WWE Wrestlemania 19 (Gamecube) 2003
Wrestlemania 19 was a case of one step forward, two steps back. While it did fix some of the glaring issues that Wrestlemania had, it also took some strange new approaches to things like its season mode that turned a lot of people off. Instead of a career mode, the game instead had a "Revenge Mode" which was actually more of a side scrolling beat 'em up that it was a wrestling simulation. Taking control of any superstar on the roster, you made your way through a handful of levels trying to get "revenge" on Vince McMahon for throwing you out of the WWE. Stephanie McMahon sends you to these places with various tasks like destroying WWE property, assaulting wrestlers and beating up security guards who could weirdly execute competent wrestling moves. Though taking a different approach had to be admired, they had to know that most wrestling fans wanted a straight up season mode. "Revenge Mode' wasn't very deep and not very difficult. None of the missions were particularly innovative and got repetitive very fast. Elsewhere, gameplay had the controls pretty much the same with a more arcade style, though it did have a grappling style that was closer to the N64 games than the previous offering. The new system also made things less repetitive than they felt in Wrestlemania X8. Graphics were a bit disappointing and not much of an upgrade and wrestlers walked really strangely during their entrances. As noted, it fixed enough issues from before to be considered an improved game, but it still wasn't on a par with its Xbox and Playstation counterparts. As always, Create a Wrestler was somewhat of a saving grace but for the most part Wrestlemania was again he weaker of the three licenses that existed at the time.