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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wwf_no_mercy.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:Dig-dig-diggity, dig-diggity-dog...]]
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4''WWF No Mercy'' is a ProfessionalWrestling video game for the Platform/{{Nintendo 64}} that was released on November 17, 2000 in North America, with a European release the following month; it was the last licensed wrestling game made by established developer AKI Corporation (now Syn Sophia), who had previously made the ''Virtual Pro Wrestling'' and ''WCW vs. nWo'' series along with ''[=WrestleMania=] 2000'' -- and would go on to make the Anime/UltimateMuscle[=/=]Manga/{{Kinnikuman}} games, the ''VideoGame/DefJamSeries'', and [[CreatorsOddball two SimCity games]] for the Platform/NintendoDS. It was also (along with ''WCW Backstage Assault'') the last wrestling game for the 5th Generation of console gaming, which happened to coincide with the end of wrestling's Wrestling/MondayNightWars era (and the WWF's Wrestling/AttitudeEra).
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6''No Mercy'' was set at the pinnacle of the Attitude Era, and years later is something of a time capsule to that period in wrestling history. It was the first game in the series to include a fleshed-out career mode, replacing the "win a gauntlet of matches against the computer" ExcusePlot found in previous entries. Players could select any title division and follow storylines that actually happened in real life, with the storylines branching and diverging based on wins and losses, and player decisions. It also featured a gigantic roster bolstered by many hidden characters, though completely excluding Wrestling/BigShow [[note]]At the time, Show was sent to developmental territory OVW while the game was in development in order to lose weight and improve his cardiovascular fitness; his position in the storylines was taken by [[Wrestling/StevieRichards Steven Richards]][[/note]]. It also had the largest selection to date of possible match types; this combined with a relatively shallow learning curve contributed to the game's cherished multiplayer feature. On the downside, ''No Mercy'' suffered from a major bug - the first few production runs of the game shipped with a defect built into the game's code that wiped all the save data after a set amount of time; as a result, the bug's in nearly every known ROM of the game [[note]]Look for a V1.1, or Rev A, preferably of the NTSC variety as this one never had blood stripped for censorship unlike at least one European build[[/note]].
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8The easily-hackable nature of N64 [=ROMs=] has given it a still-active modding community, with more than a few e-feds still using the game to sim matches featuring either modern day wrestlers or [=CAWs=].
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10THQ published spiritual sequels to ''No Mercy'' for the Gamecube in ''[=WrestleMania=] X8'', ''Wrestling/WrestleMania XIX'' and the two ''Day of Reckoning'' games. AKI's ''Videogame/DefJamSeries'' -- especially ''Fight For New York'' -- are also considered spiritual sequels, since the engine used for those games was remarkably similar to the ''No Mercy'' engine.
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12----
13!!Tropes used:
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15* ActionGirl: Every playable female. To a lesser or greater extent depending on how good at wrestling they were in real life, the women went through intense {{Xenafication}} (with the exception of Chyna, and only because she didn't need it). Unlike ''[=WrestleMania=] 2000'', which gave female characters minimal stats and dumbed down movesets, ''No Mercy'' went the other direction and gave the women [[RuleOfCool cool looking moves]] - e.g. Wrestling/{{Trish Stratus}} using the koppu kick[[note]]this game came out when she was still in her "can't perform a catfight to save her life" stage[[/note]], or The Kat using an MMA style achilles lock. Wrestling/{{Lita}} in particular was given a high flying stat of 4, which made her a decent character to play competitively. And the game allowed intergender competition, which meant that any of them could compete for and win the World Championship.
16* AnnouncerChatter: Averted in that matches don't feature actual commentary, and the only voice heard is that of the referee. The voices of Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler can be heard in the intro.
17* AIRoulette: For computer-controlled [=CAWs=]. Actual wrestlers are in some cases programmed to behave like their real life counterpart. But [=CAWs=] will do any moves marked 'favorite' at random, and they are ''obsessed'' with doing corner finishers. Irritatingly, No Mercy is the first game in the series where you had to have a corner finisher. For whatever reason, [=CAWs=] also never taunt except for when they're activating their limit break.
