Your Thoughts On: Sonic The Fighters

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Background Information

Sonic The Fighters (also known as Sonic Championship in the USA & Europe) is a Sonic fighting game developed by Sega's AM2 division, and published by SEGA. The game was released in Sega Model 2 arcade machines around Japan in May 1996, with the game later being released in the USA in July 1996, and in Europe during August 1996. This game would be Sonic's only fighting game until the release of Sonic Battle for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. This game is also known as Sonic's official 3D debut, asides from Sonic Adventure. A Sega Saturn version of the game was also planned for release, but scrapped for unknown reasons. The game would finally come to home consoles when the Sonic Gems Collection was released in 2005 for the Nintendo GameCube & PlayStation 2.

The idea of the game started when an employee at AM2 was toying around with a copy of Fighting Vipers by adding Sonic The Hedgehog characters in it. After that, the idea of a Sonic fighting game was passed passed to two Sega employees, until one of them, Hiroshi Kataoka finally showed it to Yuji Naka, who gave the project the thumbs up. (Though Kataoka was afraid at first because due to the fact Sonic characters were punching each other, Naka would disapprove.)

Japanese & American versions of promotional flyers for the game.

The Story

Dr. Eggman creates a new Death Egg named the Death Egg II, along with Metal Sonic. Tails later learns of what has happened, and warns Sonic, planning to fly him there via a rocket, The Lunar Fox, built by Tails in an effort to stop Eggman's plans. But however, it is a single seater, and it needs the 8 Chaos Emerlads in order to power it. So, as Sonic &Tails search out for the Emeralds while flying in the Tornado, and sense one Emerlad in Knuckles' possession. Sonic demands the emerald, and Knuckles questions as if to why he should have it. So, it would be chosen that a fighting tournament would be held for those who get the honor to ride the Lunar Fox. After Sonic defeats all the characters that have the emeralds, he flies the Lunar Fox to the Death Egg II, and later faces Metal Sonic & Dr. Eggman on the station, which is set on self -destruct while he faces Eggman. After defeating him, Sonic makes a narrow escape from the epxloding station, and Eggman swears vengeance.

Gameplay

In the game, there are a total of 8 playable characters. They are, as named; Sonic The Hedgehog, Miles " Tails Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose (Rosy The Rascal), Espio The Chameleon, Fang The Sniper, Bark The Polar Bear, & Bean The Dynamite.

(There are was also a scrapped character named Honey The Cat, based off Honey from Fighting Vipers. Her data still exists in the game, and is playable through hacking. Other characters such as Eggman & Metal Sonic are accessible through hacking).

(Super Sonic also comes a secret character for beating everyone, including the first match with Metal Sonic without losing, and engaging hyper mode during the second match with Metal Sonic.)

The main goal of the game is to deplete your opponent's health to zero. If item runs out, the player with the most remaining health wins the match. The game determines the winner in a best 2 out of 3 matches format, and there are 10 one-on-one matches (8 main matches, 2 bosses) in the game altogether, making the game as long as half an hour at most to complete. Once you defeat your opponent, you gain a Chaos Emerald. There are four basic moves, Jump, Barrier, Punch, & Kick.

Each character has up to 60-70 moves at their disposal, each varying for each character, matching with their own abilities. The more complicated the button combination is, the more complicated the attack is, and the more damage it deals on your opponent. Due to 10 matches, there are 10 levels altogether in this game, as they are here listed:

With all that said, what are your overall thoughts on the game? I personally liked it, especially because of it's slapstick, cartoony style, and it has one of my favorite soundtracks from a Sonic game. but to this day, I HATE the Metal Sonic fight.

But anyways, discuss!

Edited August 23, 2012 by Felix

[Wraith]

Honey the Cat is the only good thing to come of this game.

[WarioBone]

Really loved the cartoony animations and the fact that Metal Sonic completely fucked you up unless you knew exactly what you were doing. Finally, a fighting game final boss that doesn't make me want to throw the console across the room! The characters were all fun, although I would've preferred more Chaotix characters over Bean and Bark.

Overall, a fun game. Would really like a true sequel.

[Blue Wisp]

I love the game just for this precious gem, the soundtrack is so wonderful. And even if it's a button-spam game it's actually quite addictive.

I like this game.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Blue Wisp

[Soniman]

Honey the Cat is the only good thing to come of this game.

And the music you ASS!!

Excuse me that was out of line...........

So anyway, Sonic the Fighters is pretty much the best Sonic game I never played.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Soniman

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EDIT: accidental double post

Edited August 23, 2012 by Felix

[Wraith]

Okay, fine. Honey and Never Let It Go. I was hoping Never Let It Go would make it in Brawl but NOOOO.

[WarioBone]

Okay, fine. Honey and Never Let It Go. I was hoping Never Let It Go would make it in Brawl but NOOOO.

You're just going to have to let it go.

PFKKKKKTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Edited August 23, 2012 by Witty Ladykiller Wario

[buba]

Well, it was fun to mess around with when I got Gems Collection.

The moves fitted the characters, most of the stages where based on locations from previous Sonic games and the music was pretty cool, especially that Sonic vs Knuckles one.

One thing that I don't get is why did they create 2 new characters instead of using the rest of the Knuckle's Chaotix crew.

Edit: Holy hell, how the fuck did I double post this.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Tmsp

[Lady Soniko]

i like it, although it gets boring fast for an early 3D polygon fighter it is extremely quirky and had smooth animation and movement, even if they are blocky character models.

the soundtrack is stellar too, the fact Sonic & Knuckles got their own battle theme proved that Knuckles was the shit in the classic Era before Adventure came along.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Super Soniko

[Blacklightning]

It's okay, but not particularly deep most of the time. A lot of the metagame seems to revolve around mind games more than anything else, but beyond that it's mostly just a game of "who hits the other guy first". It definently helps that it's not trying to take itself seriously though - I mean, it's kind of hard to when you can squish someone's head pancake-flat.

