15 Best Wrestling Games Of All Time

Time for a Japanese exclusive.

It's the sort of game that'll make fans of Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi smile. Both legends were included in-game under the All Japan wing, but Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 also featured wrestlers from New Japan, FMW, Michinoku Pro, Pancrase, Pride and more. Legendary figures such as Andre The Giant, Terry Funk and even Mil Mascaras were also available as playable characters.

VPW 2 used the exact same engine as WWF WrestleMania 2000 on N64, but that's where the similarities stop. Being honest, there's more AKI love coming higher up on the list, but it'd be remiss to mention their work without talking about this cherished January 2000 release. The gameplay was everything, and it'll be instantly familiar to those who remember anything WWF or WCW on Nintendo's old hardware.

Well, apart from the dire Nitro and Thunder cash grabs ported over from PlayStation.

AKI downplayed the presentation of their WWF and WCW titles to focus on a cleaner real sports like production here. That fits the Japanese-centric roster, and it gives the game a real nostalgic feel for those who still trip over themselves to revisit anything All/New Japan from the 80s and 90s.

Being able to mix things up by controlling MMA fighters who have their own unique play style was a lovely touch. Hybrid matches (Misawa vs. Don Frye, for example) feel totally different to something standard between two puroresu greats. It isn't even a problem that the game omitted WrestleMania 2000's cage bouts. AKI wanted to stay true to the Japanese product they were mimicking, and cage matches weren't exactly commonplace.