WWF Wrestlemania 2000
System: Game Boy Color
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Natsume
Released: 1999
Capabilities: Compatible on both Game Boy and Game Boy Color(w/ color enhancements), Game Link compatible

The Game

This is THQ's first Game Boy wrestling game. And they're having Natsume doing the honors of developing the game for us. Unlike Attitude, this version is compatible for both Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Will this version prove to be a dud like Attitude? Or can we finally say we played a good Game Boy wrestling game? Let's get onto the review and find out

Graphics

Remember Natsume Championship Wrestling for the SNES in 1994? Well, that's what this game resembles, and it's developed by Natsume if you haven't figured out. The graphics aren't bad. Some are nicely detailed, others aren't(Big Show for example looks like a big white blob) I think the wrestlers look a tad better than the one's in Attitude, because they have more animation on them where you can actually see the muscles on the wrestlers. And there's even titantron videos in championship mode as well, even though they're no where near as good as the ones in the n64 version of the game, it does add some flavor to the game.

Sound

You got the RAW theme at the title screen, and cheesy background music(thank god you can turn it off), but there's no entrance music for any of the wrestlers, even though they don't sound the greatest on Game Boy, they do make game more fun to play, in one game, Wrestlemania Challenge for the old NES, for whichever wrestler you picked, his theme music would play throughout the match. I know that would seem odd in current PSX and N64 games, but they fit for game boy games, and make the game better as well.

Game play

The game play engine in Attitude was simple, not many moves you can do, and got tedious right away. But in WM 2000's engine for Game Boy you can do many more moves, with many basic moves like head butts and punches, to powerful moves to pile drivers, power bombs, suplexes and many more. Plus all the wrestlers finishing moves are in the game as well. They even have a 2-player game link mode in the game! The game has several modes of play, like singles, training, tag team, survivor series(not 8-man tag elimination matches, but a 6 man, single elimination matches, like 3 on 3 in WCW vs. NWO mode in World Tour for n64), and Championship, which is similar to Road to Wrestlemania in the N64 version of the game, where you got storylines with Vince talking and such. There's only 16 wrestlers, mostly the popular one's like Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Kane, Triple H and so on.

No onto the game's downsides: During Game play, sometimes controls are unresponsive (not often like in WCW Nitro), and computers sometimes pulls moves off out of the blue. Also there is 4 less characters than in Attitude, no wrestlers themes takes away from the game, and the entrances are only in championship mode, plus there is that annoying password save feature, where you got to write down the password to save your progress in championship mode(we're all to lazy to write it down, admit it) it's about time game boy wrestling games should add a battery for memory.

Replay Value

The championship mode is way better than the one in Attitude for Game Boy, plus with the addition of 2 people playing makes the way more fun to play than the Attitude too. But then again, there isn't as many wrestlers in here as in Attitude, and there's that dang password save feature, but I believe the strong points outweigh the weak points.

In Brief

+: Great Graphics, Good Championship mode, 2 people can play with game link!

-: Poor Sound, Annoying save feature, not as many wrestlers as in Attitude

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 7.7
Sound: 4.2
Game play: 7.1
Replay Value: 6.5

Overall: 6.3

Rounded to fit GameFAQs score: 6

Final Analysis

Better than Attitude, but could've improved in spots like a battery memory function, and have wrestler's songs in it, but at least it has a link mode, mainly what Attitude was missing, and the game is fun to play, it's basically up to you if you want this game or not.