I was browsing PS2 roms and Rumble Roses came up. I never knew it was a Konami joint- I assumed it was published by, I don't know, whatever company did those Oneechanbara: Bikini Zombie Samurai Squad games.
I looked into it and the game was developed by Yukes, a studio that did a ton of officially licensed WWE games, and it ran on the same engine they had developed for those games. Rumble Roses also had some amusing high-level Konami crossovers- Akira Yamaoka apparently did some tracks for the OST and some of the wrestlers made it into MGS3: Subsistence's Metal Gear Online as playable characters (despite initial protests from Hideo Kojima, apparently.) There were seemingly also only two games in the franchise- the PS2 original and a Xbox 360 sequel that not even the original game's fans liked. I assumed there had been two or three games on the PS2 alone.
I just find it amusing that 20 years ago you could have a major publisher release high-profile, prestigious franchises like Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania or Silent Hill alongside Titty Slapfight Simulator
Tecmo did it first with a whole studio dedicated to Titty Slapfight Simulator, to be fair
Was Tecmo ever a really high-profile publisher on par with Konami in that period? The only games I know from them are the Tomonobu Itagaki Ninja Gaidens, Dead or Alive and Fatal Frame. I guess they also do the Dynasty Warriors games?
Dead or Alive is different from Rumble Roses in that it actually has some cred as a fighting game series and was known for being technically impressive- it just also had a bunch of jiggle physics and panty shots in it. Rumble Roses was only ever seen as tacky, horny schlock on the level of the DOA: Xtreme Volleyball franchise
I think they had some big games during the NES era - some sports games (Tecmo Super Bowl was a big one), some stuff that was big in Japan (like 3 kingdoms and Nobunagas Ambition), the original Ninja Gaidens, and maybe some other action platformers. That was all before my time, though.
You're right on DoA having some legitimacy as a fighting game. DoA walked (as a softcore porn game) so Rumble Roses could run (as a softcore porn game) lmao
Yeah, Tecmo was kind of a B-list dev in the arcade days - not unknown, but not a group you’d mention alongside big names like Konami, Capcom or whatnot.
Star Force was their biggest thing at that point. They had a few breakout hits like Rygar and Silk Worm (which had a really good run on British home computers due to a solid porting effort by The Sales Curve) but otherwise their stuff mostly just became cult classics if it got noticed much at all.