Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E.

“Introductory Wrestling Course.”

“With only one ball left, your ability to
jump is eliminated.”
North American NES box art.

Hot dang, it’s been a hot minute since we last covered a wrestling game here on the Bad Game Hall of Fame! Needless to say, I’m a fan of professional wrestling as performance art, as well as some of the various attempts that have been made in the decades to recreate its magic in video game form. Lucky for me (for the purposes of this website), those games do end up being pretty lousy more often than not — especially titles hailing from the 8-bit era. Today, we get to cover a release that bears some historical provenance for the genre: The first wrestling game available on Nintendo’s Entertainment System / Family Computer. And which promotion was it who lent their license and blessings to this cartridge? The world-famous WWF? Perhaps Japan’s own NJPW?

As it would turn out, the brand to lend their intellectual properties to this pioneering game – also representing the console’s first third-party release and first licensed title [in North America] – weren’t even involved in the business of the professional wrestling industry. Rather, the game would be made to represent a line of collectible toys, simply made to depict fictional cartoon wrestlers. Actually, if we’re tracing things back to the source here; the toy line is the by-product of an established manga series, which the Japanese audience would more readily identify with their release of the game on the Famicom. But seeing as the toy line managed to muster up an international appeal independent of its source material, the USA too would receive a release of the game on the NES: Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E.

Now, I like to think I’m pretty well clued in to the history of professional wrestling. By contrast, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about M.U.S.C.L.E. / the Kinnikuman franchise… until the crash course I took prior to penning this article, that is. And while I’m certainly still no “domain expert” on the subject, I reckon I’ll at least know enough to take you through this unfortunate bit of video game adaptation. By my estimation, M.U.S.C.L.E. represents some of the worst of licensed laziness on the NES; with a developer putting the bare minimum effort into developing gameplay, so that the excuse can be made to plug in the pixelated likenesses of established characters and promptly call it a day. The end result is a release which not only fails to represent its source material, but which also fails to convey the basic concepts and conceits of wrestling. This article hopes to serve as the dirt sheet** on this cash-grab cartridge, as well as the oddly enduring legacy that it seems to hold in its home country.

** In professional wrestling terminology / slang, ‘Dirt sheet’ is the catch-all for newsletters and publications which report on the business details and internal politics of the industry — shattering the illusion of wrestling as being “real” in the process.

“Perform a Series of Continuous Back Drops.”

North American collector’s poster for the ‘M.U.S.C.L.E.’ toy line.

First things first, the question must be asked and answered: What the heck a M.U.S.C.L.E.? Breaking down the Americanized acronym, we’re left with ‘Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere,’ branding the line of miniature rubberized figures as we received them in the States. As established, these toys can be traced back to their origin as a Japanese collectible toy line (‘Kinkeshi’), and further back to a series of manga [and anime] titled Kinnikuman. With the manga seeing first publication in 1979, it was initially created to tap into and parody the popular “Giant Hero” genre — in particular, the spaceman Ultraman. Fairly quickly however, the setting and focus shifted to a fantastical take on professional wrestling; featuring a cast of good guy babyfaces (the ‘Seigi Chōjin’) versus bad boy heels (‘Zangyaku & Akuma Chōjin’). Our primary protagonist is the titular Kinnikuman, who fights for truth and justice [and to impress women]. He’s also the rightful heir to the throne of Planet Kinniku, whose parents thought him so ugly that they at one point mistook him for a pig and tossed him out of a spaceship… but at some point, you have to accept that trying to describe the plot intricacies of a gag manga is a fool’s errand, and that it’s not even worth attempting.

So, let’s just get down to the brass tacks, here. The wrestlers who participate in the matches and tournaments of the series consist largely of a race known as the ‘Chōjin’ — translating to literal “supermen.” There are a few regular ol’ humans in the mix as well, but they can eventually prove their worth as Chōjin if they demonstrate the tenacity for it. For the most part, Chōjin bear humanoid features and physiques, though you’ll also find the occasional character who embodies something like a living pyramid or anthropomorphic urinal. Remember: We’re talking about what began life as a humble gag manga, here. As far as the characters we’ll be dealing with in the game though, they’re all of the humanoid variety, considering the limitations of the hardware and the game’s design. And though the English manual doesn’t take great care to clarify it (considering that the larger franchise was largely unknown to that audience), Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E. takes place during the ‘Dream Chōjin Tag’ story arc; in a tournament to determine the world’s greatest duos wrestling team, and determine who among them is worthy to wield the almighty ‘Friendship Power.’

