3-Count-Bout

The world of Pro Wrestling was at its peak in the late 80's and early 90's, and this rabbid popularity spread around the globe like wild fire. It's no surprise, then, that there were a litany of wrestling video games produced during this time as well - along with other forms of media that either licensed the likenesses of popular wrestlers or an entire property like the (then) WWF and WCW. In order to circumvent expensive licensing agreements, many publishers opted to create their own spin on the genre. While some of these games would go on to be legendary in one way or another, like the Fire Pro Wrestling series by Spike Chunsoft, others would eventually fall into obscurity. And that, my friends, is where we find this much maligned wrestling game on the Neo-Geo. 

Coming out hot on the heels of Capcom's 1993 wrestling hit Saturday Night Slam Masters, SNK released their first dedicated wrestling game on the Neo-Geo, 3 Count Bout (or Fire Suplex in Japan). 3 Count Bout was critically well received when it was released, and garnered enough initial popularity to be the tenth most popular arcade game in Japan that year according to Japanese publication Game Machine. Despite a warm reception upon release, 3 Count Bout has gone on to be one of the least revered games in the Neo-Geo library with many long-time fans decrying it is their least favorite game - even coming in under complete stinkers like The Legend of Success Joe, Fight Fever, and Power Spike 2. 

While it saw some success in the arcade and a decent marketing campaign in Japan upon release, 3 Count Bout was never ported to any home consoles of the day - unlike Capcom's Saturday Night Slam Masters. This wasn't too uncommon with the Neo-Geo in the early days of the hardware, though. Mainly the fighting games were the only ones to get meaningful ports to other hardware while the rest of the library was exclusive to the platform for many, many years. I don't have many nice things to say about this game, to be frank, so let's get this over with. 

Pro Wrestling characters are always a raucous bunch with lavish costumes, silly names, and what used to be borderline offensive tropes of various nationalities or people. It's like a hyper-masculine, drag soap-opera power fantasy made specifically for the white, cis-gendered, heterosexual male demo, and SNK leans heavy into these stereotypes for each of the characters. There are 10 wrestlers to choose from, each with their own signature entrance, style, and move set. I'm not familiar enough with the world of pro wrestling to say if these characters resemble or rip-off popular wrestlers of the day, but I've heard others say as much.

The general gameplay cadence is what you'd expect from a wrestling game; you move around an arena getting close enough to your opponent to either hit them or grab them. You can also perform other wrestling tropes like bouncing off the sides of the arena, throwing your opponent in to the ropes for a close line bounce, and other moves. Wrestling is all about grappling, though, and it's here where the mechanics and AI begin to get in the way of your enjoyment. 

When you grab your opponent the gist of the mechanics turns into a button mashing fest to see if your grapple is successful or if your opponent can break your hold and reverse your more. While this may work okay against a human opponent, SNK tuned the difficulty of 3 Count Bout so aggressively that 99% of the time the AI will reverse your grapple no matter the difficulty setting. This game is infuriating to play alone after the first battle, and unless you have a friend to play with you won't stick around very long to explore everything the game has to offer. 

Still, if you manage to make it past the first two fights, there are some alleyway bouts you can partake in outside of the arena on your way to the end game. These street fights don't bring much new to the table rather than extra items to pick up scattered around the playfield you can use to whack your opponent with - very much like ADK's GanGan (Aggressors of Dark Kombat) that would release the following year. Overall, everything here just feels slow and bland compared to better works in the genre. 

Graphics are typical Neo-Geo fare, with big, detailed sprite work. Sadly, the animation is quite choppy due to the number of characters and their intricate move sets on a 102 meg cartridge. A little extra memory or smaller sprites with more animation would have gone a long way in making the game more appealing. As it stands, the game does not hold up as well as other Neo-Geo releases from 1993 like Samurai Shodown, Sengoku 2 and Fatal Fury Special. Music and sound effects are also just fine - nothing special to mention. 

As you can tell, I’m not at all a fan of this game. Releasing so close to Capcom's Saturday Night Slam Masters, 3 Count Bout feels especially bad in the shadow of that game's approachability and finesse. Despite controlling well enough for a slower-paced wrestling game, the ridiculous AI gets in the way of any fun you might have, and the gameplay isn't engaging enough for friendly competition with a human opponent either as there are much better ways to spend your time. Like, you know, playing a good wrestling game.

So, how much is a copy if you must "catch'em all?" On AES a complete Japanese release will run you just over $100 with the US version sitting around $300 or more. The MVS arcade cartridge will cost around $100 or so, and the Neo CD release is under $50. As I mentioned above, there were no home ports during the 90's. Outside of emulation, the only version you can purchase these days to play on modern hardware is the $8 Arcade Archives release on current platforms. Still, even spending $1 on this game is a gamble of epic proportions. 

I mean, if you're going for a full set of SNK titles for your Neo-Geo platform of choice, 3 Count Bout is a "cheap" pick up as one of the more affordable games on the hardware. For everyone aside from the most ardent shelf-collectors, 3 Count Bout is a hard pass.