Shin Nihon Pro Wrestling: Tōkon Endō – Brave Spirits

Description

Shin Nihon Pro Wrestling: Tōkon Endō – Brave Spirits (New Japan Pro Wrestling: Tōkon Road) is a licensed professional wrestling game published exclusively in Japan. It features wrestlers from New Japan Pro-Wrestling under their real names, accompanied by entrance music, recorded voices, signature gestures, and recognisable finishing moves. The roster includes established performers such as Tatsumi Fujinami and Riki Choshu, while wrestlers including Great Muta, Power Warrior, Super Strong Machine, Tiger Mask, and Jushin Thunder Liger appear as unlockable characters. The game offers two principal modes, IWGP and Exhibition, focusing on individual matches, tag-team competition, and pursuit of New Japan’s IWGP championship.

The wrestling system assigns strikes and kicks to separate buttons, while combinations with the Z trigger perform throws, submission holds, and pin attempts. Counterattacks occur through correctly timed inputs, and the game displays the name and command of a successfully performed move on screen, helping players learn each wrestler’s techniques during play. Singles and tag-team matches are supported, with tag matches allowing up to four people to compete simultaneously. A practice option teaches the basic controls, while Controller Pak support enables character training, championship-belt records, and an artificial-intelligence learning feature that records a player’s actions so the resulting behaviour can be used by a computer-controlled wrestler.

Tōkon Road – Brave Spirits was Yuke’s first Nintendo 64 wrestling game and appeared alongside the developer’s Tōkon Retsuden series on PlayStation, sharing its license while being designed for the superior N64 hardware and native four-player support. Retrospective Japanese commentary has praised its approachable controls, accurately reproduced wrestling moves, helpful command display, and suitability for multiplayer sessions, while describing its character models and entrance presentation as comparatively plain. The game is an early example of Yuke’s licensed wrestling titles that would become global mainstays over the subsequent two decades. It saw a direct N64 sequel later the same year that greatly expanded the player roster.