Reflections on past friendships ( or how I learned to appreciate wm2k)

With all the games that are part of the aki pro wrestling family, the one that is most misunderstood is wm2k. Thought of as the weakest entry in the series, on reflection some twelve years later, wm2k did a great job of recreating the way the wwf was like at the time. Look dudes, we all enjoy head drops and fancy 450 splashes, that just wasn't the way the wwf was at the time.

You need to accept the less is more idea, build around that and it well set you free. If you look at the way the wrestlers were built by the aki team you will notice kinda bland move sets for a majority of the roster and I think that was intentional. I always thought that it was a case of just following the world tour/revenge formula of building move sets, a set number of weak/ front and back grapplers and that was the reason that everyone had limited move sets in comparison to what was available to you in edit mode. Nah everybody if you allow yourself to be taken in by it it changes how you play the game.

The big move is the big move, this is American entertainment style wrestling where dudes have a set finisher, so if you build your caw to have a million MOVEZ! then your dude feels out of place and the game feels wrong. Follow the receipt and it changes the game all of a sudden it opens up for you, you begin to play your matches in a different way.

The reason that wm2k feels unfinished is because in some ways it is. With how close to perfection world tour and revenge stood, wm2k was going to fall short. The wrestlers all play alike in many ways, but that is a product of the company it was based on. If you shift focus and play it as a wrestling game based on 1999 wwf then it did a good job.