Smackdown 2 is an incredible wrestling game. It's still fun to play.
Now, I loved the first Smackdown. It was an extremely fun wrestling game with an arcade style that was pretty unique for its time. And really, even to this day there's still not much like it as far as 3D wrestling games go, because the Smackdown vs. Raw series has taken on more of a simulation-style approach over the years and left its arcade-like roots behind. With that said, I prefer the old Smackdown games because they were so much fun.
Getting to Smackdown 2. Since it was released less than a year after the original, there's understandably little changes in the graphics or core gameplay. But I'm okay with that, because the graphics were still great for their time and the gameplay was very fun. Check out my review of the original Smackdown to see more of my thoughts on that. This review will mostly cover the differences between Smackdown and Smackdown 2.
The core gameplay in Smackdown 2 is mostly unchanged from the original, but it is much faster. A number of new, faster animations have been added, and longer existing animations have been cut short. The overall speed has been kicked up a few notches as well. The increased speed definitely makes the game more fun. A number of new move types have also been added, which gives your characters bigger movesets to play with.
The roster has been greatly upgraded. The original Smackdown had 36 wrestlers. Smackdown 2 almost doubles it, featuring over 60 characters. Most of the characters from the original Smackdown are included (with a few gimmick changes), as well as many popular new additions like Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels, all of whom are very fun to play as, and nearly 30 other new characters as well.
A lot of new match types have also been introduced, all of which are very fun to play. The table match is pretty faithful to what you see on television. You have to slam your opponent onto the table and break the table to win. All you have to do is Irish whip your opponent into the table. They fall onto it, and then you do a grapple move to put them through it. In the ladder match, you must position a ladder in the center of the ring, climb up it and grab the object hanging above the ring. This is fun too, but the characters climb up the ladder very fast, and pull the belt down instantly, which makes the ladder match end prematurely a lot.
The casket match has similar mechanics to the table match. You have to put your opponent in a casket and close it. It works pretty well. You just strike or Irish whip your opponent near the casket, which causes them to fall into it. But their upper body stays up, so you have to stomp them until they fall down and then the casket closes. Pretty fun match as well. The Hell in a Cell match is a steel cage with a roof. It doesn't look anything like it does on TV, but it's still a very fun match. These new modes add a lot to the game. There are also other variations of existing modes that add even more replay value to the game.
But the biggest improvement in Smackdown 2 from the original is definitely the Create A Wrestler mode. The Create A Wrestler in the original Smackdown was very bare bones. For your character's appearance, it only allowed you to pick from a list of generic heads, upper bodies and lower bodies. Smackdown 2 on the other hand, allows you to customize a large number of appearance attributes, from faces to clothing to accessories. It's a much better system. Also, the number of wrestler slots has been increased from 4 to 10. Also, when you unlock hidden wrestlers, you don't have to use a CAW slot to play as them. This allows you make a lot more original creations, and real wrestlers from other federations. Unfortunately, for the diehard player, 10 slots is still pretty restricting. Especially considering Fire Pro Wrestling for the Game Boy Advance came out less than a year after this, but that game has 77 slots. Still, with the improvements they made to the Create A Wrestler mode, it adds a lot of value to Smackdown 2. This was also the first Smackdown game to include Create a Taunt, but it's not that useful.
The one area where I think Smackdown 2 suffered in comparison to the original would definitely be the Season Mode. It's pretty similar to the Season Mode from the original game, but there's one huge flaw that wasn't present in the original. In the first Smackdown, when you skipped CPU matches, it was instant. But in Smackdown 2, when you skip a CPU match, it goes through a long menu where the characters' health bars slowly drain until one is empty and it reveals who wins. By the way, there are 8 matches per show, only one of which involves your character. So, doing this 7 times per show is very annoying.
The cutscenes in the Season Mode are about as limited as the ones in the original Smackdown. Some of them are almost completely recycled, and there are only a few kinds of cutscenes in the game that repeat over and over again. Sometimes there are unique cutscenes, but all the cutscenes have one problem in common. They aren't even as long as the load times that take place before and after them! It's so stupid having to sit through a long load time just to see a less than 10 second cutscene, and then have to sit through another long load time to get back to the menu. This, coupled with the long match skipping, makes the Season Mode a boring chore.
That's not to say the Season Mode doesn't have good qualities. The gameplay in the game is great, so when you finally get to your match, you're still having a lot of fun. And, the unlockables in the game make the Season Mode worth it. A lot of the cooler characters in the game, like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Cactus Jack, Mick Foley, and Shawn Michaels have to be unlocked in the Season Mode. You unlock tons of Create A Wrestler appearance parts and moves in the Season Mode. Also, the coolest backstage area, WWF New York, has to be unlocked in Season Mode. Several of the match types have to be unlocked as well. Overall, if it weren't for the long, boring waiting for load screens and match skipping, the Season Mode in Smackdown 2 would've been great. As it stands though, I actually prefer the Season Mode of the original game.
Having the main single-player story mode being boring would've crippled any other game, but with Smackdown 2, the gameplay is so much fun that just playing single player in exhibition mode with the default characters is fun. When you add in the Create A Wrestler, it adds even more fun and replay value. And if you have a friend to play it with, that's even better. The large number of characters and match types in the game make it very sustainable.
The arenas and backstage areas are much more interactive than the last game. Each arena now has announcer tables, which you can put your opponent through. The backstage areas have more weapons and more interactivity, including tables in the kitchen area, a forklift in the parking lot, and cars that drive by in front of the building, making the backstage fights a lot more fun. There are other small improvements to the game as well.
The graphics and sound in Smackdown 2 are pretty much identical to the original Smackdown. That said, the graphics are great for its time. The character models and arenas are nicely detailed, and they aren't nearly as blurry as most PS1 games. Also like the original Smackdown, the sound in Smackdown 2 is pretty mediocre. There's no commentary. I like the music, but it's definitely not for everyone. The smacking sounds that remain are pretty generic but get the job done. The sound is the worst quality of Smackdown 2.
A lot of people compare the two PS1 Smackdown games to the AKI wrestling games on the N64, particularly WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and WWF No Mercy. Still to this day, people debate about which series was better. Honestly, I think it's an irrelevant question because they're so different from each other. Yeah, they're both WWF wrestling games, but that's pretty much where their similarities end. For that reason, it's largely subjective about which is "better". It's apples and oranges.
On its own merits, Smackdown 2 is an incredible wrestling game. It was unmatched in its time graphics-wise, but most importantly, it's still fun to play. With the Smackdown vs. Raw series abandoning its roots, I reccomend everyone with the ability to play PS1 games and has an interest in wrestling games to check out Smackdown 2. Not just to see the beginnings of the franchise, but because the early Smackdown games are still pretty unique. No other modern 3D wrestling series has taken on such a fast-paced arcade-style approach. It's a very unique way of doing a wrestling game, and it's just an extremely fun game. In fact, I think the early Smackdown games are good enough and simple enough to be enjoyed to any gamer that likes fighting games. Unlike the AKI series and Fire Pro Wrestling, which really require you to be a wrestling fan to fully enjoy. That's what makes the first Smackdown games so appealing.
Scoring:
Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 9
Sound: 6
Value: 10
Tilt: 10
Overall: 9.0