WWE WrestleMania 21

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WWE WrestleMania 21
[[File:|300px|center]] Become a legend? Not really.
Genre(s): Sports Platform(s): Xbox Release Date: April 20, 2005 Developer(s): Studio Gigante Publisher(s): THQ Country: United States Series: WWE Predecessor: WWE Raw 2

WWE WrestleMania 21 is a wrestling video game released in 2005 for the Xbox console. It is named after the pay-per-view of the same name, and is the third and last WWE title released for the system

Bad Qualities

1. The main issue surrounding the title was that although Anchor had proven to develop a worthy wrestling title with WWE Raw 2 being a huge improvement over the first title, THQ decided to hire the developer Studio Gigante (made up of former Midway staff who worked on the Mortal Kombat franchise) to develop this title instead. The main issue was that this was only the second title that Studio Gigante developed, but the team had to also create the entire game's engine from scratch, which would be fine if the fact that the team had never worked on a wrestling title before. This meant that THQ had to make the development team get the game done within a year and a half to coincide with the pay-per-view of the same name, meaning that the game was not only rushed, but crunched as well.
   • However, the previous WrestleMania branded titles were released months after the respective event (or for WrestleMania 2000, before the event) and were nicely polished; and were worked on by developers who had experience with wrestling games, as this genre is known to be quite difficult to develop for.
2. The game suffers from a numerous amount of slowdown issues, bugs and glitches.
   • Control input is heavily delayed, which means you'd have to press the buttons almost instantly unless you want the AI to beat you.
   • Wrestlers can randomly teleport for no reason at all, rope breaks would occur anywhere but the ropes, referees would get in the way of the action, and moves being all messed up.
   • In Tag Team matches, your CPU partner will never tag you back after you tag them, and will never help you in any way. There are even times when you do tag your partner, it will get your team disqualified.
   • There are constant ring movement glitches and poor collision detection.
   • The game can lock up at random moments, mostly during the unskippable "replays" where the screen transitions are so bugged that most of the time the game will crash.
   • When the game launched, early copies came with an alpha build of the game that was severely incomplete and at times would even lock-up on the title screen, and the Xbox Live mode wouldn't even work at all.
3. The AI is incredibly frustrating. When your opponent is in the ring they will keep getting up no matter how much damage you apply to them and will attempt to submit your player in any chance possible. They rarely attempt to pin you and can act dumb when they are out of the ring.
4. The game doesn't appear to take full advantage of the Xbox's power, as the game can randomly slow down especially when more than two wrestlers are in the ring at the time (especially in Royal Rumble matches) and can even lock up.
5. Most of the divas wear skimpy outfits, especially in the Bra and Panties (i.e. Bra 'n' Pantie as the game calls it) mode.
6. The online mode was broken right from release and needed a downloadable patch if so, not that it matters anymore after the Xbox Live servers shut down in 2010.
   • Worse is that most of the unlockables required Xbox Live, and now they're permanently missable.
7. Although the Hell in a Cell, Ladder and TLC match types are included, you can only allow for two-on-two play. You can play with four wrestlers like in the PS2 and GCN titles.
8. Create-a-Wrestler is a complete letdown from the one in WWE Raw 2. There are so many limitations:
   • The biggest limitation is that created wrestlers can't be used for any mode aside from Career Mode.
   • You can't use WWE superstar entrance themes as music for your own, you are forced to use custom music; which would be an issue if you haven't ripped any CDs onto the Xbox's hard drive.
   • You can't change his name or music after creating them.
   • You also can't make Divas, either.
9. Career mode, while fine, has many flaws.
   • The glitches are quite rampant, even more than in the main modes, and once again the game can hang up seemingly at random and lose your existing saved data if so.
   • Once you've beaten career mode with a created wrestler, you can't play it again using the same one.
   • Although the roster is decent, some of the fan favorite superstars and divas are absent.
   • The superstars wear match attires in every cutscene in career mode.

Good Qualities

1. The graphics and visuals are impressive for Xbox standards and still hold up to this day. Wrestler models look great, and there are even little touches like the color of lighting changing depending on what arena is selected.
2. Like with Raw 2, you can use your own music for entrance themes.
3. It has decent commentary by the WWE announcers.
4. In addition to the standard shows and PPVs, there are some interesting additional arenas as well: a Gymnasium, a Wrestling Club, a Training Facility, a Civic Center, and an Industrial Basement.
5. In addition to the songs from WWE Day of Reckoning and SmackDown! vs. Raw, it features some exclusive songs.
6. Career mode was decent, despite the glitches and hang-ups.

Reception

WWE WrestleMania 21 received mixed-to-negative reviews from the critics. On Metacritic, it has a score of 56.

Trivia

• According to a commenter on YouTube user NikaTeeN's review of the game, he had an interview with Studio Gigante's head director John Tobias, who admitted the game's quality was subpar, and mentioned that if his development team was given more time, there would be more match types, variety and that the Create a Wrestler mode was going to be bigger. The glitches were also because of a complete lack of quality assurance.

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