What’s worthy of note here is the fact that in North America – without the manga [or then-ongoing anime] to provide any sort of context – none of the 236 characters depicted in the toy line had so much as names given to them; save for rechristening Kinnikuman as ‘Muscle Man,’ and antagonist Buffaloman as ‘Teri-Bull.’ As a matter of fact, the whole endeavor for manufacturing and distributing the miniature figures was fairly low-rent: They initially all came in the same shade of flesh-tone plastic, boasted zero articulation (save for the slight flexibility of their rubbery material), and were sold in packaging made to resemble literal trash cans. In spite of all this, the line managed to do fairly well for itself, rating as one of the country’s best-selling toys of 1986 — coming in right behind the WWF’s own line of licensed figures.^[1] With the game’s original Famicom release acknowledged as November 8th, 1985, and the NES launch recorded as having been during October of 1986, the cartridge managed to land on North American shelves at the height of the collectibles popularity.

I’d also be remiss not to note the developer behind the game: Japan’s most notorious ghost programming house, Tose Software. The Japanese release (Kinnikuman: Muscle Tag Match) ranks as one of their earliest involvements on the Famicom — releasing shortly before November 1985’s release of infamous “first kusogē” Ikki. In collaboration with publisher Bandai, Tose would even be responsible for three of the four first third-party releases approved for the NES’ North American library: M.U.S.C.L.E., Chubby Cherub, and Ninja Kid.** Unfortunately, these early works of theirs have something of a reputation for being pretty crummy, with today’s Kinnikuman title slotting pretty squarely into that categorizing. While Tose would eventually prove themselves capable of greater games, we’re talking about the primitive days of first-time 8-bit development here — what may have well been the first cartridge they had been commissioned to try and produce, even! To expect something living up to Nintendo’s own standard of quality might not have been a reasonable expectation.

Now having far more than what was determined to be the necessary backstory to the game, it’s finally time to start covering its contents. Beginning with its roster, players will encounter eight wrestlers: Kinnikuman (again renamed as Muscle Man), Terryman (Kinnikuman’s best friend, shamelessly inspired by Terry Funk), Ramenman (dubbed ‘Larmen Man’ in the manual), Robin Mask (a British knight-type), Buffaloman (interestingly retaining his original name in the manual), Warsman (a Russian cyborg), Asuraman (a six-armed three-faced modeled after the Buddhist asura), and Geronimo (a somewhat stereotypical Native American on the side of good). This line-up demonstrates just one significant difference from the original Japanese release, as Geronimo takes the place of Brocken Jr.: A literal German Nazi who sports swastikas and SS-Totenkopf on his uniform, and attacks with a ‘Nazi Gas Attack’ inherited from his also-Nazi father. Needless to say – and as especially exacerbated by his later being grouped with the good guys in the anime and manga – his mere existence is highly problematic! Thus, his figurine was excluded as part of the American toy line, as well as his presence having no part in our version of the game.

Selecting either a one or two player game option from the menu, you’ll be taken to the character select to pick out two wrestlers comprising your tag team. If you wanna be canonical to the story arc this is meant to occur during, Kinnikuman and Terryman as ‘The Machineguns’ are your winning tag team; but truthfully, character choice doesn’t really matter much in the game. Rather than having any variances in stats or basic movesets, the only differentiating factor between characters are their ‘Special Techniques,’ requiring different controller inputs to execute. Even with all that being said, these moves seem to do an equal amount of damage to one another, so even this represents a largely cosmetic change. You can just go ahead and pick your favorite characters if you happen to have them. Personally, I’m partial to the team of Terryman and Geronimo; if only because they’re both studly hunks, and so that I can obnoxiously chant “U-S-A” during matches.

