Original Release: Tecmo, 1987, NES
Other Releases: Wii (2007), 3DS / Wii U (2014), Switch (2019)
A very simple, cute and fast-paced adaptation of sumo wrestling.
Tsuppari Oozumou (NES, Tecmo, 1987)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
This cartoony and fairly simple sumo simulator is somewhat reminiscent of a Kunio game, but is by Toma (apparently a subsidiary of Tecmo?) instead of Technos. You name your rikishi, then you go through a non-stop series of one-on-one matches to work your way up the sumo charts. There doesn’t seem to be a way for the game to end — win and you rise, lose and you fall in the charts, but you just keep on automatically getting assigned to fight another one of the wrestlers. The one place where this pattern is broken up is that after every few matches, it will be “Food Time” and your strength increases by a little bit. I think the structure is basically pretty similar to Ring King.
I’m kind of giving the game a 3/5 by default because I’m not Japanese, I don’t speak Japanese and I understand nothing about sumo (which is pretty much exclusively a Japanese sport). So there could be some nuanced move-countermove strategy to the gameplay that I’m entirely missing. I was able to run through the first five or six matches I ever played, however, simply by pressing the attack constantly and alternating buttons. Eventually you run into a guy that just throws you constantly, or a guy that no-sells everything you do and gradually wears you down until he can toss you out of the arena, and it may be that there’s a specific strategy to counter that. But it may also be that this is the point of “Food Time”, basically there are guys you can’t possibly beat until you’ve leveled up some.
If the latter of those possibilities is true, then that does turn the game into kind of a repetitive grind. The core gameplay is actually pretty fun, and the presentation is about as cute as it gets, but both you and all the opponents share the exact same sprite that is just palette-swapped (with some dudes having shades of green and purple skin for variety).
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