AEW: Fight Forever delivers N64 nostalgia at a cost

digitaltrends.com:

The rise of All Elite Wrestling hasn’t just been great news for wrestling fans looking for an alternative to WWE; it also stirred up excitement for fans of wrestling games. Those who grew up with playing games like WWF No Mercy on Nintendo 64 have been waiting for a return to arcade-style wrestling, something that 2 K’s simulation-focused take on WWE doesn’t deliver. All Elite Wrestling: Fight Forever, the promotion’s debut game, looks to return us to those nostalgic glory days.

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But don’t get too excited just yet. While new footage premiered this week showing off a full match was promising, playing it was a different story. I took the game for a spin at Gamescom and walked away unsure of what to expect from the final product. While its approach to arcade wrestling has potential, AEW: Fight Forever is going to need a fair amount of polish before it hits the ring. A good gimmick can only get you so far with a crowd.

To properly test the game, I pit Kenny Omega up against Adam Cole — a dream match, no doubt. What’s immediate off the bat is that AEW: Fight Forever really isn’t trying to emulate the live TV experience. Wrestler entrances aren’t recreated, as the camera only shows the character models walking down the ramp for a moment before hitting the bell. There’s no ringside commentary, so you’ll just hear the roar of the crowd and some bumps while playing.

Some fans may enjoy that stripped-down approach, especially if they don’t really care about the simulation aspect of games like WWE 2K22, but that lack of extra detail does leave the experience feeling a little empty. If large ideas like that are missing from the final game, what others might get cut from the roster?

None of that would matter if the core