PAX: WrestleQuest finds a beautiful harmony between RPG and pro wrestling

destructoid.com:

The world of wrestling is filled with starry ideals and crushing defeats. The in-ring athletics and backstage politics form a theater that’s all its own, wrapped up in layers upon layers of performance and genuine moments. With WrestleQuest, Mega Cat Studios wraps all of that up and puts it into an RPG.

I got some hands-on time with WrestleQuest at PAX East 2022, where I got to see how this combination plays out. The story follows several wrestlers, with two in particular taking the lead. They live in the toybox world where everyone is into wrestling in some fashion. The idealistic Randy “Muchacho Man” Santos believes in the ring, working to achieve his goals with his own two hands. Meanwhile, Brink Logan is a jobber; he takes the fall for other wrestlers, buying into the world in hopes that his dedication will pay off.

Through these two lenses, I got to see the world Mega Cat is creating for WrestleQuest. And so far, I’m very intrigued.

To be clear up-front, I’m not an avid wrestling fan. I’ve watched a few of the big shows, and it’s really hard to exist in this industry without knowing at least a bit about wrestling. I’ve even played a pretty decent number of wrestling games, though those have struggled to give me what I want out of a virtual wrestling experience.

WrestleQuest feels like the answer. It’s about the world of wrestling, in RPG form. Turn-based battles act out the matches, as your party of wrestlers can choose between basic strikes or a variety of moves, ranging from simple grapples to high-flying stunts or more.

The battle system itself feels very similar to Mario RPGs, like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, or even more recently Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Pick an action from a menu and act it out, and hit