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It may not seem like it given the current state of the genre, but wrestling games used to be a really big deal. They were some of the earliest examples of one-on-one fighting games back in the early days of gaming, and moving on into the N64 and PlayStation 1 eras, they provided each of those consoles with some of the best multiplayer experiences to be had.
With WrestleMania 36 just around the corner, we thought it’d be a good time to celebrate the storied history of wrestling in video games. And so, here are the 10 best pro wrestling video games (or pro wrestling adjacent) of all time.
10. Saturday Night Slam Masters
At their core, wrestling games are fighting games, but perhaps no game embraced the fighting game aspect quite as heavily as Saturday Night Slam Masters. Developed by Capcom, Saturday Morning Slam Masters was shallow fun with awesome looking characters designed by Tetsuo Hara of Fist of the North Star fame. It also incorporated wrestling quite nicely with short character entrances, a countout victory condition, and the ability to utilize attacks from the top rope.
9. Fire Pro Wrestling World
The Fire Pro Wrestling series has a storied history dating all the way back to 1989, but its latest iteration, Fire Pro Wrestling World, is easily the best version to date. The relationship between Fire Pro Wrestling and other wrestling games has always had a “Coke or Pepsi” kind of feel to it, where wrestling fans largely preferred either one or the other due to Fire Pro Wrestling’s unique control scheme and iconic isometric camera angle. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but Fire Pro Wrestling World’s deep library of wrestling moves and created wrestlers is undeniably impressive and makes it worthy of a spot on this list.
8. WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game
Wrestling is at its best when it embraces and revels in its absurdity, and no wrestling game did just that better than WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game. Developed by the makers of NBA Jam, WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game essentially did for Wrestling what NBA Jam did for basketball. Undertaker would bust out gravestones to beat people over the head with, Razor Ramon could turn his arm into a literal razor, and Doink the clown would attack with hand buzzers comically over-sized mallets. It was ridiculous arcade fun, and always a great spot to spend 25 cents back in a 90s arcade.
7. WWF Wrestlemania 2000
AKI Corporation is a legend in the wrestling video game world, as you’ll quickly learn via this list, and while Wrestlemania 2000 isn’t their best game, or their first game, it was the first time the developer was able to show what they were able to do with the WWF roster during a time where Wrestling was at its peak: The Attitude era. Wrestlemania 2000 took the foundation of everything that was laid down in WCW vs NWO World Tour and Revenge and refined it, resulting in one of the best wrestling games of the N64 era.
6. Ultimate Muscle: Legends vs New Generation
Sometimes in the world of anime games there’s just a perfect matching of developer with anime property. It happened with Arc System Works and Dragon Ball Z with Dragon Ball FighterZ, and it also happened with Kinnikuman (Known in the US as Ultimate Muscle) and AKI Corporation. Ultimate Muscle: Legends vs New Generation is the perfect blend of wrestling and fantasy, featuring a combination of real life wrestling holds, out of this world super moves, and that tried and true AKI style of wrestling gameplay that centers around punches, grapples, and reversals. Also, there’s Dik Dik van Dik, which is just a fun thing to say.
5. WWE 2K14
The WWE 2K series has been on such a downward trend over the last few years that it can be hard to remember the good times, but the good times actually were pretty great! WWE 2K14 marked the pinnacle of the series, as it was the wrestling swan song of the PS3/Xbox 360 era and contained years of iterations and improvements to the formula, culminating in one of the best traditional wrestling games of all time. Then WWE 2K15 stumbled through the wall like the Shockmaster and 2K has still been trying to put everything back together. But that’s beside the point, WWE 2K14 was peak WWE 2K, with a fantastic 30 years of Wrestlemania mode, a plethora of match types, fantastic roster, and genuinely solid wrestling gameplay.
4. WWE All Stars
An underrated gem, WWE All Stars is quite simply the best arcadey wrestling game there’s ever been. Developed by THQ San Diego and led by creative director Sal Divita, who also worked on WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, WWE All Stars let go any notion of realism or simulation and focused on the fun of wrestling, and the result was, shocker, a ridiculously fun wrestling game. But more than that, it was also a smartly designed fighting game as well with some of the coolest wrestling super moves there have ever been.
3. WWE Smackdown Here Comes the Pain
Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain is similar to WWE 2K14, in that it was kind of the culmination of years of improvements and represented the Smackdown series when it was at its best. Then, developer Yukes decided to change things up with Smackdown vs Raw, which was its own subseries, but Here Comes the Pain will always be remembered as the peak of the “core Smackdown” line of games. Its fighting was fast paced and incredibly satisfying, the game’s dynamic usage of camera angles heightened the excitement of each move, there was an insane number of match types, you could throw weapons, you could stack tables, you could stack ladders on tables, and overall the game hit a perfect blend of simplicity and depth that was wasn’t quite matched in later years of the series.
2. Def Jam: Fight For New York
Def Jam: Fight For New York represented perhaps the biggest departure from AKI’s bread and butter combat system, but despite a greater focus on strikes and environmental interactables, Def Jam: Fight For New York is still undeniably a wrestling game, albeit one that trades in the spandex superheroes of the wrestling ring for hip hop stars like Red Man, Method Man, and Snoop Dogg. Fight for New York was actually the second Def Jam wrestling game from AKI, and while the first game, Def Jam Vendetta wasn’t bad by any stretch, Fight For New York simply improves upon it in every way. It still holds up to this day, and if there’s any justice in the world, one day we’ll see it again in some form.
1. WWF No Mercy
What’s so wonderful about WWF No Mercy is that despite everything it lacks in comparison to modern wrestling games, from commentary, to flashy entrances, to titantron videos that sometimes look like scrambled porn, its fundamentals are so strong that it still holds up in the one area that matters most: Gameplay. No Mercy simply feels amazing to play. On top of its stellar gameplay, No Mercy was also simply one of the most fully featured wrestling games on the market. It had a great story mode that branched like a visual novel depending on your wins or loses, an exhaustive create-a-wrestler mode, and an excellent roster consisting of just about every notable wrestler from the Attitude era. No Mercy was the total package, and it helped cement the N64’s legacy as one of the best consoles for wrestling games.
Mitchell Saltzman is an Editorial Producer at IGN and is a lifelong wrestling, and wrestling video game fan. You can find him on Twitter @JurassicRabbit
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