Ultimate Muscle: The Path of the Superhero

Once upon a time, a clever toy company created a generic, simple line of flesh-tone action figures from minute amounts of rubber. "M.U.S.C.L.E." figures were plain wrestling fellows that did nothing, and were fun, but toss-away toys that belonged in bubble-gum machines. You could fit an entire Federation of these guys in one pants pocket. That evolved into a cartoon show that rivals Ultra Man in its craziness. Who'd have thought that years later, they'd be the center of a video game fun-zone and still be entertaining?!

Back in their creation, the One to watch was King Muscle. The burly, experienced grappler could take on any foe your imagination could present to him. He was the Andre the Giant of the miniature rubber wrestling world. Now, in Ultimate Muscle: The Path of the Superhero for GBA, you are given the challenge of molding the King's son, Kid Muscle, into the warrior his dad once was. To do so, you must battle through the various opponents and gain experience and skills. Realistic and fair, I think.

Lest you think this is a wrestling game a la WWE "whatever"-- think again. The rules, moves and characters here are out of bounds. In those "other" 'rasslin games, you cannot fight a cellular phone who will whip you with his antenna and taunt you with comments about receiving a "collect call from pain!" There are a host of colorful, refreshing characters to experience. It's almost fun being beat up by these guys -- just so you can see their various finishing moves and flamboyant styles. Still, your goal is to win and exceed your (lack of) expectations. Your Father was the Master, and you start with very little skills.

You can start in a Training mode, which will tutor you on various moves, combos and attacks. Once you feel up to it, you can move onto "Story Mode", "Survivor", "3 vs 3", or head to head against a linked GBA opponent. There is no traditional "3-count" for victory, but instead you must pummel your opponent into a knockout situation like a fluffier version of Mortal Kombat. 

Story mode starts you as the Kid, and you are weak and inexperienced. Again, the goal being to win matches and gain abilities. One by one you will (hopefully) move through the ranks to become the Ultimate Muscle hero. Not an easy task. The opponents graduate steeply in their abilities, and you must use some serious hand/finger action just to keep from being pummeled. Achieving the Ultimate Muscle goal is very rewarding, but your hands will hurt so badly, high-fives will have to be done with your feet.

"Survivor Mode" allows more freedom in selecting players (not being stuck with the Kid), and you can unlock choices as you progress. 3 on 3 mode pits a team against a team... with the "last man standing" rule. You are done when you have no more able wrestlers available. All of the modes are the same: fast action, insane moves and bizarre opponents. You half expect to see Mothra come up next. The whole thing feels like some Anime freak show.... but in a good way!

The graphics are good, but not great. Sometimes blocky and primitive to the point of annoyance. You are provided some interesting choices for platforms on which to battle, but sometimes the backgrounds are lost in the fury of battle. Not much time to admire the scenery.

I think the sound is the biggest technical shortcoming. Most GBA games I experience have decent sound once you use a headphone. In this case, not even that enhancement was an asset. I found such little difference, I unplugged and just played it "open air". Poor music and "tinny" crashing sounds. Not good considering the development obviously involved. 

Aside from the technical issues, it plays fun and was a refreshing escape from the "real" wrestling games on the market. Just as in a title such as "Outlaw Golf," it is nice to take a genre, keep some basic rules but not take it too seriously. There is plenty of variety with more than 20 wrestlers to experience. It is possible to keep within the intentions of a format, without having to abide by the restrictions of reality. What else would you expect when tiny pieces of molded rubber battle until the Ultimate Muscle is declared?

Gameplay: 7.5
Lots of fun, but some of the moves were too hard to execute with intention. I found myself just doing the "Hail Mary" thing and pressing all the buttons at once -- in hopes that I could topple my opponent. The combos and finishing moves were outstanding, but usually hard to do on purpose. In Story mode, playing the Kid, you get better used to things, but if you're tinkering with various players in other modes, expect to re-learn everything over and over. There is a play-by-play text-based announcement system, which I mostly ignored, but was nice all the same.

Graphics: 7 
A weakness that might not have been necessary. I visualize a room full of creative minds, day after day,  brainstorming on cool moves and ways to demolish one another... then spending one afternoon actually laying out the design. That may be harsh, but that's the feeling you get.

Sound: 5.5
The music and sounds were below what I'd expect from a player like Bandai. Even though they have thrown in sounds from the actual TV cartoons, they are sporadic and there isn't enough clarity to enjoy the banter. Fortunately, you are so absorbed in the rest of the game, sounds are the least of your worries. 

Difficulty: Hard
I found it satisfyingly challenging to get through Story mode with the Kid. To be frank, he's useless at first. It's like moving a bag of sand through mud. My first (several) attempts were short, ugly matches. I lost, but learned. The tutoring mode was barely helpful. It took a lot of work, but the pay-off was nice.

Concept: 8 
Breaking the boundaries of any genre is usually a good thing. To do it so in-your-face is even better. Not holding to the norms of "real" wrestling games, UM stretches beyond and makes it fun to grapple again. Expect to see the old favorites experiment with this type of thing. Look for future games in which Hulk Hogan can pile-drive The Rock from 30 feet in the air in some kind of "no rules" scenario. Just remember who did it first.

Multiplayer: 
You can link up another GBA player via the link cable, though I did not attempt this. I imagine that could be some serious, taunting fun. 

Overall: 7.5
An excellent game with only technical shortcomings to prevent a higher score. Such things remind me of the beauty of the old platforms... in which you had only the gameplay to keep you interested -- versus fancy graphics and dramatic sounds compensating for a otherwise boring game. Paying attention to the various power bars will make the experience more rewarding, as success is enhanced by those hints.