Bugs in Nintendo64 games were hardly ever fixed unless a second run of cartridges were ordered, and in most cases that didn't happen as companies made sure to order enough the first time around to
avoid queueing at the Nintendo production plat again. However some bugs were so bad that the publisher had no option but to order another batch of carts and start a replacement program.
That is exactly what happened for THQ and the release of WWF No Mercy, developed by Asmik Ace Entertainment. Although the game received outstanding reviews the ROM featured a nasty bug which would
haunt players of the original release.
All launch copies of No Mercy, which could be hundreds of thousands of carts, supposedly suffers from a bug that eventually will erase saved content such as wrestlers created, unlocked hidden wrestlers,
championship story modes, as well as money earned.
THQ (USA) opened a support page for people experiencing problems with their WWF No Mercy cartridge, but also recommended resetting the cartridge to factory defaults and playing through the game
again before reporting problems.
Re-initializing the cart data however would not fix the problem, the bug would still randomly erase caws, money, all the stuff you unlocked, and all progress made in the career mode.
So owners of a launch copy who contacted THQ through the support page were asked to return their copy to THQ, if they still had the receipt and box. In return they would get a fixed version,
better known as a revision A (1.1). However it's unknown wether the revision A version made it to stores in America or if it was exclusive to the exchange program.
An exchange of the game would take 6-8 weeks.
The revised US version seems pretty scarse and it took me months to locate one on ebay. Europe was treated with a revised versions of the game as well, but I don't think an exchange program was
offered, it was probably more likely that another batch of carts were offered and sold in stores as the European revision A is far easier to find. On a side note the PAL revision A supposedly
has a "blood" bug, but this is unconfirmed.
If you have a revision 0 (1.0) of No Mercy, the following warnings found online may help you.
- DO NOT do a season mode with a CAW (if you are doing a season mode and a CAW is the champion nothing will happen)
- DO NOT do the same mach over and over again exept for regular maches in other words dont do K.O.T.R.,Cage,Latter, and a Create a PPV too many times in a row.
- DO save your CAWS in a Memory card and update them aften if you dont have a memory card still well pray you remember steps 1 and 2.
Another side note... No Mercy was supposed to have a Gameboy Color counterpart which would use the N64 TransferPak to connect to the N64 version and unlock more features such as
an extra unlockable CAW slot and an extra GBC option in Championship mode. Eventually the GBC version got canned, however the modes are unlockable by using a Gameshark/Action Replay.
For version 1.0 (Launch revision), use the following codes:
810AB0A0 0C00
810AB0A2 0053
810AB0A4 0009
For version 1.1 (Revision A), use the following codes:
810A9BC0 0C00
810A9BC2 0053
810A9BC4 0009
Then clone a CAW to the spot of data512 and then go to Championship and No mercy GameBoy Color mode should be accessible.
Once you put in the code and start the game with it on do like it says and go to clone a CAW. You will notice as you move to an open slot looking for a spot to clone your CAW to you will see
a name under it. Date 1, Data 2, Data 5, etc. Just look through all your sections until you see one that says data 512 under it and clone the CAW to that one. Then save it and go to championship
mode, there will be a new mode on the right in what used to be an open space titled Game Boy Color mode. When you select it the story will take the CAW from data 512 and use it in the story.
It really works cause I played through it yesterday. I would not have posted it if it was a fake. I do have a 3.30 GS though so you might need a newer GS version for it to work.
(source: CAWplace)
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