Hissing Kitties
The character list includes a total of 20-plus female warriors. That means you'll get to ogle and drool at 40, erm, fists bouncing around the ring. Many characters need to be unlocked, but that should come as no surprise. These gals are designed every bit as painstakingly as those in Dead or Alive or any fighting series, except they all have their own unique gimmicks on top of their individual proportions and features.
Almost every fantasy personality your dirty little mind can think of is fulfilled by one of the wrestlers. Are you like Diamond Dave in that you're hot for teacher? Then pick Miss Spenser, with her prim and proper outfit. Aisha looks like Britney Spears, but her attitude is a little closer to bad-girl Pink.
These personas extend out to the girls' ring entrances. For example, the ninja of the group, Bloody Shadow, appears from out of thin air onto the stage. There, she's atop an elephant-sized frog, and then does a massive swan dive into the ring. Anesthesia, the naughty nurse, sits in a doctor's chair mid-ring and does a little self-checkup using a thermometer and a stethoscope. Okay, it's not as kinky as some of you perverts think, but it still keeps with the wrestler's character. Entrance music is done by some of Konami's best Bemani composers -- including famed sound designer Akira Yamaoka.
Wait? This is a wrestling game?
Bedtime Stories
Story mode also takes full advantage of the characters' traits. I played through as Miss Spenser, the teacher. Her motivation is finding a truant student of hers, who just happens to be Candy Cane -- the punk-rocker with a guitar and red pigtails who wears a sexy plaid skirt. She finally confronts her, but Candy is not willing to leave the competition. This leads to a mud-wrestling match between the two. Miss Spenser won, and Candy still wasn't cooperating -- instead choosing to run away.
