What is Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, the Japanese game behind No Mercy?

Virtual Pro Wrestling 2: Odo Keisho, 'Royal Road Succession', was released in Japan on January 28, 2000 by AKI and Asmik Ace, for the Nintendo 64 only. It was the final form of a lineage: Virtual Pro Wrestling on the PlayStation in 1996, sold in America as WCW vs. the World; Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 and WCW vs nWo: World Tour in 1997; WCW/nWo Revenge in 1998; and WWF WrestleMania 2000 in 1999. No Mercy, ten months later, is this game's engine wearing WWF colors.

The roster is the legend. Only All Japan Pro Wrestling was officially licensed, contributing 21 wrestlers. Behind them stood the rest of Japanese wrestling in disguise: stars of New Japan, FMW, Michinoku Pro, Osaka Pro, Toryumon, Pancrase, PRIDE, RINGS, and Battlarts, present with their likenesses and move sets under generic names and altered gear. Ninety-eight wrestlers in all, plus sixteen create-a-wrestler slots, and the edit mode was the key: fans renamed the disguised stars, fixed their costumes, and completed the roster AKI could not license. Antonio Inoki, Andre the Giant, Mil Mascaras, the Funks, and shoot fighters like Bas Rutten and Rickson Gracie are all in there.

It also did things No Mercy never tried. A separate shootfighting grappling system modeled mixed martial arts, a first for 3D wrestling games. A 'Logic' factor governed how created wrestlers behaved. The mask editor was the series' most detailed. The Belt Edit mode let players unify All Japan's Triple Crown. The Royal Road Succession career mode ran twelve months toward the Tokyo Dome, the Nippon Budokan, and Korakuen Hall.

Japanese critics scored it 30 out of 40 in Famitsu. Import players made it, according to Hardcore Gaming 101, the second most popular Nintendo 64 import after Sin and Punishment. And in 2006, AJ Styles, a connoisseur of both worlds, called Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 the all-time greatest pro wrestling game. No Mercy is the one the world remembers. This is the one the wrestlers name.