Ultra Pro Wrestling Showcase Debuts Engine, New Roster Additions Includng Matt Cardona, Hayabusa - Hardcore Gamer

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Ultra Pro Wrestling’s showcase has dropped and with it comes the first in-game footage and a metric-ton of roster announcements. We got to see intros that pay homage to Virtual Pro Wrestling 2’s full walkouts from the backstage area to the ring with “Blue Collar” Bill Dollar facing “Sir” Oliver Buckingham. The light and hard strikes and grapples were shown off and the strikes definitely have the same feel as No Mercy in terms of reactions and selling. The grapples seem a tad floaty, but this is pre-alpha footage and that can always be tightened up. The go-behind animation definitely needs some work and the snap German based on one of Dr. Death’s variants in the Aki engine looks pretty good overall.

The roster announcements were huge, with Matt Cardona probably being the biggest modern-day name announced – and someone with a lot of different gimmicks you can put in even from this non-WWE run. Ultra Pro Wrestling being an homage to the Aki engine creates an interesting what if scenario since we had WWF and WCW games with that engine – but never an ECW one. There were ex-ECW stars featured in it to some degree with Raven in WCW/NWO Revenge and Mike Awesome, Hayabusa, and Jinsei Shinzaki being homaged in VPW 2 – but never a large-scale recreation of the company. Now, ECW stalwarts Nova, Francine, Louie Spicolli, Al Snow, and 2 Cold Scorpio will be in. Scorpio hasn’t been in a game officially since All-Star Pro Wrestling III on the PS2 and was another wrestler popular with Fire Pro recreations. He’s also someone who was a good decade ahead of his time style-wise.

Fans of Gangrel who wanted him fully in No Mercy will be happy to have him in this game officially, while underrated legend of the underground and a wrestler whose