Balancing is really all over the place, though. On one hand, you've got Sonic and Knux who can easily break most of your shields just by spamming the punch button, or Nack who can basically pressure you forever unless you're really good with sidesteps (I never did figure out how the z-axis was supposed to work exactly - you'd think it'd be as simple as pressing up or down, but noooooo, apparently you have to press some arbitary combination of buttons for it)... on the other you've got Bark who can move and attack while blocking, has an asston of riduculously easy command grabs and zoning moves and can basically just rape everything once you're familiar with his moveset. Then you've got guys like Tails that are really just... meh.

[Lady Soniko]

actually i just remembered the unbalanced damage ratio with certain characters moves, like Tail's pick up and grab air throw takes off a ridiculous amount of damage for what it is.

[Wraith]

Well, all of Tails's other moves sucked.

[WarioBone]

actually i just remembered the unbalanced damage ratio with certain characters moves, like Tail's pick up and grab air throw takes off a ridiculous amount of damage for what it is.

Speaking of which, it seems like ALL of Metal's moves just break your health bar over his knee. He can kill you in like, two good combos.

Does this game have any sort of competetive scene? I'd imagine not, considering how scarce it is, but...you never know.

[Lady Soniko]

the fact you could rape pretty much any character with Sonic's punch combo and spindash, or spam Fang's Pop gun also makes the game a bit shit in terms of fairness and fun

[SilJeff]

pretty fun. It was a nice addition to Sonic Gems Collection (If it wasn't for that compilation, I would have never known about the game).

I'd like to see a sequel as well.

[Phos]

I love this game's stretch and squash, I don't know if any games since have done it as well.

[Jix Hedgehog]

X

Edited August 14, 2015 by Jix Hedgehog

[Nepenthe]

I can't really comment on Fighters well considering I don't play fighting games enough to have any apt point of reference, but mostly I felt like I could get by everyone just by hammering buttons without having to wait for any openings or anything. This was a perfect strategy until I got to Metal Sonic, upon which I felt tossed into a lion's den with his theme song on constant repeat as pure punishment. It's a quirky game all right, but I don't feel it's a particularly good one. xP

[Aquaslash]

Metal Sonic is a bitch ass nigga in this game. No, seriously, he can eat a bucket of dicks.

...

Now that I got that out of my system, it's a fun game, and probably one of the most satisfying Super Sonic appearances ever. My best character is actually Knuckles for some odd reason. Bark and Bean were awesome, and it's a shame they don't get used more often. Also this game is probably half of the reason that I see Metal Sonic as a legitimately threatening character. Did I mention how unbelievably OP he is?

[Sarah Jane Smith]

I loved the fact that you heard a special theme when fighting Sonic vs. Knuckles.

But I hated that Bark and Bean got in over Vector and that there were eight Chaos Emeralds.

[LunarEdge]

I loved the fact that you heard a special theme when fighting Sonic vs. Knuckles.

But I hated that Bark and Bean got in over Vector and that there were eight Chaos Emeralds.

I think they were counting the Master Emerald as one of the chaos. Also, I love how they spell Robotnik wrong in the U.S version.

[thatguyfrom03]

Love it. It was my favorite Sonic game before I overplayed it on Gems and learned it inside and out. Its a lot deeper than everyone gives it credit for. Everyone says Sonic's punch combo is spammable. You can dodge out of the 3rd hit and counter. Its actually a huge liability that only Metal Sonic takes advantage of. If you've played other AM2 fighters(VF, Fighting Vipers etc.) there some neat little similarities and some left over code.

http://shoryuken.com...fighters.22601/ Some cool shit here. Long read though.

Also Back to Soul>>>>>

Edited August 23, 2012 by thatguyfrom03

[-Mark-]

I like it, but I do have a few issues with it.

For a start, I think for a franchise with as much mass-market appeal as Sonic, the Fighting Vipers engine is a little too 'hardcore' and technical a fighting mechanic for it to be very pick-up-and-play. I don't want a button-masher, but some of the moves are ridiculously complicated. Admittedly I'm not the best at fighting games and usually struggle with pulling off weird stick-movement patterns etc (even when I swear I'm doing them right, they don't seem to register), but still.

Both against the CPU and against other human players, I realised that the bigger, fancier moves end up hindering more than helping. In the time it takes to pull them off, they can run in and kill you with quicker, ordinary moves. It does make all the special moves feel a little redundant when they're effectively a handicap.

I adore Bark, and wish he'd come back sometime. The soundtrack has a few amazing gems in it, too - as others have said, the Death Egg tune in particular. Metal Sonic is a cheap-ass broken unfair bitch and as such getting Super Sonic is almost impossible. I did it once, ever. Good god. Oh, and some the animations are hilariously brilliant.

I'd love a sequel, but I'd prefer if it were just a little more casual-friendly. I don't want a Smash Bros. clone or a button-masher, but a happy middle ground between button-masher and hardcore would be nice.

Edited August 23, 2012 by -Mark-

[Phos]

So a funny thing about Honey the Cat, she has this surprisingly creepy bug that has to do with those nice stylized animations I was talking about. Normally, the characters will look at one another, but in Honey's case, she is always looking at the camera... as best she can. This is obviously a bug due to her unfinished status. For some reason she only does this with one eye, while the other faces in the opposite direction. Weird stuff.