So, how about those matches? How do the core grappling mechanics here rate? Well, as it turns out, there really isn’t much in the way of actual “grappling” in this supposed wrestling game. As a matter of fact, attempting to press the attack button from within expected gripping distance will simply see you pushing your opponent away — as if to say “no grappling for me, please!” Rather, your primary offensive maneuvers amount to punches and flying kicks, as well as a couple of attacks contextual to the ring ropes (clotheslines and a leaping lariat). The only grappling attack at your disposal is a tricky-to-position backdrop, which rounds out your standard arsenal at a paltry five moves [of doom].*** Tacking on the abilities to jump and to tag in your partner, these basically constitute your full range of in-ring abilities — save for the character-specific specials mentioned earlier.

But here’s the thing about the basic attacks made available to you: They all suck. They basically all do a pittance of damage, and are near-impossible to trigger reliably given their precisely positional nature. Punches are the most consistent to connect, but depending on your angle or distance, you can just as easily inadvertently push away or backdrop your opponent. The flying kicks are the easiest to consistently execute – as they simply require you to press the attack button after jumping – but actually connecting with them is another matter entirely, considering the ability to sidestep provided by the two-axis movement. As such, matches basically come down to rapid button mashing while chasing your opponent, occasionally landing flat on your ass after failed aerials, and contending against an opponent following much the same playbook. Honestly, you’re both just killing time before you can perform your special techniques, and preparing for the inevitable mad dash when they are in play.

Needless to say, these special techniques / finishing maneuvers are the aces up your sleeve, and by far the most effective tools in your kit. Honestly, they’re the only attacks worth a damn at the end of the day, and you’ll quickly realize the value in using them exclusively. Of course, if they were available to be used at any given moment in the match, that wouldn’t make them very “special” now, would it? While future wrestling games would iterate to include mechanics like elaborate button combos or charging special meters in order to unleash your most devastating moves, M.U.S.C.L.E. takes a far more basic approach: Your ability to perform your special technique is governed by collecting a power-up orb, which the ringside ‘Trainer’ (Meat-kun in cameo role) will toss across the ring at random intervals during the match. You’ll briefly see this neutral benefactor appear behind the apron before he sends the so-called ‘Booster Ball’ on its way; and once it’s in play, it’s up for grabs by either team. And shortly upon grabbing this power-up, that wrestler can pretty effectively end the match in the following few seconds.

The race to the power-up is either the most entertaining or infuriating part of the match, depending on your perspective. It certainly makes for the most exciting moments in a given bout, to be sure. As the power-up can appear from either the bottom or top of the screen, you’re effectively made to hedge your bets on which side of the ring to stand on, or otherwise try to maintain a position in the center if you wanna play it safe. Be warned though that when playing against the CPU, they have the uncanny ability to begin moving toward the elusive booster on the first frame it appears on-screen — making every millisecond of your comparably pathetic human reaction time a liability. Your best bet may be to try and stun your opponent as close as possible to before the booster ball appears, so you have at least a second’s head-start to secure the package. Assuming that you’re able to nab it, it’s time to start spamming your special; damaging as much as 2/5ths of your opponent’s health (represented by five bars inside the scoreboard) with each hit, and typically allowing for immediate follow-up attacks as soon as your unfortunate opponent is back on their feet. Did I mention already that these moves can basically end the match immediately?

To give a brief rundown of just how busted some of these moves can be: Geronimo’s ‘Tomahawk Technique’ sees him toss an actual tomahawk across the screen that knocks an opponent down on contact, allowing for repositioning and immediate follow-ups. If you toss them at close range, you’re basically guaranteed hits with it, and can lock your opponent into an inescapable combo that lasts for as long as the power-up duration / until their health is completely depleted. Terryman’s ‘Bulldogging Headlock’ is similarly devastating as a close-range attack; as are Kinnikuman’s ‘Muscle Driver,’ Robin Mask’s ‘Tower Bridge,’ and Asuraman’s ‘Ashra Buster.’ Trickier to pull off are the three aerial specials; Ramenman’s ‘Fatal Kung Fu,’ Buffaloman’s ‘Hurricane Mixer,’ and Warsman’s ‘Bear Claws.’ These attacks send you leaping across almost the entire width of the arena like a Shane O’Mac coast-to-coast, but do give your opponent the opportunity to dodge out of the way. This doesn’t matter too much though when one connecting hit turns the momentum entirely in your favor, and can bring your opponent’s health down to the point where their movement is slowed / they’re made entirely vulnerable.

