

WWF King of the Ring on NES is exactly what you’d expect from late-'90s wrestling games—clunky but weirdly charming. You’ve got all the big names: Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Macho Man… even Yokozuna, who somehow moves faster here than he ever did in real life. The roster’s solid, but the real fun is making your own wrestler and throwing them into the ring to see how long they last.
Matches are a mix of button-mashing chaos and figuring out which moves actually work (spoiler: not all of them). The King of the Ring tournament’s the main draw, but if you’re not ready for that, you can just beat up Shawn Michaels in a one-on-one until you get the hang of it. The controls take some getting used to—half the time, you’ll accidentally clothesline yourself—but once it clicks, there’s something satisfying about landing a piledriver just right.
It’s not the smoothest wrestling game out there, but if you grew up with this era of WWF, it’s a nostalgia trip worth taking. Just don’t expect Bret Hart to look anything like Bret Hart.
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