Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Nov 23, 2022 6:59:54 GMT -5
This is a thread that could easily devolve into "any given Fire Pro game", and it wouldn't be wrong, but, I think there's still a conversation to be had here. What are the wrestling games that, to you, have the best rosters? Maybe it's due to having everyone there who ought to be, or some interesting legend inclusions, whatever your criteria.
WCW vs nWo Revenge has got to be up there. There is almost everyone you could want for that era of WCW. The only big omissions are Flair and Wrath, though Warrior did apparently almost make it in. Beyond them, you'd really need to scrape to come up with people who were left out who should have been in. Mongo? Horace and the Disciple? Not picturing anyone lamenting their absences. Maybe some of the luchadors, though they got the big names. Syxx would have been nice except he was long gone by then. It's remarkably complete.
Wrestlemania 2000 also has a very good roster for its time, with few notable omissions. Goldust/Dustin Rhodes probably should have been in to capture the 1998-1999 era more completely, but I assume he had made the leap. Barring him, I can't immediately think of anyone who should have made the cut, outside of obviously Owen, who was out for a very clear reason. The Dudleyz and Kurt Angle came too late, understandably, though the Dudleyz did manage to get into Smackdown, so they probably only just barely missed out on getting their tie-dye look in. I guess you could point to the Oddities or Tiger Ali Singh, but I do not think we're missing anything not having them in.
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Post by DZ: WF Legacy on Nov 23, 2022 8:35:32 GMT -5
Revenge encapsulated the good in WCW right before it started to go downhill. It's like the perfect period of WCW to forever capture in a game.
I absolutely adore it, and the thorough roster has a lot to do with it. You have the main event guys, the newer additions like Bret which was still wild to see at the time, along with Anvil and Bulldog! It was like a mini Hart Foundation, and Anvil hasn't been in a lot of games. The Flock is there in its entirety. nWo is there. Wolfpac is there. The cruisers, who usually have complicated licensing issues nowadays, are mostly all there. There's no Super Calo, but the main guys like La Parka and Ultimo Dragon are present. Juvi was my go-to guy in that game, and he was white hot at the time. You can even play as guys that usually only appeared on Saturday Night. There's Finlay, there's Glacier and Mortis, and there's even Bischoff. It's a big roster, and the unlockable guys you get for winning the championships make the roster feel that much more expanded.
The ability to edit attire colors and swap certain gear is a bit primitive now, but at the time it was downright awesome to be able to update your roster in that way. As you mentioned, Flair being missing was a noticeable gap in a flourished roster, so I just turned Finlay into Flair by giving him tights (I think Alex Wrights?). It wasn't great or anything, but it was passible enough to pretend Flair was in the Battle Royale mode. I think the only setback otherwise was the lack of individual entrance themes. We didn't need the videos, but some renditions of the themes in the soundfont of that game would've been really cool. I almost forgot to mention, the special manager characters! Rick Rude, Liz, Kimberly, Jimmy Hart, etc. It was like a special treat to see your guy come out with a character in the game you couldn't select.
I often wish they were able to make a WWF game based on 97/98 using this engine and style. Like, maybe if they started with WWF instead of doing World Tour, and then did Revenge and later WM2000/No Mercy. I like World Tour and all, but if I had to choose, 1997 WWF in this format over the Acclaim Warzone stuff would've been much preferable.
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Rumble McSkirmish
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Post by Rumble McSkirmish on Nov 23, 2022 9:52:38 GMT -5
As mentioned before WCW/NWO: Revenge was the perfect representation of the WCW 1998 roster with a healthy mix of Main Eventers and Upper and Lower Card talent from all the different weight classes.
In a similar vein there was WWF No Mercy which included pretty much everyone from the stacked 2000 roster.
And of course there was WWE Smackdown: Here Come The Pain which had pretty much everyone from the also well rounded 2003 roster before injuries, firings and leavings turned it into a shell of it's former self the following year.
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Post by Hypnosis on Nov 23, 2022 12:04:07 GMT -5
World Tour (I liked all the fictional characters based on wrestlers from Japanese promotions at that time. Even Manami Toyota made it in as Black Widow.) Revenge No Mercy HCTP
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FinalGwen
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Post by FinalGwen on Nov 23, 2022 12:11:31 GMT -5
Shut Your Mouth was always a highlight for me. Lots of the Attitude era WWF roster still in the mix, but with all the WCW/ECW arrivals, as well as some of the faces that'd come to define the coming era (although Cena and Batista are notable exceptions, just a bit too late to make the cut).
