140 hours in, I suppose I have to ask myself the question: is Fire Pro World better than No Mercy? In some ways yes, in some ways no. As a whole, if you are a die-hard wrestling fanatic like me, this is certainly the best overall package you can buy. Thanks to the astounding depth of user-created content - to illustrate, one guy made the entire cast of Def Jam Vendetta to a pretty high degree of accuracy just for the fun of it - you can pretty much set up any dream match you could possibly imagine, and the 2D nature of the game ensures that crafting your own bizarre creations is a lot more straightforward than the array of sliders offered by modern WWE games.

With all that said, however...Fire Pro is definitely an acquired taste on every level. I think every Fire Pro fan has a story about showing this game to their non-smark friends only to be greeted by a chorus of laughter and confusion, and I think that's an understandable response. Even by "retro game" standards, Fire Pro just looks and sounds unimpressive. Its controls also take a lot of time and effort to get used to - you'll likely mess up anything more complicated than a basic grapple or submission hold until you have a few hours into the game. Compared to the pick-up-and-play appeal of the AKI games, it's not exactly approachable. The grappling system actually works really well once you get the timing down, but your first few matches will make for a confusing slog, especially since the input for your finisher varies from wrestler to wrestler. However, Fire Pro has much better AI vs. AI matches than any other wrestling game I've ever played, even allowing you to customize your wrestler's AI logic, so if that's important to you, it's definitely a big plus.

Overall, I think you can determine for yourself if Fire Pro World is a game for you. If you've never followed a wrestling promotion on a week-by-week, PPV-by-PPV basis, the answer is probably no. I think it's analogous to a hobby-grade product like anime figurines, paintball guns, or matchbox cars - there's a big learning curve to get started, but once you get in the groove of it, it's a hyper-specific experience that delivers at a level that no other game can touch. However, it is very much for hopeless smarks only.