As a result, many of my most competitive online matches of Battlegrounds were also among the most miserable: we just took turns reversing everything, with neither of us making much progress toward ending the match. It simply gives you way too much time to reverse throws and attempts to balance that by having throws cost a portion of your Heat meter, which is what’s used to execute your signature and finishing moves. That said, my biggest gripe with the gameplay of Battlegrounds, aside from the poor hit detection, is the reversal system. It’s similar to what WWE All Stars did with its class system, but here it’s less about defining a style of play and more about defining what specific cool things you can and can’t do. Powerhouses are slow, but have attacks that can power through their opponent’s strikes Brawlers can create weapons like steel chairs and motorcycles out of thin air and have extra power on their strikes Technicians have extremely powerful throws and can even cause limb damage, which will cause opponents to stagger around briefly High-Flyers can jump off the ropes, use running throws, and get to the top rope faster than other classes and All-Arounders can do a little bit of everything.

There are, at the very least, a few meaningful differences between each of the five classes. But aside from that, these characters play exactly the same. There are some slight differences, with a few select characters having one or two moves that are unique to only them, and every character has their own signature and finishing move. So Shinsuke Nakamura has almost the exact same moves as the Miz, Charlotte Flair has almost the exact same moveset as Stephanie McMahon, and Triple H has almost the exact same moves as Andre the Giant.

Worse still, these moves are copied and pasted onto virtually every wrestler that falls within the same class of either Powerhouse, Brawler, All-Rounder, Technician, or High-Flyer.

The movelist for every character is extraordinarily thin for a wrestling game, even an arcadey one, with each wrestler only having a small handful of basic combos and throws. Namely, any semblance of depth or complexity to its combat. “This puts Battlegrounds in a unique position of being by far the most approachable wrestling game for complete newcomers in years, but it also comes with a pretty substantial sacrifice.

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