18* AWinnerIsYou: Unlocking every path to the belt in Championship Mode is hard and takes a lot of time, ''especially'' the World Heavyweight Title. All it does is make the victory text crawl at the end a little different, and that doesn't even take effect upon finishing the last branch; you have to get 100% and then play one more time to see it.
19* BaitAndSwitch: The tail end of a Heavyweight Championship Defence has Vince promising to bring out his "walking weapon". "The Lethal Weapon" is Wrestling/SteveBlackman's RedBaron, and we're led to think that Vince has paid for the martial artist's services. Immediately after this though, Vince reveals that he has instead enlisted the services of a [[TheDreaded feared]], long-dead and most importantly [[TheGiant HUGE]] wrestler.
20->'''Vince''': [[Wrestling/AndreTheGiant ANDRE]]!!
21* BalanceBuff: Plenty:
22** With the expansion of the damage Rank System (G, F, E, D, C, B, A, and S), most finishers go up 1 rank (A-Ranked finishers in the S-Rank and B-Ranked finishers are in the A-Rank).
23** One of the front grapple suplexes are now ranked as a B from C. Still retains the TKO status.
24** One of the turnbuckle moves, Poetry in Motion, is an S-ranked moved and can be performed without the need of a super.
25** Running moves in general. You can now grab opponents while running, making opponents think twice on just holding the block button to protect themselves or spamming the block button to counter. If they try to block while you run-grab, the grab succeeds.
26** Weapons. Instead of weapons disappearing after losing it, the weapons get dropped and can be picked up again later or thrown out.
27* BoringButPractical: The move where you're outside the ring, your opponent's inside, and you reach in and pull them out (or if they're facing away from you, trip them) isn't blockable or reversible, and even on extreme difficulty the computer's AI isn't very good at avoiding it. Exploiting this is helpful to overcome the computer ones it goes into Reverse Everything Mode.
28** The weak grapples on the A button are the most basic moves, but can't be reversed, so they're also useful (if you can manage to actually grapple the computer without them reversing in the first place, that is). On the other hand the weak A grapples raise the defender's spirit rather than lowering it like other offensive moves, so it's a bad idea to rely on them too heavily.
29* [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerize]]: When the PAL version of the game was updated to remove the deletion glitch, it also removed visible blood.
30* BreathWeapon: Fireball and Poison Mist. Exaggerated with Misty Frankensteiner, which combines the latter with another move.
31* CharacterCustomization: Unique in that you could even edit appearances of ''in-game Superstars'' like you would a created Superstar. This means you can turn an in-game superstar into a completely different wrestler - and then this in turn extends to the championship mode ''and'' the cinematic intro! Yes, efedders and CAW addicts, you can "paste" your [=CAWs=] over top the real superstars and play championship mode with an entirely created roster.
32** Just pray your character isn't a MaskedLuchador because the there are NO lucha libre style masks of any description in the game. The only masks are Kane, Mankind, and a full-face "Phantom" mask.
33** It should also be noted that you can only edit the default roster's appearance, not their movesets. To edit movesets you need a Gameshark and an EXTENSIVE knowledge of N64 programming.
34* ComebackMechanic: Wrestlers have a invisible health bar that when depleted a sufficient amount triggers a comeback mode. Said comeback mode includes: radically increased spirit gain, submission moves grant continuous spirit, and an increase reversal rate. Contrary to popular belief, this isn't limited to the AI; players also have access to this.
35* CosmeticAward: Buying the Ho in the Smackdown Mall takes an obscene amount of money. The Ho is actually four different females not even modeled after actual women that accompanied The Godfather, and her stats are rock bottom, making her useless both as a storyline character or competitive character.
