A Sincere and Well-Intended Open Letter to AEW

[NikoBaltimore]

In their announcement on Discord they said there's a holdup on Xbox but it shouldn't be more than 24 hours.

[Octopus]

And the story mode is dumb

[Shartnado]

On 11/24/2023 at 10:57 PM, Octopus said:

And the story mode is dumb

 

On 12/1/2023 at 4:22 AM, Octopus said:

And the story mode is dumb

 

1 hour ago, Octopus said:

And the story mode is dumb

But what I really wanna know is, how's the story mode? I hope it's not too, for a lack of a better word, dumb?

[twiztor]

On 11/24/2023 at 8:08 AM, twiztor said:

i looked into buying this the other day. still no Samoa Joe?

when your World Champion isn't in your game, that's an issue.

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

8 hours ago, twiztor said:

when your World Champion isn't in your game, that's an issue.

So true! And I have some time to kill right now (my family is busy flying kites at grandma's house in Wakayama, where they didn't even feel the earthquake. Meanwhile, I was in the gym here when it hit. Thankfully myself and the only other guy there were both between sets when it hit. Whole building was SHAKING. Could have been seriously injured if either of us was under a heavy load. By coincidence, his family lives in Niigata, near the epicentre. He called them and they were all OK in the immediate aftermath. I am afraid to look online and read about tsunami damage). 

 

Let's talk about the game! That'll be a fine distraction.

I am going to go through the whole roster, looking at their status w/r/t Fight Forever. Also commenting on how fun it is to play with their character in game. Which will totally reveal my biases, none of which should be surprising.

As massively, wholeheartedly disappointed I am in how AEW/Yukes/Whomever is handling adding new content to Pay Forever I still enjoy the game a lot in terms of just playing matches to kill time on the train or whatever. 

MJF: NOT on the roster page! In the game. VERY fun to play with due to unique beg-off and ring-punch animations.

Samoa Joe: World Champion. NOT in the game. BUT they did add two-colour shorts to the game! So it may be possible to make a Joe CAW that slightly resembles him if you squint, now. Sadly, I suspect the reason that the CAW suite is completely ass is that they want to force people to buy their downloadable characters. Which is too "Late Stage Capitalism" for this particular grandpa, and a big part of why I changed my user name here.

 Toni Storm: Woman's World Champion. Looks like you'll be able to pay extra to download her soon. Also looks a LOT like the paid downloadable Toni Storm will NOT be Timeless Toni Storm but will be at least a year out of date.

Julia Hart: TBS champion. NOT in the game.

Big Bill: Tag Champ. NOT in the game.

Ricky Starks: Tag Champ. Actually in the game! Social media in-game is @starkmanjones, which tickles me.

Orange Cassidy: International Champ. One of the best things about the game due to unique "sloth style" animations which you can also use for CAWs by earning points in Story Mode. Which is fun, to have, say, Misawa do hands in pockets stuff.

Christian: TNT Champ. Actually in the game. No turtleneck, though

The Acclaimed: Trios Champs. You have to pay extra to download them. Also, if you pay for them you get a (pretty bad) version of the new Dynamite arena. If you only paid full price for Fight Forever, you don't get the new arena. Count me among the people who like AEW way less because of that bullshit move. 

Daddy Ass: Trios Champ. NOT in the game.

Eddie Kingston: Triple Crown Champion. My favourite guy to play as. Second wrestler and first guy I completed the "defeat 50 COM opponents" challenge with. You get 10,000 "AEW cash" for beating that challenge! I now have, quite literally, over 7,000,000 AEW cash in the game with literally NOTHING left to spend it on. That's not a joke. Which is, figuratively, a fucking joke. Also none of his three belts are available in the game. Backfist is his only finisher in the game, sadly. He also only gets one special move. Kind of underpowered.

Hook: FTW Champ. You have to pay extra to download him. I imagine he'd be really fun to play as. Word is, you don't get his actual theme. I might be tempted to buy the Hookhausen pack if you did. 

Aaron Solo, Action Andretti: Not in the game.

Adam Cole: In the game. Has a unique entrance. Fun to play against.

Edge: Not in the game. Fine by me.

Adam Page: In the game. It's fun to try and hit the Buckshot.

Alex Reynolds: Not in the game. (Henceforth: NITG or nitg)

Andrade: In the game! Not even the most ironic one, by far.

