"A great game, but it just didn't have 'it' for me."

This game is basically an 'upgrade' of Wrestlemania 2000(WM2K), which also was a great game. No Mercy has lots of new features, like Ladder matches, Ironman matches, Guest Referee matches, and a better Championship mode.

Graphics - 8/10

I thought the graphics were pretty good, except some faces didn't look that good, and when a wrestler walked to the ring with a belt on their shoulder you could see the shoulder and the belt clipping each other, just a few minor problems, nothing too major though.

Sound - 8.5/10

I love hitting someone with a ring bell, it makes a great ding noise. The other weapon sounds are pretty cool too. The music is good as well, much better than WM2K. The Undertaker doesn't have his American Badass theme, but it's not that big of an issue to me because I usually skip the entrances anyway after I see them a couple of times. Probably most people do the same.

Gameplay - 8/10

There's a lot of fun modes, like Ladder matches, Guest Referee matches, and Championship mode, although they can get old fast if you play a lot of them, at least that's what happened to me. There is slowdown in tag team and tag ladder matches, but it's not really that bad. It's just a bit annoying, but the 1 on 1 matches are pretty fast. The Championship mode is 10x better than WM2K's Road to Wrestlemania, instead of just playing match after match, you can pick what belt you want to try for, and actually have real storylines for each belt(instead of Vince just taking your belt and giving it to the Undertaker), and losing matches actually opens up new storylines. The main thing that lowers this score is the computer AI. It doesn't get harder, it just gets cheaper, and it reverses almost everything, regardless of spirit meters. It's a pain to have flashing red spirit and the computer to have almost danger and he still reverses practically everything you do, and then executes one move and your spirit takes a nosedive and their meter goes way up...It can make going through the belts really frustrating, especially with the assorted handicap matches you usually if not always HAVE to win to advance...

Replay Value - 9/10

There's a lot of replay in No Mercy, playing Championship mode to try for 100% on every belt, playing Survival to try to eliminate all 100 wrestlers and make money for the Smackdown Mall, creating your own wrestler, or just doing moves (off ladders) through tables. The only problem that I and some others had was a bug(I know that's not the 'correct' term, but I'm using it anyway) that was supposedly in 80% of the first shipment. It deletes practically everything you've done in the game, for example created wrestlers, hidden wrestlers unlocked, things bought in the Smackdown Mall, etc. It happened to me 3 times, and really diminished the replay for me, but hopefully the carts available to buy now don't have this problem. I don't mean to scare people off from buying this game, but I think this needs to be mentioned.

Buy or Rent?

It really depends on the individual person. If you played WM2K a lot, and really loved it and wished for more matches, a better career mode, updated wrestlers, and/or other things like that, I suggest buying it. If you had WM2K and just played it a few times and didn't like it that much, I'd suggest renting No Mercy first.

I liked this game, but I didn't love it that much like some other games. I would have given No Mercy about an 8.3 overall, but I can't put fractions, so I just rounded to 8.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/00, Updated 11/27/00