36* FanDisservice: Since this game doesn't care about wrestler gender, you can play as a man in the Women's Championship story. There's a swimsuit competition in the story. He ''will'' put on the skimpiest bikini in the game and strut around in it. Also there's nothing stopping you from making a male create-a-wrestler (or a female one with a Mae Young granny build) and making a thong bikini their wrestling attire.
37* {{Fanservice}}: Many of the swimsuits from the bikini contest at Royal Rumble 2000 were included in the game as outfits. The swimsuit competition even appears in the game as part of the Women's Title storyline. The opening cinematic also has fanservicey shots of Wrestling/TerriRunnels and Debra.
38* GameBreakingBug: The [[http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/WWF_No_Mercy#Memory_Issue memory glitch]] could result in all of your saved progress going poof without warning.
39** Newer versions of the ROM eliminate the save glitch, only to replace it with another, arguably worse one in Championship mode, which causes wrestlers to lose their lock-on at random points during the match. Trying to use any grapples, submissions etc. during this time will cause the wrestlers to hang. Try getting through more than one match at a a time outside of Exhibition mode, we dare you.
40* GroinAttack: This being a wrestling game, they are plentiful, and are even punctuated with a bell's '''DING!''' when a Superstar is struck in the groin.
41** Groin attacks are also [[TheatricsOfPain sold]] for a longer period of time than any other non-grapple move, and characters groin-stunned can't reverse attacks.
42* GuideDangIt: ''No Mercy'' neglected to include instructions in the manual on how to control a guest referee, and the referee actions were performed through the otherwise unutilized right arrow button. Checking for a submission is unintuitive as well - the button has to be pressed once so the ref gets in position to watch, and then pressed again while the wrestler is in the process of tapping out.
43** The game features a limb-specific damage system and a fairly dynamic balance system (which were later used in the ''Smackdown!'' games) - but there's no indication given anywhere in the manual or the game that this is the case. The onscreen Attitude meter is pretty much just a spirit gauge and only gives a vague idea of the progress of the match - it's quite possible to have your character submit or be pinned seemingly out of nowhere, or to pin someone whose meter reads "DANGER!" and have them kick out on a 1-count.
44* HeadSwap: Or more accurately, model swap. Each character had four different models that could be selected. In a few cases, such as [[Wrestling/TAKAMichinoku Taka Michinoku]]/Funaki and Wrestling/MaeYoung[=/=]Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah, the latter was made into an alternate appearance of the former. And in the case of Taka/Funaki, the moveset the character was given was a combination of the movesets the two wrestlers used in real life.
45* LuckBasedMission: 100-Man Survival mode. There are 2 things that can happen even at full health: The A.I. randomly doing an Irish Whip to you and attack you to go behind the ropes and the knock you out via elimination OR getting staggered by a weak/strong strike for you to stagger and get flipped out of the ring.
46* MultipleEndings: Considering the story keeps going whether you win or lose there are a lot of them. Also matches where you're not even personally involved in the case where you are the special guest referee.
47* {{Nerf}}: Mainly on Create-A-Wrestler's features:
48** Piledrivers. This game came out about the same time that WWF started banning piledrivers in real-life due to their propensity for causing injuries, and yet in this game, the basic piledriver is only an E-rank move and a couple others are D-rank. To be fair, piledrivers have been a weak move in this series going all the way back to the very first game, [=WCW/nWo World Tour=].
49** B Grapple Moves. You can no longer give a B-leveled move to weak grapples. The game now separates weak grapple moves with the strong grapple moves. You need to take more effort to hold A for a strong grapple if you want to do the more powerful moves, hope your opponent doesn't counter the slower hold, and hope that the stronger moves don't get countered.
50** Certain grapple holds are no longer as powerful as they were before. The Chokeslam from Hell, previously from B-rank, is now C-rank (it still keeps the KO chance). The Death Valley Driver (Pimp Drop in [=WM2000=]) is no longer a finisher and is now downgraded from an A-Rank to C-Rank. Going all the way back to [=WCW/nWo World Tour=], Glacier's Cryonic Kick, a devastating move with a high chance of knockout, is now The Morality Check, a D-rank move with no chance of knockout (despite being a Special-only move).
