops by 1 if it is above 50, and rises by 2 if it is below 50 (by 3 if it is below 31). The Spirit Gauge option in Game Settings only hides the icons; spirit still works the same.

Gaining and losing spirit

The levels that matter

The special move

When your spirit reaches 100, your wrestler strikes a short flash pose (you cannot act for about a second), his SPIRIT icon flashes white, and for 30 seconds he is in his special. After exactly 30 seconds his spirit drops back to 50.

During the special, hold Circle on the opponent for about a second and release: that is the special move, power 30. Six wrestlers have a hold as their special, which squeezes for 8 per second instead. While in the special:

• your spirit cannot fall: no losses from hits and no drift;
• you cannot be knocked out;
• every light strike knocks the opponent hard, as if it were the end of a long string;
• your pins are stronger: your spirit of 100 adds 25 to his kickout time, against 12 at spirit 50 (see Pins).

Damage

How much a move hurts

The six stats

Every wrestler has six offence and six defence stats, each from 1 to 5, and six body parts that go with them. Which stat a move uses depends on the move, not on the button:

Body is only ever 1 or 2, for everyone, on both offence and defence. Example: Stan Hansen has Arms offence 5 and Ric Flair has Arms defence 2, so every arm move Hansen lands on Flair does 30% more than its power. 40 of the 60 wrestlers have no dives at all; for them the dive inputs do nothing. Each wrestler's twelve numbers are in the Wrestler Database.

Body-part wear

Every move also wears down one of the victim's body parts, from 50 at the bell toward 0: 1 point for a light strike, up to 5 for a special (see the table below). Wear does not make the victim take more damage. It weakens his own moves that use that part: a part at 0 makes those moves do half their power. Body parts are fresh again at the start of each fall.

Move power by input

Power and spirit change are set by the input, the same for nearly every wrestler (the move names for each wrestler are in the database):

The hold grapple of some wrestlers is 22 to 24 even without a direction. A hold from behind is a squeezing hold for some wrestlers (6 per squeeze). Your spirit gain is 3 more when your health is below 48, and nothing changes the spirit of a wrestler in his special.

Strike strings

Each light strike in a row raises a hit count, and the reaction gets bigger the longer the string goes. Being knocked down resets the count.

A wrestler in his special always causes the big reaction.

Pins, Holds and Getting Up

Times on this page are in seconds; the game's own timers run in thirtieths of a second, and the formulas below use that unit.

Getting up

Pins and kickouts

Press Triangle next to a lying opponent to cover him, whatever put him down. Throws marked † in the move lists end in a pin by themselves. Once the cover is on, the pinned man has a kickout time:

The highest health at which a pin still wins, without mashing:

A kickout gives the man who kicked out +10 spirit. The pinner can let go with Square. With Rope Break on, a pin is broken when the man underneath is at the ropes. Outside the ring the referee does not count.

Holds and escapes

A hold (ground holds, holds from behind, and the specials that are holds) squeezes about once a second: 3 per squeeze for a ground hold, 8 for a submission special. The man in the hold has an escape time:

With Rope Break on, a hold whose victim reaches the ropes is broken (Rope Break!).

Give Up!

After each squeeze of a submission hold (marked ‡ in the move lists), the victim gives up if his health is below −100 and his spirit is below 90, as long as the man applying the hold is inside the ring. There is no give-up button: you cannot surrender, and the computer never taps early.

Counters

The CPU

Difficulty (Easy, Normal or Hard, in Game Settings) changes only how the computer wrestler plays. Damage, health, spirit and the rules are the same on every level. The computer presses the same buttons you do, through the same rules: every number on this page applies to it too.

Up close

When the computer is close to you, both of you are in the ring and it is free to act, 80% of its decisions are an attack:

From further away it walks in: straight at you 40% of the time on Easy, 60% on Normal, 80% on Hard, otherwise it wanders. When you run at it off the ropes, it meets you with the Circle counter-throw 70% of the time.

When you are down

On Normal and Hard the computer pins only from further off, and only once its own health is below 30. After pulling you up on Normal and Hard, with its health at 100 or more it goes for a tap grapple 40%, a hold grapple 20%, steps back 20%, dashes 12%, walks 5% and strikes 3%; with its health below 100 it steps back.

Reactions

On Easy the computer never reacts to what you do. On Normal and Hard, while it is standing free:

Escapes and mashing

How often the computer presses a button, every thirtieth of a second, when it is caught:

When pinned, it keeps pressing buttons, which counts as mashing.

Outside the ring

A computer wrestler alone outside heads back in when the count reaches 17 or its spirit is 71 or more. Before that it wanders about (80% on Easy, 40% on Normal, 30% on Hard), or goes back in, or taunts. If it has you in a hold outside, it lets go at count 16 to get back in.

Easy, Normal, Hard

Options

On the title screen, Options holds Load, Save, Belt Record, Game Settings, Rules and End. Press Circle on a two-value setting to switch it; on a setting with more values it opens a list. Defaults are in bold.

Game Settings

Rule Settings

Strategy at a Glance

More tips, and how the controls work, on the Play page.