Japanese strategy guide for
Kinnikuman: Muscle Tag Match.

Knowing all this now, the question likely comes to mind: What are you supposed to do if your opponent grabs the booster ball before you do? Honestly, the answer may as well be to just lay down and die, as there’s often no real recourse against your superpowered rivals. If your opponent has a special that requires close range to initiate, you can attempt to keep your distance from them — which is made ever more difficult by the fact that the booster ball also grants increased speed to wrestlers. If your foe has an attack requiring a lunge or projectile, you can try to maintain constant side-stepping and hope it’s enough to dodge those horizontal hitboxes. Of course, if you’re already injured enough to where your speed is slowed / jumping is disabled, you may try desperately to crawl to your corner and tag in your fresher partner, so that they can eat the inevitable special attacks instead. All of this is far easier said than done, as the balance here is truly non-existent.

There’s a simple explanation as to why this wildcard element was even added to the game in the first place: The game’s producer – one Takashi Nakata – was absolutely awful at the game without them. According to a 29th anniversary**** book covering details of the history of the Kinnikuman franchise; Nakata struggled to get ahead in matches, and tasked the team with implementing something like “an element of one-shot reversal.”^[2] The compendium also confirms the fact that there were more playable characters that had originally been planned, but who ended up ultimately scrapped due to the inability to realize them in-game given their limited cartridge capacity. I have to imagine this larger roster would’ve included some of the likes of Sunshine, Big the Budo, and Screw Kid — who feature more prominently in the relevant story arc than Brocken Jr. or Warsman, but who are also altogether more difficult to render in the game’s art style.

At this point, we’ve practically said all there is to say about the core gameplay mechanics. I could mention that the single-player mode begins by presenting 180 second rounds in two-out-of-three falls matches; with the timer gradually ticking down faster with each successive match. It’s also worth noting that the single-player game continues on an infinite loop of matches, until such time as you’re eventually defeated. I should also point out that each new match switches out the ring for a new gimmick; with the standard ring being supplanted by a slippery icy ring, followed by a ring with damaging electrified ropes, before wrapping back around to the no-frills regular ring. Of these novelty stipulations, the electrified arena is the most notable, as it does keep you from fully utilizing your irish whips or bouncing off the ropes yourself. But even in this slightly more complicated set-up, nothing is taken away from how absurdly essential the booster balls are to winning the matches. And on account of this imbalance alone, the whole game is basically a bust: M.U.S.C.L.E. is less a wrestling game than it is a game of random chance, where whoever can guess where the booster ball will appear effectively sinches the match.

To even effectively measure the other mechanical merits of the game, you have to envision a theoretical version of it without the all-overriding booster balls at play. And if you get rid of those, you’re ultimately left with a pretty bare-bones affair; offering little in the way of variety (of characters, arenas, or stipulations), allotting for a bare minimum of moves, and generally playing out as one of the clunkier takes on the performance art that is wrestling. But at least this stripped-down version of the game might actually present a more skill-based play loop, where timing and tagging become the keys to victory they were likely originally intended to be. While it’s impossible to toggle the booster balls on / off as an option (never mind the complete lack of any options / match customization), and there’s no real way of convincing the CPU to not pursue the power-ups; you might manage to convince a friend to join you in ignoring them in 2-player mode, and attempt to wrestle as fair a match as possible. This may at least elevate the gameplay to the level of the basic-most competitive brawler possible, where you could maybe squeeze some small amount of entertainment value out of it.