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Post by Jindrak Mark on Nov 23, 2022 12:40:21 GMT -5
As a kid I loved the Here Comes the Pain roster. I always dreamed of being able to have a WWF v WCW game and this is probably the closest you could get to something like that.
You had all the WCW guys who had came over (Goldberg, Steiner, Nash, Booker, Rey, Flair, Ultimo, Storm, O'Haire). You had the big WWE guys (Austin, Rock, HHH, Angle, Jericho, Taker, Kane, RVD, Big Show). You had the newer stars (Cena, Brock, Batista, Orton). You had some good tag-teams (Dudleys, WGTT, Guerreros, Hardys, E&C, LOD). You had a bunch of popular women (Trish, Lita, Sable, Stacy, Torrie, Victoria, Stephanie).
The big miss at the time was Hogan who was still in the company as late as June so he must have almost made the cut. Although he might have been in as Mr. America as that was the gimmick he was using before leaving.
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Post by Defrebel - White Pony on Nov 23, 2022 14:38:59 GMT -5
Shut Your Mouth was always a highlight for me. Lots of the Attitude era WWF roster still in the mix, but with all the WCW/ECW arrivals, as well as some of the faces that'd come to define the coming era (although Cena and Batista are notable exceptions, just a bit too late to make the cut). Literally the only way it could have been a better representation of 2002 was if Scott Hall wasn't removed before release. Like they made sure to have Sweetwater Bradshaw, Val Venis' insanely embarrassing period where his actual name was THE BIG VALBOWSKI, dumbass bowling shirt Bubba, Big Show when his singlet was like specifically cut to make him look like an egg and he had a hilarious dye job on his hair. The whole gang.
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Post by David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 on Nov 23, 2022 18:22:59 GMT -5
World Tour (I liked all the fictional characters based on wrestlers from Japanese promotions at that time. Even Manami Toyota made it in as Black Widow.) Revenge No Mercy HCTP The Japanese version of World Tour, Virtual Pro Wrestling 64, goes even further. It has a legends league, including the Funks and many other names. It also has a shoot wrestling league including guys like Shamrock and Ruten. It also lets you rename and customise the appearance of the whole roster.
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Post by Andee9001 on Nov 23, 2022 18:44:50 GMT -5
Shut Your Mouth was always a highlight for me. Lots of the Attitude era WWF roster still in the mix, but with all the WCW/ECW arrivals, as well as some of the faces that'd come to define the coming era (although Cena and Batista are notable exceptions, just a bit too late to make the cut). Literally the only way it could have been a better representation of 2002 was if Scott Hall wasn't removed before release. Like they made sure to have Sweetwater Bradshaw, Val Venis' insanely embarrassing period where his actual name was THE BIG VALBOWSKI, dumbass bowling shirt Bubba, Big Show when his singlet was like specifically cut to make him look like an egg and he had a hilarious dye job on his hair. The whole gang. On a side note i really would have liked an updated Spike Dudley with goatee and Pound 4 Pound shirt instead of clean shaven and singlet. Spike was my guy back then. Should have been in HCTP too. Shane McMahon too would have been cool since his model was actually made.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Nov 23, 2022 18:45:37 GMT -5
Thinking about it, how insane would it have been if they got Dennis Rodman into Revenge? It would have been a really poor use of money, but it would have that much further captured the era. Shame there's no CAW in the game.
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Post by Hypnosis on Nov 23, 2022 19:36:55 GMT -5
Literally the only way it could have been a better representation of 2002 was if Scott Hall wasn't removed before release. Like they made sure to have Sweetwater Bradshaw, Val Venis' insanely embarrassing period where his actual name was THE BIG VALBOWSKI, dumbass bowling shirt Bubba, Big Show when his singlet was like specifically cut to make him look like an egg and he had a hilarious dye job on his hair. The whole gang. On a side note i really would have liked an updated Spike Dudley with goatee and Pound 4 Pound shirt instead of clean shaven and singlet. Spike was my guy back then. Should have been in HCTP too. Shane McMahon too would have been cool since his model was actually made. On the Spike Dudley note, was he originally planned to be in the first SVR? Because Bubba Ray's shown as a Light Heavyweight, which I assume was meant for Spike, but obviously, THQ f***ed up there.
