The crown jewel of wrestling games, built upon a series of games across the N64’s lifetime. The gameplay style was started in WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, while WWF WrestleMania 2000 brought the atmosphere that came with the WWF licence. The gameplay was made to be much smoother in Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, and now all that is combined in WWF No Mercy.

One thing that is testament to how great the game was considered to be, was a nasty bug the game had – it would randomly delete everything stored on the cartridge. Despite this, the game was still loved and is fondly remembered. A later revision fixed the issue, but also removed blood from the game. The core wrestling was great, Create-A-Wrestler improved even more, and there was a ton of modes. One mode not many people know about is a secret championship.

If you complete the Game Boy Color version of WWF No Mercy and import the character into the N64 game, The Rock will introduce you as a new superstar. HHH is extremely worried about this, and his wife comes up with a plan to make a fool of you by forcing you to fight other superstars before you can face him. There’s a lot of insults and swearing, and it’s all text based (no voices), but it’s a fun mode. One slight catch: The GBC version of No Mercy never came out. You need to use codes to access this extra campaign.

WWF No Mercy is a great wrestling game with a ton of modes and features, and is the culmination of a lot of work throughout the entire lifespan of the N64.

Great

With the Hardcore rules selected, you can throw your opponent out of the ring area and back up towards the entrance. From there you can propel them backstage, where there are several more rooms Each arena has slightly different areas to explore, all with weapons scarred round about – dustbins, microphones, chairs, even and odd bunch of roses. When you drop (or throw) a weapon, it doesn’t just vanish form existence – you can pick it up again or go find a new one. We’ve managed to get four weapons plus two sets of corner stairs into the ring at the same time.

Alan Maddrell, N64 Magazine #49. Review Score: 92%

Remake or remaster?

The developers of current wrestling games need to look at No Mercy and figure out what made it special.

Official ways to get the game.

There’s no official way to get WWF No Mercy.