Granted, we are talking about a 1985 release here; where and when you might forgive a video game for presenting the basic-most interpretation of a real life sport, on the merit that there weren’t really that many other releases so much as making the attempt. As a matter of fact, there were only something like a grand total of three or four pro wrestling-themed video games preceding the release of M.U.S.C.L.E. — all originating from the arcade domain. These games may well have been able to boast wider ranges of attacks, maneuvers incorporating the ring posts, outside-the-ropes combat, and the ability to actually end matches by pinfall [rather than KOs exclusively]; but they also had the advantage of superior hardware on their side, and likely more time and resources allocated to their development. And while it’s no small wonder than M.U.S.C.L.E. couldn’t compare to the likes of Technos’ Mat Mania or Sega’s Appoooh, there’s still something to be said for the fact that Tose were working within very limited means.

To give the game at least a small few credits: Its graphics are good enough for the era, with each character clearly recognizable from their anime / manga / toy counterparts. The sound design could also be a whole lot worse too; featuring crowd noise that isn’t too grating, and a couple jaunty jingles that play between matches. I can’t imagine it’d have killed them to add some musical accompaniment during the matches themselves, but perhaps we should be thankful we didn’t get one musical track looping across every match type. I’d also point out that presenting players with their pick of characters (rather than one pre-assigned team, à la Tag Team Wrestling) goes a little ways in incentivizing them to replay the game and try out different wrestlers and team configurations.  Eight is honestly a fine number for the roster, in providing 36 possible combinations of tag teams and representing most of the available fan-favorite characters.

All that being said, a few simple fixes really could’ve gone a long way in salvaging some of the sorrier aspects of the game. The most obvious change would be to rid the game of the damned booster balls, and replace them instead with some sort of meter that the wrestlers can fill over the course of the rounds before they’re able to pull out their special technique. Have it deplete over time while a combatant isn’t engaging in the match / tagged out, and you’ve got yourself some newfound incentives for players to try and maintain momentum in the game — not to mention replacing the game’s most busted mechanic for something far more functional. As for other potential improvements, some more wrestling moves certainly wouldn’t hurt: A few top-rope maneuvers, some actual holds and grapples, and maybe even some double-team moves. I’d have also just as soon swapped out the dedicated jump button for some other type of input; in order to open the game up to that larger variety of moves, and to bring the game more in line with a traditional wrestling formula. As cartoonish as the Kinnikuman series’ interpretation of professional wrestling may well be, offering a more conventional take on the medium might have served the game well.

Of course, the game we got is the game we got, and said game in this case is pretty underwhelming. For the general wrestling fan, Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E. fails to deliver a fully-featured imitation of the sport. For toy collectors and Kinnikuman fans, I don’t think the game does enough to encapsulate the unique charm and wilder conceits of the property. And even divorced of any of that context, you’re still left with a fairly clumsy brawler defined by a singular busted gameplay mechanic. As the North American audience’s first taste of third-party NES titles, it leaves little more than meager portions and sour taste.  But hey: At least it’s not Tag Team Wrestling! In comparing the first two wrestling titles available for the hardware – which hit store shelves on the same day in North America – M.U.S.C.L.E. can at least claim a squash victory over its hapless rival.

** Funnily enough, the non-Tose outlier here ended up being yet another wrestling title: Data East’s and Technos Japan’s Tag Team Wrestling, as converted from arcades by Sakata. And if you think I’m making M.U.S.C.L.E. out to sound like the worst NES wrestling title; boy howdy, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

*** Infamously, the man known as John Cena is known for sequence of five moves which he has used to end the vast majority of his matches over the course of a nearly 20-year career: A flying shoulder block, followed by a sitout hip toss, a side-release spinout powerbomb, the patented ‘Five Knuckle Shuffle,’ and concluded by an ‘Attitude Adjustment.’ While Cena’s finishing sequence has become synonymous with the dismissive phrase “Five Moves of Doom,” it was actually first used to describe the legendary Bret Hart’s closing combo of choice (Inverted atomic drop, Russian leg sweep, backbreaker, elbow drop, and a ‘Sharpshooter’ for good measure).

**** In case you’re curious why “29” is such a significant number for the Kinnikuman franchise: The pronunciation for the number in Japanese is “niku” — corresponding to the spelling / pronunciation of “Kin-niku-man.” Furthermore – with the pronunciation for Friday being “kin” – the ‘Japanese Anniversary Society’ unofficially deigned Friday the 29th (on any given month) as ”Kinnikuman Day,” as a testament to the franchise’s pop culture status in its native country. And so, making much ado over the 29th anniversary of the series in 2008 was all in the service of this goofy-ass pun.

