Fire Pro Wrestling Returns for PS2 headed to US thanks to Agetec
Agetec has confirmed that they are set to publish Fire Pro Wrestling Returns in the U.S. for the Playstation 2.
Avid gamers may recognize the name as a series by developer Spike that has been long-published in Japan but rarely brought over to the US (Only two GBA titles made it over). It was originally developed on the Turbo Engine, the Japanese version of the TurboGrafx-16, but the series soon built up a devoted fan base, both in Japan as well as internationally, as the game grew popular on later systems. The previous US publisher, Bam Entertainment, is now defunct, but thankfully for fans it’s Agetec to the rescue.
The Fire Pro Wrestling series is known for its reliance on 2D character sprites, as well as customization options that give players hundreds of options for a created wrestler’s moves and appearances. Another trademark of the series is a roster of fictitious wrestlers (and more recently, mixed martial artists) divided into various federations, each with likenesses and styles suspiciously similar to those of actual pro wrestlers. Bam Entertainment addressed copyright issues by changing the appearances of the wrestlers in its pair of localized Fire Pro Wrestling games, but Agetec has not yet specified what it plans to do on that matter.
A release date hasn’t been set, but you can expect it either later this year or early next.
