WWF Royal Rumble

WWF Royal Rumble is a Super NES and Sega Genesis game from the WWE's family-oriented mildly violent heydays of 1993. Much like in its predecessor, WWF Super WrestleMania, the player has a selection of all male wrestlers to choose from. Players can play either One-on-One, Tag Team, Triple Tag Team, or the newly added Royal Rumble match.

After choosing One-on-One, Tag Team, or Triple Tag Team, you must choose One Fall, Brawl, or Tournament stipulation. One Fall features an in-ring referee. It uses the basic method of 3-count pinfalls and count-outs, should a player stay outside of the ring for 10 seconds. In a Brawl, however, the referee is absent. This allows unlimited time outside the ring and the no-holds-barred rule. Cheat moves such as eye raking and choking are allowed at all times. The Brawl match doesn't require a pinfall win; instead, the first player to be entirely drained of energy "submits" in defeat. In a Tournament, a player must battle through the entire roster to win the championship belt. This follows the One Fall rules and is playable through One-on-One and Tag Team.

A One-on-One match is exactly as it sounds. In the most conventional match type, one wrestler will take on one opponent (a friend or the computer) for a face-to-face bout.

A Tag Team match is made up of two teams of two wrestlers. Whenever one wrestler gets tired, they can tag in their partner (for SNES, using A or B to tag in a partner). Before a Tag Team match starts, you will choose a wrestler, then the computer or the second player will choose a wrestler. After that, the player will choose his partner, and the computer or second player will do the same. The same formula applies for the Triple Tag Team match, only with an extra wrestler on both teams.

The Royal Rumble begins with two wrestlers, and more adversaries enter as wrestlers are eliminated. Elimination is caused by throwing an opponent over the top rope to the outside or the ring. To do so, one must drain their opponent's energy bar and with their back against the ropes, grapple the tired opponent and Irish whip them toward the ropes. At the end of a Royal Rumble, score rankings are shown giving a wrestler's total time in the ring along with their number of opponents eliminated.

The game presents crisp and colorful graphics quite similar to its predecessor; however, it boasts more new features. Players may strike their opponent with steel chairs found outside the ring, and after knocking the referee temporarily unconscious, one may use cheat tactics such as choking and eye raking. To better avoid losing via count out, wrestlers may also roll into the ring from the south side; ring entry was previously only possible through the left and right sides.

Aside from adding more moves to the basic moveset, including the body splash and atomic drop, WWF Royal Rumble enables players to perform signature moves for some of the individual wrestlers, including Undertaker's Tombstone Piledriver and Mr. Perfect's Perfect-Plex. Oddly enough, while wrestler's like Bret Hart and Ric Flair use submission hold signatures, the game doesn't include a submission or "tap out" feature. Other than the Brawl match, victory must still be obtained by pinfall or count-out.

Had the ESRB been present around the time of the game's release, it would have probably recieved the E for Everyone rating with an Mild Animated Violence indicator on the back. While some of the characters can still be seen in today's WWE, others have retired or died since the creation of this video game.