“You Will Lose If You Run out of Your Super Power.”

“I don’t even need the push of my farts!”
Japanese Famicom box art.

Frustratingly, game releases in 1985 / ‘86 are still fairly difficult to track down reviews for — especially those from Japanese-language publications. What I can provide, however, is the potentially shocking statistic that Kinnikuman: Muscle Tag Match was the fourth top-selling Famicom release in 1985 — even rating as a top 40 all-time bestsellers contender on the platform! Having sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.05 millions copies^[3] (not even accounting for international sales), it’s a bona fide platinum hit, which has continued to carry an enduring legacy in its native Japan. In modern retrospective, the publication 別冊宝島 (‘Separate Treasure Island’) selected the title as one of their “favorite nostalgic 80’s video games”; praising it as “not cutting corners like other character action games,” and for pairing the popular characters with their authentic finishing maneuvers from the series.^[4] Another post-Famicom era issue from the magazine ‘CONTINUE’ would proclaim that the booster balls drove the momentum into a “hot and heavy” pace, and further applaud the game as being “well-balanced.”^[5]

Naturally, given this downright inexplicable popularity, Muscle Tag Match would be followed up with a Japan-exclusive sequel: 1987’s Kinnikuman: Kinnikusei Oui Soudatsusen (Survivor Match for the Kinniku Throne) for the Famicom’s Disk System. Based around a subsequent story arc, and developed this time by Human Entertainment; the game alternates between side-scrolling beat ‘em up gameplay and one-on-one wrestling matches, with different characters being made available in each mode. In example: The side-scrolling portions see you able to pick and switch between the likes of Terryman, Ramenman, Robin Mask, Warsman and Neptuneman; while the wrestling matches will select either Kinnikuman or his older brother Ataru (as ‘Kinnikuman Soldier’) for you to play as. Generally speaking, the gameplay evolved in a more challenging and cryptic direction, with the side-scrolling stages requiring hunting for secret objects and defeating hordes of enemies / minibosses in order to meet progression requirements. At the same time, it does feature a more impressively-rendered cast of characters, and more straightforward interpretation of wrestling gameplay. It’s also a game which seems to be almost entirely unknown to the English-speaking internet, and only barely acknowledged within Japan.

Japan would only go on to further prove their admiration for the first Kinnikuman game by remaking and converting it a number of times. Tose returned to develop Kinnikuman II-Sei: Dream Tag Match for the WonderSwan Color in 2002; which recreated the gameplay of the original Famicom title while featuring a new cast of characters from the Kinnikuman Nisei series, and which even included a port of the original game as secret content. I found that it was possible to beat almost the entirety of the game’s main story mode by just repeatedly using the jumping kick move. Needless to say, I was not particularly impressed by this title. In 2008, Kinnikuman: Muscle Grand Prix Max 2: Special for the PS2 would feature ports of both Famicom releases as bonus games, further bolstering an already fairly content-rich 3D wrestling game by the legendary AKI Corporation. And just to further cement the original Famicom release’s status as an icon of Japan’s pop culture: The game would feature as part of a special edition Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer (Japan’s equivalent of the NES Classic Edition), with a game selection themed around Weekly Shōnen Jump titles [commemorating their 50th anniversary]. Frankly speaking, the game selection all-around on that microconsole is pretty lacklustre, to say the least.

Incredibly, this still isn’t all there is to say about the original Famicom release, as I’ve so far neglected to mention the unique ‘Championship Commemorative Gold Edition’ cartridges! See, there was a countrywide contest held in Japan [in either ‘85 or ‘86], with eight separate locations hosting separate tourneys around the game. And as part of the grand prizes, the winners would receive a version of the game on a faux-gold cartridge — of which a total of just eight copies were produced. Not only that, but each copy of the cartridge was made additionally unique by swapping out one of the existing wrestlers for a character of the winner’s choosing. These would have included Mongolman (in place of Ramenman), Pentagon (in place of Asuraman), Black Hole (in place of Terryman), or The Ninja (in place of Brocken Jr.). Needless to say, this all places each of the eight individual gold carts as some of the rarest Famicom titles in existence, and so far none of these distinct versions of the game have had their ROMs dumped online. Back in 2009, one of the gold carts popped up on Japan’s Yahoo Auctions site, and sold for a whopping 921,000円 (roughly $10K USD).^[6] Have I mentioned yet that Japan is just enamored by this mediocre little licensed game?