51* OutOfCharacterMoment: This can happen if you play as a real wrestler in storyline mode. The best example would be if you play the World Title Storyline Mode without starting as a champion. Playing as Triple H, [=Vince McMahon or Stephanie McMahon=] will result in them getting put through the same hell they put other wrestlers through while someone else replaces them as an antagonist.
52* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The WWF Championship mode follows the actual story lines of Wrestling/TripleH, [[Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin Steve Austin]], [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]], [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]], or Wrestling/ChrisJericho depending on what path you take.
53* RingOldies: Vince [=McMahon=], Linda [=McMahon=], Gerald Briscoe, Pat Patterson, Mae Young, Fabulous Moolah, Jerry Lawler, and Paul Bearer.
54* RubberBandAI: One of the most notorious examples of the trope. If you beat the computer player up too much, especially on the higher difficulties, it will suddenly start reversing ''everything'' and gaining spirit at warp speed. Players get all of these advantages as well in the same situation, but the reversal rate isn't as high.
55* ShownTheirWork: The difference between ''No Mercy'' and the previous ''[=WrestleMania=] 2000'' really is amazing. The championship career storylines are accurate abridged retellings of the hot feuds of the past year such as the [=McMahon-Helmsley=] era, and this was one of the games that is greatly improved by having branching storylines depending on your decisions and win-loss record. The midi music is amazing, with full and accurate themes for several wrestlers and really impressive versions for everybody else, and the moves, taunts and outfits are pretty accurate missing only a few months before the game's release.
56* TakeThat:
57** Mae Young and The Fabulous Moohlah were given the Jackhammer as their front grapple finisher and the Scorpion Death Drop as their back grapple finisher. Those were of course the finishing moves of top Wrestling/{{WCW}} stars Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} and Wrestling/{{Sting}}.
58** Wrestling/{{Ric Flair}}'s move where he'd take a chop, face plant, beg for mercy and then poke the opponent in the eye was called the Old Man Flop in the game.
59** This game took place during the time period when The Stooges (Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco) were using Wrestling/{{Hulk Hogan}}'s taunts and theme music, and this was included in the game. Similarly, although Big Show was removed, his "Showster" attire[[note]]Big Show was briefly given a gimmick where he did unflattering impressions of other wrestlers prior to being sent back to developmental - one of them was Hulk Hogan[[/note]] remained in the game. (Of course, this meant that it was ''very easy'' to make an accurate Hulk Hogan CAW, so the TakeThat may have backfired)
60* TookALevelInBadass: [[Wrestling/StevieRichards Steven Richards]]. In WWF at the time he was mainly a managerial figure who relied on his stable to do his dirty work for him. But due to the aforementioned issues with Big Show being removed from the game, Richards was put in his place in the storylines as a main event caliber wrestler.
61* {{Underboobs}}: One of Terri's outfits features these. She'd worn the outfit in RealLife. During the cinematic intro, the camera does a slow pan up her body at an angle while she's wearing this outfit.
62* WhenEldersAttack: In Tag Team Championship mode (if you don't start as the champion), Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco are the first team to come out and challenge you. If you choose to play as Patterson and Brisco in Tag Team Championship Mode, Paul Bearer and ''Howard Finkle'' take their place.
63* WouldHitAGirl: Three different examples.
64** In story mode, the game does not restrict your character selection. So you can play as a male character and win the Woman's Title if that's your thing. You can also play as a female character and go after the World Title (or any other), and your opponents will try to hit you.
65** In story mode when competing for the Women's Title, one of the last matches has the male tag team partner of the woman's champion in the last chapter (Triple H for Stephanie, Essa Rios for Lita, Eddie Guerrero for Chyna, Val Venis for everyone else) fight you for it.

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