In recent years, wrestling games have felt like they hit a bit of a lull. While there have been some signs of life, with WWE potentially breaking away from WWE 2K games, and AEW working with Yukes to create their game, good wrestling games may be coming to fans before too long. However, most wrestling fans seem to still cling to the older games with a sense of joyful nostalgia.

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Two of the games that are routinely listed as being fan favorites are WWE: No Mercy, which was released exclusively on the Nintendo 64, and SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain, which was released on the PlayStation 2.

10 No Mercy - Quality Roster

WWF No Mercy

WWE released four games on the Nintendo 64, including WWF No Mercy in November 2000. As No Mercy was the last game released on the Nintendo 64, it had the largest roster of all four games with a roster of 74 wrestlers. The roster was a marked increase from previous games and included a wide range of stars from the Attitude Era and legends from the past including Andre the Giant, British Bulldog, the Dudley Boyz, and the Radicalz.

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A few days after No Mercy was released on the N64, WWE released SmackDown 2: Know Your Role for the Playstation 1, with a roster of 66 playable characters, less than No Mercy, which came out earlier. It wasn't until SmackDown vs Raw 2011 that a WWE game saw a roster above 70 playable characters. To date, the game is still considered to have one of the best playable rosters of all time.

9 Here Comes The Pain - New Match Types

Smackdown Here Comes The Pain

Since the introduction of the SmackDown series, WWE has sought to include a variety of different match types into the game. WWE staples, such as the Ladder Match, Tables Matches, Steel Cage, Royal Rumble, and Hell in a Cell were already playable in earlier games, but SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain introduced the First Blood Match, Elimination Chamber, and the Bra & Panty match type into a wrestling video game for the first time.

While First Blood Matches and Bra & Panty matches had been featuring on WWE programming for years by the time the game was released, the Elimination Chamber was new at the time and fans enjoyed a chance to play in the exciting new structure that had been introduced to WWE by Eric Bischoff.

8 No Mercy - Fighting Style

No Mercy marked the first WWE game that AKI used in WCW vs NWO: World Tour, and WCW/NWO: Revenge. The fighting style allowed players to use a combination of different strikes and grapple maneuvers to beat their opponents down before pinning them or forcing them to submit. Players would need to tap a button for lighter strikes and grapples and hold the button down for more forceful strikes and grapples.

A finisher was also enabled for a limited time after a player had filled their momentum meter, which swayed depending on which wrestler was in control of the contest. Once a wrestler had a finisher, they could perform a strong grapple and hit their opponent with their wrestler's respective finishing move.

7 HCTP - Submission System

HCTP, Submission, Video Game

In previous wrestling games, a submission move was placed on a wrestler for a short period and the wrestler in the hold would reach the ropes, give up, or the wrestler applying the submission would simply release the hold. Naturally, submission moves that were finishers had a slightly higher chance of forcing opponents to submit, but even the difference between these and regular submissions was minimal.

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This was until Here Comes the Pain introduced a new Submission mini-game. Once a submission was locked in, both players would have to frantically mash the buttons until the submission bar either hit escape or submit.

6 No Mercy - Career Mode

No Mercy, Career Mode, Video Games, WWF

Both No Mercy and Here Comes the Pain have popular career modes in them, where the storyline gets changed depending on the outcome of the match in question. In more recent games, story modes have been very linear with certain results requiring the player to restart and most matches have certain points that the player must complete progressing in the story. This often means that there is little value in replaying the story mode, as it all feels the same.

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That wasn't the case with No Mercy, as the game's storyline could branch off into multiple different directions allowing for a lot of value in replaying the story mode multiple times with different wrestlers to see how the different stories play out.

5 HCTP - Damage Meter

One of the many new features that Here Comes the Pain introduced to WWE games was a damage meter for a wrestler. This meant that you could effectively target one of your opponent's body parts and pick them apart by targeting the same area over and over again. This also helped with creating a greater emphasis on submission moves, which could also be used to target a specific body part. Kurt Angle could meticulously target his opponent's legs, setting them up for the ankle lock, or Chris Jericho could weaken his opponent's back before locking in the Walls of Jericho to make them tap.

4 No Mercy - Modified Versions

A custom Randy Savage in WWF No Mercy

It's a testament to the popularity of WWF No Mercy that wrestling fans continue to play the game. Even now, 20 years later, wrestling fans will still load up an emulator to play No Mercy once again. It wasn't just the game's popular wrestling style, which has since been replaced by an overly complicated system that no company has been able to improve on. The game is also popular due to the number of modified versions available for the game.

Some of the modded versions include a version with NXT wrestlers, WCW wrestlers, and WWE legends. However, the most impressive modded version of the game reportedly features a roster of almost 300 playable characters and features a wide variety of both female and male wrestlers from multiple generations. The modded version also includes wrestlers from other promotions, including TNA and AEW.

3 HCTP - Fast Gameplay

HCTP, Creation, Video Games, Create-a-pro

A big element that has been severely lacking from the newer WWE games is the gameplay. Here Comes the Pain was the last of a popular series that allowed wrestling fans to have quick enjoyable brawls without the game being weighted down by the graphics upgrades which would come later and often slow down the fun and fast-paced feel of the earlier games. WWE tried to bring back to chaotic arcade feel of the older games when they released WWE 2K BattleGrounds in 2020.

2 No Mercy - Retro Nostalgic Feels

WWF No Mercy

While many old-school wrestling video games have aged poorly, WWF No Mercy stands out as a retro classic. The game is held to such a high standard that even today, many fans and wrestlers still point to it as a benchmark for modern wrestling games to live up to. When commenting on All Elite Wrestling's first foray into the console video game market, former AEW World Champion and Executive Vice President Kenny Omega stated that the game would take inspiration from WWF No Mercy, not bad for a game that is over 20 years old.

1 HCTP - Store Up to 5 Finishers

HCTP Finishers

For the final time in a WWE game, a wrestler could store up to five finishers at once, hitting their opponents one after another. Unlike in other video games, where finishers are only available through momentum, the SmackDown game series would give players finishers by performing moves and taunts on their opponents. As the player got more finishers, it became easier and easier to unlock more finishers as the bar filled up faster. There was also no way to lose the progress that you made aside from using a finisher on your opponent. These finisher tokens also enabled you to reverse out of your opponent's finisher, and having two finishers allowed you to hit your opponent's finisher on them.