At a certain point, I reckon it’s impossible for the North American audience to appreciate Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E. in the ways that Japan did. We may have well been familiar with the toy line, but that only carries so much of the character and connection to the larger property — which we would have been entirely unaware of at the time of the game’s release. By 1987, the toy line would almost completely wind down in the States, and be reflected on as a passing fad. Come 1990, ‘Game Player’s’ magazine would reflect on the game as not being “very sophisticated, even for it’s time,” commenting that “it captured neither the action nor the personality so important to pro wrestling.”^[7] It seems though that if you passed that criticism along to a Japanese player, they’d likely contend that it nailed both those points right on the head; featuring a large selection of their favorite characters, and capturing their unique finishers for excited fans to execute. Also consider the fact that the launch of Muscle Tag Match in Japan was part of a steady stream of still-simplistic Famicom titles consistently trickling out, while North America received batches of new NES releases in sporadic bursts once every few months. For players who had been waiting since August to receive new content for their console – having already endured an eight month drought of releases between October of ‘85 and June of ‘86 – the likes of M.U.S.C.L.E. must’ve felt like the most disappointing pay-off to their patience.

At the end of the day, I think there’s one point that all parties should be able to agree on: Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E. had no business being converted / localized for the North American market in the first place. With the sum total of our knowledge of the property and its characters being a range of unnamed hunks of fleshy-pink rubber, how the hell were we supposed to appreciate the nuances of the roster’s special techniques and the lack of emphasis on pinfalls? As I said earlier, the game barely constitutes as a wrestling title by our playbooks, and was still meant to serve as one of the debut “wrestling” titles available on the NES. Honestly, it’s by total fluke that the M.U.S.C.L.E. toy fad took off stateside in the first place, and expecting the video game to similarly surprise was fool’s folly. Nintendo could’ve picked from a number of other already-released Famicom titles to localize earlier instead: We could’ve gotten one of Namco’s arcade conversions (Pac-Man, Xevious, Mappy or Galaga), Nintendo’s own F-1 Race, or Hudson Soft’s Nuts & Milk — the original third-party-developed game for the Famicom! Of all the games they could’ve picked…

At least it’s not Tag Team Wrestling.

[1] Kirchheimer, Sid. “The Top 10 Toys of 1986.” Sun Sentinel. November 26, 1986. Web.
[2] ‘Yudetamago.’ 『肉萬 〜キン肉マン萬之書〜』[Kinnikuman 29 Years of Fierce Fight History: Meat Bowl-Kinnikuman Book]. Shueisha. August 31, 2008. Print.
[3] This data is sourced from The Magic Box’s “Japan Platinum Game Chart”; which aims to list all games surpassing one million units sold in Japan. I have seen this number confirmed across other sources including IGN as well.
[4] 「キン肉マン マッスルタッグマッチ」[“Kinnikuman Muscle Tag Match”]. 『別冊宝島797 僕たちの好きなTVゲーム 80年代懐かしゲーム編』 [Separate Treasure Island 797: ‘Our Favorite 80s TV Games’ Nostalgia Edition]. Takarajimasha. June 6, 2003. Print.
[5] Shinichi Tsujimoto.「プロレスゲーム大全」 [“Pro Wrestling Game Encyclopedia”]. CONTINUE, Volume 11. Ota Publishing. August 20, 2003. Print.
[6] Ashcraft, Brian. “The Crappy $10,000 Famicom Game.” Kotaku. February 2, 2009. Web.
[7] Firme, Matthew A. “Grading the Grapplers” Game Player’s, Issue 12. Signal Research. June, 1990. Print. (Online reprint available)