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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Nov 23, 2022 21:16:36 GMT -5
On a side note i really would have liked an updated Spike Dudley with goatee and Pound 4 Pound shirt instead of clean shaven and singlet. Spike was my guy back then. Should have been in HCTP too. Shane McMahon too would have been cool since his model was actually made. On the Spike Dudley note, was he originally planned to be in the first SVR? Because Bubba Ray's shown as a Light Heavyweight, which I assume was meant for Spike, but obviously, THQ f***ed up there. They still do weird ass weight assignments like that sometimes. Like Jinder Mahal keeps being a light heavyweight in the current games somehow. Either way SvR DOES have a lot of evidence of people cut from it, but Spike isn't one of them. People with some kind of remnant in the data are... British Bulldog Brock Lesnar Cactus Jack Danny Basham Doug Basham George Steele Hillbilly Jim The Iron Sheik Jazz Lance Storm Lita Mick Foley Nikolai Volkoff Ricky Steamboat Rikishi Sean O'Haire Steve Austin
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Post by Andee9001 on Nov 23, 2022 21:38:44 GMT -5
On a side note i really would have liked an updated Spike Dudley with goatee and Pound 4 Pound shirt instead of clean shaven and singlet. Spike was my guy back then. Should have been in HCTP too. Shane McMahon too would have been cool since his model was actually made. On the Spike Dudley note, was he originally planned to be in the first SVR? Because Bubba Ray's shown as a Light Heavyweight, which I assume was meant for Spike, but obviously, THQ f***ed up there. I was a big Dudley Boyz mark and making Bubba and D-Von light heavyweights ruined that game for 11 year old me.
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The Blue Nova
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Post by The Blue Nova on Nov 24, 2022 13:40:17 GMT -5
Smackdown 4 shut your mouth simply cause you could do the alliance storyline. here comes the pain. Wrestlemania 2000
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Post by government mule on Nov 24, 2022 17:35:25 GMT -5
It's not gonna be the best lineup, but as a kid playing Smackdown 2 it absolutely blew my mind that you could play with jobbers like Viscera or Essa Rios in comparison with the more understandably streamlined lineup on the first Smackdown game.
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Post by David-Arquette was in WCW 2000 on Nov 24, 2022 18:45:56 GMT -5
It's not gonna be the best lineup, but as a kid playing Smackdown 2 it absolutely blew my mind that you could play with jobbers like Viscera or Essa Rios in comparison with the more understandably streamlined lineup on the first Smackdown game. Smackdown 2 captured the roster damn near perfectly.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Nov 24, 2022 18:54:56 GMT -5
It's not gonna be the best lineup, but as a kid playing Smackdown 2 it absolutely blew my mind that you could play with jobbers like Viscera or Essa Rios in comparison with the more understandably streamlined lineup on the first Smackdown game. Smackdown 2 captured the roster damn near perfectly. For the most part. No Big Show is a shame, plus having Lo Down D'lo, but no Chaz.
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Post by Cvslfc123 on Nov 25, 2022 15:33:46 GMT -5
WWE 2K22's roster is now very accurate because of Trips hiring back people who were released.
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Post by TOK Hehe'd Around & Found Out on Nov 25, 2022 22:56:39 GMT -5
King of Colosseum 1 and 2 have absolutely ridiculous rosters. 1 had full licensing from the 4 major Japanese promotions at the time (NJPW, AJPW, NOAH, and Zero-One) and had to be split across two different disks because it was so deep, while number 2 didn't have licensing it still had everyone available, plus American guys like Samoa Joe and literally every major name in Japanese wrestling ever up to 2005 as an unlockable.
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Post by Cyno on Nov 25, 2022 23:21:17 GMT -5
I'm kinda amazed that the recent WWE 2k games have like, literally everyone possible they can squeeze in and that's before DLC. Granted, the purges the past couple of years didn't help keep it current, but the sheer numbers are impressive.
But then my frame of reference is the PS2 Smackdown games where they didn't even have DLC and a lot of the roster was already outdated the day of release. You also only had like, 30 CAW slots per saved game.
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