WWF No Mercy

North American cover art featuring Edge, The Rock and Triple H

   **WWF No Mercy** is a professional wrestling video game released in 2000 on the Nintendo 64 console and published by THQ. It is named after the World Wrestling Federation annual pay-per-view event of the same name. No Mercy is the follow-up to 1999's WWF WrestleMania 2000, and the last WWF game released for the Nintendo 64. No Mercy was well received by players and critics alike. It is the Nintendo 64 exclusive sequel to the critically acclaimed (in the wrestling games community), *WWF Wrestlemania 2000*. The *WWE Day of Reckoning* games use the same grappling engine as this game, as does the EA Def Jam games (which is also developed by AKI). It is still considered to be one of the best American wrestling games, and an N64 classic..

No Mercy is the culmination of previous, similar grapplers like WWF Wrestlemania 2000, *WCW/nWo Revenge* & *WCW/nWo World Tour*.

The game was named after the *WWF No Mercy 2000* Pay-per-View in which Edge & Christian faced the Hardy Boyz in a violent tag team ladder match. This made the ladder match feature a big selling point of the game. A PlayStation and Game Boy Color versions were planned but it was cancelled due to difficulty in the porting process.

## About

WWF No Mercy serves as a time capsule of the World Wrestling Federation in the year 2000. The year begins with a bang, as the end of 1999 saw the exit of Vince McMahon. He and son Shane are gone for the time being after the humiliating events of Armageddon 1999 and in their place the WWF is being ruled over by the evil Triple H and his new bride, the now Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, and backed up by the recently reformed Degeneration X now consisting of HHH, X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws. Also gone is the beer-swilling anti-hero of the WWF, Stone Cold Steve Austin! He is out of action with a broken neck after being hit by a car at the 1999 Survivor Series and no one knows who did it. The first Raw is War of the year sees HHH use his new-found power to steal the WWF Championship by booking essentially a 4 against 1 handicap match against the champion Big Show.

With Steve Austin gone, it seemed all was lost and every Raw and Smackdown would now be a "DX night" until new heros stepped up to rally the fans and take the fight to the evil McMahon-Helmsley regime. Mick Foley was the first to speak out and step up and his feud with The Game was the stuff of legends. He pulled out all the stops in his quest to defeat HHH and become the WWF Champion, first as the now lovable Mankind and then digging down deep and once again transforming into the world famous hardcore legend, Cactus Jack. HHH would eventually defeat Cactus in two awesome matches by digging deep and showing the fans that he could be more than just a cowardly heel, he could actually back it up.

Next the People's Champ The Rock would step up to HHH and give the fans the hero they needed and become the new face of the World Wrestling Federation. He proved to be the most electrifying man in sports entertainment in what would turn out to be his final full year as an active full-time competitor before going to Hollywood to become a megastar.

This was also the first full year in professional wrestling for 1996 Olympic gold medal winner Kurt Angle and it would prove to be perhaps the greatest rookie year of anyone ever. After a month's long undefeated streak was ended by a debuting Tazz at the Royal Rumble, Angle would become the European Champion. He would then add to it by becoming the Intercontinental Champion and holding both titles together as Euro-Continental Champion until losing both titles at WrestleMania in a match for the ages in which he was never pinned or submitted, which meant that his massive ego was still unchecked. He would go on to win the King of the Ring tournament and by the end of the year he became the World Wrestling Federation Champion.

The year also saw the Acolytes morph into the APA inside a stacked tag team division which also included teams like The Holly Cousins, the New Age Outlaws, T & A, Kaientai and the three teams who will forever be associated with the TLC match: Edge and Christian, the Hardy Boyz and the Dudley Boyz.

The roster is stacked with so many more excellent superstars and the year was full of countless memories. Raw and Smackdown were firing on all cylinders every single week and you can relive it in the greatest professional wrestling game of all time. WWF No Mercy allows you to immerse yourself in this fantastic era of professional wrestling as you play as your favorite wrestlers of the time through some of its best storylines and matches.

## Gameplay

*WWF No Mercy* allows players to compete for seven different WWF titles, with each belt getting its own unique story. Stories can be replayed, allowing players to defend their title in a storyline. Upon successful completion of a story mode, players will unlock the title they were competing for in the Exhibition mode, where titles can be won and defended as the players see fit.

A maximum of four players can compete in a range of modes, including caged and ladder contests and pay-per-view events. The player can also create an own event and compete for WWF titles unlocked in Championship mode. Certain matches are held outside the ring, in four different backstage locations.

Some of the features included in WrestleMania 2000 were removed from No Mercy. First, wrestlers' entrances were cut short to showing the wrestler only appear on the stage/entrance ramp, and players never see wrestlers actually enter the ring (despite early screen shots showing full ring entrances). For example, Triple H is shown spitting water at the crowd upon entering the ring. The belt options were also changed; rather than creating a belt from scratch, players now have to complete a story mode to win a title.