Angelico, Cool Hand, Ogogo, AR Fox, Ari, Austin Gunn, Bandido, Kaun, Cutler: NITG

Brian Cage: Fun to play as. Fun to play against. 

Brody King is NOT in the game. Dammit. Neither is Buddy Matthews.

Bryan Danielson: EXTREMELY fun to play as. Also one of the best things about the game. There's a secret challenge where if you wen the men's world title 20 times with a wrestler you unlock nifty gold attire. So I did 40 title matches alternating Bryan/Kingston wins and unlocked it for both of them. Then Dustin/Sting Orange/Darby Archer/Hobbs... Then I did it with Shida/Stat and the woman's title but that didn't unlock anything. So I did another series with them alternating men's title wins. Then Yukes or someone screwed up the implementation of that secret challenge so they just unlocked gold attires for everyone. Which maybe should have been frustrating but it was a fun way to kill time on the train so no big deal.

FTR: Have to pay extra.

Jericho: Fun to play as. Got some new attires for free! It's pretty obviously pre-strict-diet Jericho, which is kind of amusing.

Fallen Angel, Colt, Colten, Claudio: NITG. I made a half-decent Claudio CAW. He's fun to play as.

Best Friends: Fun to play as, though the tag AI is total ass. Trent got a free haircut update! He's, I think, the ONLY character with more than one haircut option. More of that, please! Abadon could really use a hairdo update, for example.

Danhausen: See: Hook.

Daniel Garcia is NOT in the game. Dammit.

Top Flight: NITG

Darby: In the game. Great fun to play as. Skateboard stuff is really amusing. Also one of the true highlights of playing this game.

Dralistico: NITG

Dustin: Tremendously fun to play as Dustin.

Righteous, All Ego, Griff, Private Party: NITG

EVIL UNO IS NOT IN THE GAME EVEN THOUGH HE HELPED CREATE AND PROMOTE IT

Jack Perry: Jungle Boy is in the game. Out of date, but fun to play as. JE have a great tag team entrance animation.

Hager, Lethal, Switchblade Jarrett, Johnny TV: NITG

Hardyz: Jeff is free, you have to pay extra for Matt. And the game CONSTANTLY gives you challenges where you have to play as Matt. I

John Silver: VERY fun to play as. You can unlock Brodie Lee. I made a DO team and gave them the JE entrance with Silver riding in on Brodie's shoulders. It makes me smile every time, which is not often because the tag AI is, sadly, total ass.

Oh yeah: JADE CARGILL IS IN THE GAME She is fun to play as, AWESOME to play against. Still not the most ironic one. 

CODY AND PUNK ARE BOTH IN THE GAME!! Those are the most ironic ones. Both of them get special entrance animations. I used Cody's for my Rey Rey CAW. Who's that slowly rising from the stage? It's likely I am a shitty person, because I LOVE playing against Punk in Lights Out and Exploding Barbed Wire matches and making him bleed buckets. Possibly that's the very best thing about the game, in my book. 

And, yes, the game still challenges you to win matches as Punk or Jade. Regularly.

If I remember correctly, you also have to unlock Cody. Which was one of the first things I did after getting the game. You can also unlock Owen, which is pretty great. His character is a BLAST to play as. Violent Dustin vs Cody blood matches are also as fun as you'd expect (if you expect they'd be very fun).

Mox: Cool special entrance, which my Claudio CAW also uses. Fun to play as or against.

Jose, Woods, Juice, Shibata: NITG

Kenny: AWESOME to play as. Has a ton of finishers and special moves. Spamming Snap Dragons is an easy way to rack up high scores. Big contrast between overpowered Kenny and underpowered Kingston, but both are great to play as.

You have to pay extra for Limitless, dammit. I made a decent CAW for him. SUCK IT, PAY FOREVER! For WHATEVER reason he is bundled in a download with The Bunny.

Killswitch: Luchasaurus is in the game. And we got a FREE black outfit for him.

Kip, Komander, Konosuke, Kota, KO'R, Aussie Open: NITG. I made an EXCELLENT Ibushi CAW. There are a handful of guys where obviously they don't mind if you want to make a CAW of them. Ibushi is one of those guys. You can even put kinesio tape on his shoulder! Incredibly fun to play as Ibushi. Made a Golden Lovers team. Too bad about the AI.

Archer: Great fun to play as. 

