Muscle Grand Prix 2 is at its most core a 3D fighting game. You're confined to a square ring for combat, can move forward, back, sidestep, and get some altitude or low profile with certain moves. Your offensive is largely built around strings, juggles and strike throw mixups, with your positioning mattering greatly due to blockstun against the ropes leading to guardbreaks.

However, it has mechanics similar to 2D games. You have a super meter that goes up to 9 bars, and special and super moves that spend the bars. These moves, and command normals, use special inputs like 46/Back-Foward or 41236/HCF to perform. You have a Burst that breaks hitstun and grants a powerup state, with 3 types of powers to pick from. These burst types also affect you at low health as a light comeback mechanic.

And obviously, Kinnikuman is a wrestling game. You have one button for strikes, one button for grapples, and one button for defensive options -- plus your button for specials. Attacks can do various amounts of hitstun, and that hitstun determines the strength of your throws, so you have to scale your offense. Like the AKI wrestling games of old, not only can you block, but the right timing can lead to a parry, or you can change right into a throwbreak.

That's because this is an AKI game. Whether you played World Tour or No Mercy on the N64 or the Def Jam games on the PS2 generation, you're familiar with some of the nature of this game.

I think this is the mythical "easy to pick up, difficult to master" fighting game. Overall your options are simple, some of the strongest characters in the game don't take much effort to start winning or just doing sick stuff. Even at the lowest skill levels, the game is fast paced but encourages methodical usage of that small option set.

The more you play, the more you can take in more advanced elements, digging deeper into character movesets for unique tools, learning the gaps in your opponent's strings to insert traps, perfecting meter management, reading mixups and applying your own, mastering the positioning for guardbreaks, and learning the more complex juggles. It's a game you can lab monster or just pick up one BNB and focus on the psychology.

Some characters are way stronger, but a large amount of the roster is viable and come with loads of qualities that make them unique and dangerous, and enough with movesets that are deep enough for that elusive quality of player expression.

And it's an old game, so no one is ever going to patch it and fuck it up lmao.