It kind of isn't a different series, though. They insist that it is, but they've been using a lot of the same move and strike animations since the very FIRST SmackDown game. For all the tweaks and upgrades - which help greatly - it's still built on the basic SD skeleton. Some people hate that, and demand a full overhaul, but I don't; even the minor overhaul we got in 2K15 completely gutted and ruined the game. At this point, they're married to the engine; if that means we have to deal with some occasional "ancient" animations or bugs popping up, but can still have hundreds of people on the roster and a robust creation engine, then fine, keep doing what works, it an't gotta be perfect. I mean, WrestleMania 21 for Xbox was touted as having a "brand new engine" as its primary selling point, and it was awful, not even a finished game. It takes far too much work to build a wrestling engine from scratch AND stick to the annual release cycle they've forced themselves into.
So yeah, it's a "different series" in that it has a new name and new developer, but they're still using the same foundation, just with tweaks. At this point it's like a marriage of the SD and No Mercy engines, and that's fine.
Yeah, I thought the use of Rest Holds in DoR was interesting but they didn't go as far as they could have. They did add Rest Holds or "Working Holds" back in for 2K16. Mostly chinlocks. You apply one mid-match and you both struggle; if you hang on your Stamina goes up a little and theirs goes down, if they escape they get a slight boost and the advantage.
The series has been hit or miss but you missed quite a few good ones. SDvR 2007 and 2008 weren't very good. 2009 was a big improvement and they kind of just got a little bit better each year after that. It's always been two steps forward, one step back, but they all had some improvements along the way. 2009 through 2013 were all pretty good, until 2014 which I still prefer over almost any other game in the series, including the more recent ones. By that point the roster, Creation options, Universe Mode, 30 years of WrestleMania mode and everything else just made it feel by far like the most "complete" wrestling package.
2K15 sh*t the bed, although they did improve some of the gameplay and animation, and of course the graphics, but they gutted the features too much. 2K16 is a huge improvement, and I rate it almost as highly as '14, but it's a toss-up.
One problem is they're all pretty glitchy after 2012 or so. I'm pretty sure they've all been unplayable without patches since then; luckily they've all been given free patches shortly after release, I just wish it wasn't necessary.
But yeah, they're worth messing with. They're all like, $1 if you ever wanna check 'em out.
