A look back at 3D wrestling games the best and worst rosters

Best Roster of 1996: Virtual Pro Wrestling



Believe it or not, this is actually the very first AKI wrestling game and would later be "updated" and released in NA as WCW vs the World. It honesty isn't that fun to play unlike later AKI games but I think it's cool how right off the bat, here's 60 of the best wrestlers ever in a video game. Fun fact: WCW vs the World featured Luger, Malenko, and Regal but they were just reskinned Japanese guys. Jeff Jarrett was also an unlockable character but let's not talk about that.

Worst Roster of 1996: Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Retsuden 2



This game honestly doesn't even have a bad roster, it's just that it's licensed by NJPW and there no was no other competition.

All Japan featuring Virtua is basically the beginning of the Giant Gram series. It doesn't play anything like Virtua Fighter.

If you compare it to the Toukon Retsuden games, it's a little faster but I think the gameplay is more realistic. Toukon had a lot of issues that plagued the games into the SD series with cheap AI and sometimes the AI not staying down long enough after big moves. The heart of VF is there because it probably shares an engine but it's not a fighting game reliant on juggling combos or whatever. It's a wrestling game. There's a grapple button, you can do combos like doing A -> B -> C to string together strike sequences. Some of the guys have a thing where move inputs change dependent on damage, like Kawada goes from a brainbuster early in the match to where it's a powerbomb later on in the match. It's a surprisingly deep game for an arcade game.

This person isn't great at the game but this should give you a good idea. Giant Gram 2K is the best version of this gameplay, though. Probably the most complex plus the best roster, graphics, sound design, etc.

Best Roster of 1999: WWF WrestleMania 2000



This was tough, on paper, WCW Mayhem has a better selection of wrestlers but since this was EA's first WCW game, it's missing the charm that Revenge had. Now that AKI got the WWF license, they did a really good job considering how little time they were given to work on the game. Not a whole lot of people had unique moves but they really made some midcarders like Road Dogg, X-Pac, D'Lo Brown, Al Snow, and most main eventers feel different, unlike WCW Mayhem were the only special moves were finishers and even then, many people on the roster were missing those. On top of that, everyone had entrance gear, and the CAW mode was good but still missing various moves from previous games. Still, I think it's really cool how I could still add people from old AKI games (or VPW 2), especially with the help of imported textures.

Worst Roster of 1999: Giant Gram: All Japan Pro Wrestling 2



So, this is the sequel to All Japan Pro Wrestling Featuring Virtua and the roster isn't much different, everyone returned but they only added three new characters. Vader, Jim Steele as Wolf Hawkfield, and Kage-Maru from Virtua Fighter were the only new additions, there's really no point in playing this game since Giant Gram 2000 exists unless you really wanted to beat up real wrestlers with fighting game characters.

Best Roster of 2001: Legends of Wrestling



This is the year that everything changed, WCW and ECW are dead now, and WWF had a huge storyline that never made it into video games. So, because there wasn't an AKI game released, somehow an Acclaim game has the best roster for a game that's not bad. I actually enjoyed LOW 2, but this game still had a pretty good roster, only one that had RVD!

Worst Roster of 2001: WWF Just Bring It!



This game sucks, I like how they added several people that joined WWF after ECW closed but in order to use them you had to basically sacrifice your whole memory card. Avoid at all costs.

Best Roster of 2003: King of Colosseum (Green): NOAH x Zero-1



Remember how Legends of WrestleMania let you import guys from SVR 2009? Well, after releasing KOC Red, Spike followed it up with KOC Green and you could combine both games! Samoa Joe is in this one!

Worst Roster of 2003: Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home



This is a wrestling video game, here's some of the playable characters

Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope from ICP
Mad Man Pondo
M-Dogg 20 AKA Son of Havoc AKA Matt Cross
Sabu
Tylene Buck AKA Major Gunns

Best Roster of 2005: WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006



We're at the point where almost every wrestling game available is from WWE but there was also the 360 version of Wrestle Kingdom, which is basically just 40 Japanese wrestlers with DOR gameplay, PS2 version had Brock and Giant Bernard (AKA Albert) so that was neat. Anyways, SVR 2006 is one of the best WWE games ever, roster is a massive improvement over SVR which was missing tons of people and of course, this game had the awesome GM mode. Fun fact: I enjoyed SVR 2006 so much that I never bothered getting SVR 2007 when it was released even though I had 360 at the time.

Worst Roster of 2005: WWE Aftershock



This game is really bad, 12 playable characters, that's it.

Best Roster of 2006: Wrestle Kingdom and SVR 2007




It's a tie! These were the only two wrestling games available, both made by Yuke's, both featured Jamal/Umaga. SVR 2007 had more playable characters but most of the new additions didn't have unique moves while everyone in WK did.

“Real WCW/NWO theme music” which the cartridge couldn’t handle and would probably be a copyright nightmare