Big Shotty, Tiga Style, Luther: NITG. It might tempt me if we got Luther in the Toni Storm pack, but as I said it does not look like we are getting Timeless Toni.

Malakai: In the game. Fun to beat up on. His theme music rules!

Mark Briscoe is NITG, dammit!

Neither is Mark Sterling.

Young Bucks: Very Fun. I think I have already covered the tag AI issues. Their double team moves look amazing when you manage to hit one.

Daddy Magic, Kingdom, Sydal, Nakazawa, Santana,Ortiz: NITG

Miro: Fun to play as or against. Seems shorter, in the game. Looks great in the gold gear.

Brodie Lee: Unlockable. Makes me happy and sad at the same time, to play as him.

Negative One and Nicky Boy are NITG, dammit!

PAC is fun to play as or against.

Parker Boudreaux is NITG. HUGE dealbreaker for a lot of people, obviously.

The Big Paul is unlockable and it's hard to unlock him and satisfying when you do. Too much fun to play as him in Casino Battle Royale mode.

Lucha Bros: See: Young Bucks. Fenix in ladder matches is too much fun. Unfortunately, tag ladder matches aren't possible

PRETTY PETER IS NITG! WTF, AEW & YUKES! DO YOU HATE MONEY?!?!

Hobbs is underpowered but awesome to play as, like Kingston. Looks amazing in the gold gear. Still has the Team Tazz look in the game.

I made a good Preston Vance CAW. You can find CAW formulae online. Most of them are at least OK.

Neither Swerve nor Nana are in the game.

QT, Roddy: NITG. QT is still on the roster page.

Roosh: NITG. Dammit.

Sammy is in the game but he has a RIDICULOUS haircut. It's bad enough that I almost never use him.

Satnam, Serp, Sonjay, The Captain, Stoke, Stu, Butcher, Blade, Toa, Nese: NITG

Scorp is fun. I got my first seven-star match in a Lights Out match with him.

Sting is awesome!

Wardlow has lots of singlet options. Not sure why, but he isn't that fun to play as. He's challenging to play against, as are many big meaty men because of the Unyielding Poise skill which makes them impervious to strikes until you wear them down. It's one of the best skills to give your CAWs! Wardy still has the man-bun in-game

Yuta and Ospreay are NITG. Yet.

 

Abadon is one of my favourite wrestlers to play as. They could use an image update, in the game. Still have red hair here.

ANNA! is in the game. Dark Order colours.

You can unlock Aubrey as a wrestler and she's also a ref. I think you can make her ref her own match, but I don't want to check now. Rick Knox is the other ref.

Athena and Emi are NITG, dammit!

Britt has some of the best attires in the game. Winning with the lockjaw is satisfying.

Diamante, Harley: NITG

Shida is the first wrestler I beat the 50-win challenge with. Unfortunately, her Katana finisher is hopelessly glitched. They said they patched it, but it still doesn't land on Switch. Still has her FAR superior old entrance theme here.

HAYTER IS NITG, DAMMIT! Neither is Kierra.

Stat is GREAT to play as. Still an alien, too! And she does the nose boop!

Neither Leyla nor Leila is in the game. Hirsch's excellent theme music is, though.

Madison, Maria, Mercedes, Marina: NITG

Nyla is really fun to play as. Hitting the draping diving knee drop is satisfying.

PVZ: NITG

Penelope, Rebel, Velvet: NITG

Riho and Ruby are both fun enough to play as or against.

Saraya, Serena, Skye: NITG

Tay is VERY fun to play against.

Taya & Saraya: NITG. Fine by me.

Rosa is fun to play as or against. Violent blood matches between her and Britt are fun.

WILLOW IS NOT IN THE GAME!!! DAMMIT!!!

Magical Girl is BY FAR the most fun wrestler to play as! THE best thing about the game. 

 

The other at-least OK CAWS I have been able to make: Eddie Guerrero, Naito, Shinsuke, Okada, Jeff Cobb, WALTER, Sheamus, Abdullah, Hansen, Brody, MVC, Bulldogs, Harts, ZSJ, Ospreay, and Morishima. 

I also made deliberately weak CAWS of Hogan, HHH, HBK, and Orton to beat up on when there's a hard difficulty challenge, or just for shadenfreude and giggles.

 

 

Lights Out matches are the easiest way to crank out high scores. Particularly if you use the thumbtacks.

 

Edited January 2 by Gordi the former AEW fan