Wrestling in digital form apparently wasn't something anyone wanted to approach with unnecessary conscience. WWF Royal Rumble Party on Mega Drive is one of those projects where someone said: we've got the license, we've got the console, so let's piece together a game somehow and move on. The result? A mess, but a cute one.

It's about wrestling, and not the competitive kind with any number of players, but a party mode designed to entertain someone at the screen. You get to choose famous wrestlers from that era — Hogan, Stone Cold, Kane and other faces you saw on TV. The goal is simple: beat your opponent or throw them out of the ring. Royal Rumble is in the name, but you can't take it completely literally. That would be too complicated to figure out.

The mechanics are bare-bones. You've got left and right punches, you've got a hook, you've got lifts and throws, and when the moment is right, a throw out of the match. The controls are sluggish, they respond with a certain will that you have to understand — it's not that the game is fast or reactive, it has its own rhythm that you have to get used to. The graphics are tolerable, the wrestling move animations are acceptable, the sound exists and you occasionally hear nice effects and music. Nothing spectacular, but for Mega Drive in 1991 it wasn't the biggest embarrassment.

Today you look at it through rose-tinted glasses. In the nineties it was one of the few ways to play wrestling with a friend without traveling to retro tournaments. It delivered what was needed — couch party gaming and the chance to throw your buddy out of the ring. It's aged mainly mechanically; today those slow animations and unpredictable controls sting more than they did back then.

Would I play it again? Sure, for a bit, when nostalgia hits. In the browser it's good for an hour when you're not in the mood for a proper game but want to take a trip down memory lane. Wrestling without pretense, without depth — just ry-ry-ry and a punch to the gut.