Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling

When I reviewed Chiki-Chiki Boxy Racing last year, I concluded that it was a cute game that was a little too simplistic for its own good. Fast-forward a year and I'm about to make almost the exact same argument against developer Pocket's follow-up, Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling. This is a colorful new beat 'em up that plays like a faster-paced version of 8-bit games like Pro Wrestling on the Nintendo Entertainment System. It's a fun wave of nostalgia that is incredibly easy to get into, but much like last year's racing game, I'm not sure how much staying power this fighting game will have.

While 2K Sports spends millions of dollars trying to make their games look as much like a WWE pay-per-view event as possible, Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling has gone the opposite direction. There are no storylines, no backstage drama and no obnoxious intro songs, because this is a no-frills battle where we mostly mash buttons and wait for the opponent to screw up.

When I say there's no story, I mean it. About the closest you'll get to a narrative is a single-player campaign that sees you climbing the Grand Slam ranks in hopes of winning the title. This involves 28 events split across seven tournaments, including one-on-one matches, tag-team fights and the always-popular battle royale free-for-all.

What's fun is that these events are held in in some of the world's most dangerous locations. When we're not stuck in some stuffy old stadium, our wrestlers are fighting it out next to an erupting volcano, on a freezing cold iceberg and amongst the animals in the middle of the woods. These stages also deliver some unique obstacles, such as a tornado ripping through the ring, ice forming on the mat and hot, hot lava slowly invading the playfield. Unfortunately, there are only a few of these levels, so you'll end up seeing the same few locations and obstacles over and over again.

And when it comes down to it, that's far from the only problem with Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling. This is a simple game that just about anybody can get into. That's good if all you're looking for is an accessible party game to play for a few minutes, but anybody looking for depth will be sorely disappointed. The various fighters don't have very many moves, to the point where the two main attacks are both mapped to the same button. You can jump, grapple and charge up for a special attack, but there's not a lot of technique here.

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It doesn't help that the computer opponents are playing on easy mode. No matter how difficult the tournament is supposed to be, you should be able to win each event on the first try. And not just win, but beat the opponent handily. Usually in less than a minute. A lot of the computer opponents can be handled by just repeatedly using the same charge attack, which is terrible practice for the much more competitive online multiplayer mode. This is definitely one of those games that is better when going up against other human opponents.

This is one of those cases where just adding a little more of everything would have gone a long way. Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling doesn't have enough locations to fight in, characters to play as, moves to master or modes to take part in. Hell, even the character creator is a snooze. There are some silly masks, shirts and accessories you can put on, but it's a lot more limited than you would expect.

And that's true of Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling as a whole. This feels like the first draft of a game that could be really cool. A proof of concept. They have a lot of the basics in place, but not much else. It's simple to a fault, and I can't imagine anybody being satisfied by the skimpy single-player experience. And while the multiplayer mode is certainly better, the shallow gameplay and repetitive stages won't hold your attention for long. Give it an hour and you'll want to tap out.