However, No Mercy features a much more extensive Create-a-Wrestler mode with more moves, more customizable body attributes, better-organized clothing options (No Mercy utilizes descriptive categories and titles for each clothing item, whereas WrestleMania 2000 simply numbers items), and the ability to create female wrestlers, which is nearly impossible in WrestleMania 2000. Each wrestler in the game has four different ring attires that could be independently edited, and each attire can be completely changed including name, height and weight, body parts, and music, technically allowing four different wrestlers per slot, although they must share a common moveset. Several of the game's unlockable wrestlers used this feature, such as Taka Michinoku who has his partner Funaki in two attire slots. The graphics also were improved significantly over the game's predecessor, and various match types made their Nintendo 64 debut in this game, including ladder matches and special referee matches. The game also marked the first time on the system in a WWF game that players could fight backstage and also the first time moves can be done on the announcer's table. Many parts of the backstage environment are usable, such as being able to hit the opponent with a pool stick and driving them through the pool table in the bar/lounge.

The story mode is more extensive, compared to WrestleMania's career mode. Each WWF title features a unique story. For the WWF Championship, players can choose any wrestler to reenact the classic feud between Mankind and Triple H that dominated the WWF in early to mid-2000. Other angles include Stone Cold Steve Austin's feud and The Rock's temporary alliance with Vince McMahon. After winning a title, the player can replay the story mode and defend the newly acquired belt in a variety of new storylines. Also, unlike future wrestling games, players are allowed to fight for and defend any championship in the exhibition mode.

The story mode's depth is due in part to its branching storylines that develop based on the outcomes of the player's matches. In WrestleMania 2000, if the player lost a match in the career mode, the game only allowed the player to retry the match, rather than adjusting the storyline accordingly. No Mercy's story mode offers branching storylines based on the outcomes of matches. The player has to actually play through each story several times and lose matches in order to achieve a 100% completion rating.

Another notable feature that was added to the game is the "SmackDown! Mall." With money earned from winning matches in story mode and playing the Survival mode, players can purchase unlockable characters, clothing, wrestling moves, props, tattoos, weapons, and venues.

The game uses the same grappling system. It improves upon the original game with an expanded story mode, better graphics, a bigger roster, an expanded create-a-wrestler mode and more weapon possibilities. One of the most praised aspects of the engine, the ability to injure specific body parts by working on it the whole match, remained intact. Some of the games better features are still absent in current generation games.

In addition to the basic strong grapple/weak grapple system seen in WWF Wrestlemania 2000, there is now a new "Running grapple" that can be used to add even more moves to the moveset. Weapons are also much more interesting to use. Instead of magically shimmying to the side whenever a move is done near them, weapons, for the most part, stay in place, allowing you to actually do moves onto them. It does no extra damage, but it does create a nice extra smashing sound (or ringing sound if using the ring bell) to satisfy.

### Roster

>  *Main Article: Roster*
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The Roster of **WWF No Mercy** contains, according to official literature, over 61 WWF Superstars, including top stars of the era including, The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker, Steve Austin and many more.

### Game Modes

The **No Mercy** home screen is divided into three sections, Multi Play, Single Play, and Commissioner.

#### Multi Play

Multi Play is where you can create and play various types of matches by yourself or with friends. It has the following options.

**Exhibition** is the first option. You can set the *Match, Player, Arena, Rules, and Belt*. *Match* gives you a choice between a Single Match, Tag Team Match, Triple Threat Match, Handicap Match, and Cage Match. The next screen is *Player*, on which you will select whether you are playing against the computer, against friends, or watching the match. *Arena* is next. Here you have the choice between the various Arenas in No Mercy. These include RAW is WAR and Smackdown as well as various Pay-Per-Views like Wrestlemania. **Royal Rumble** allows you to book your very own Royal Rumble-style battle royal, with anywhere from 4 to 40 participants. Setting four participants creates, for all intents and purposes, a fatal four-way elimination match. You can play by yourself against the computer, or have up to four human players, and you can customize who every participant is or let it be all random, or set a team battle which lets you play as multiple different players after you are eliminated. **Pay Per View** allows you to create your very own supercard! **King of the Ring** lets you book tournaments. **Guest Referee** allows you to be the referee in a match, or select a character to referee your match. **Ladder Match** is pretty self explanatory. **Ironman Match** is an ironman match.

### Save Glitch

When No Mercy first hit the shelves their was a glitch/save error in which the whole game data could be simply wiped without notice and restored to the default original set up. Initially, THQ recommended that players reset their cartridge to factory defaults to fix the issue.

In around March 2001 this issue was fixed in the cartridge and would be fully able to work and anyone who had previously bought the game was able to swap their damaged cartridge for the now fixed version with no fee.

## Bibliography

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWF\_No\_Mercy - WIKIPEDIA
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4  http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/WWF\_No\_Mercy - Encyclopedia Gamia
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1  https://www.mobygames.com/game/8947/wwf-no-mercy/ - Moby Games
4. ↑  https://www.gamespot.com/articles/wwf-no-mercy-bug-riddled/1100-2656988/ - Gamespot
5. ↑  http://micro-64.com/features/wwfnomercy.shtml - Micro-64