Game:

Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side (1994)

Duration: 8:04

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Ah... Eternal Champions... if you've played your share of Sega titles from back in the day and you've never seen or heard of this game, it's a little creepy to think that you wouldn't be alone. Eternal Champions is, on a technical level, one of the best 2D fighters ever created and was one of the titles the folks over at Sega took a lot of pride in.

Originally a good game released for the Sega Genesis back in 1993, it garnered a lot of popularity (touted as a Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat killer by some) and attention (read: worried individuals over the game's ideals and violence). Gamebooks were made, stickers were made, collectible slurpee cups were made, subpar spin-offs were made (Chicago Syndicate for Game Gear and X-Perts for Genesis), even a Sega Saturn title was being planned. Yet, as popular as it "seemed" Eternal Champions was, it never quite took off like it should. The news about the canceled third game in the main series proved to be tragic even to some of the folks at Sega. What happened? What's Eternal Champions anyway?

Eternal Champions is sort of a blend of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, but with a lot of personality of its own and incorporated many modes and advanced features for a fighter of the time combined with detailed visuals and a great soundtrack... and of course, a bucketload of violence. Besides adding stage fatalities of sorts and giving characters plenty of moves, the game was also a bit more unusual because it gave its characters more history and backstory than most other fighters of the time, seperating itself from the brand of fighters that only focused on the ***-kicking portion of the game. In short, the game adamantly wanted to show that it was the total package.

Later, they'd make another game for the ill-fated Sega CD known as Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side. It took everything from the original and expanded it full circle, creating a title that was far more than a minor expansion. It featured many new fighting modes, a lot of new characters, expanded plot, cinemas, new methods to kill opponents, improved visuals/animations and sound (with HUGE characters... I sometimes can't believe the game looks so good) and loads of secrets you could find. The game even let you save these goodies to the system and you could keep them for later, something most fighting games of the time didn't do. Some who have played the game don't hesitate to call it perfection.

There was one thing that usually brought the game down considerably in the eyes of critics however: the difficulty. You know a game is rigged when the computer can pretty much react to every move you'll ever make before you make it on the easiest difficulty setting. It's this element that turned off a considerable bunch from the game. Indeed, the single player experience is faulty (putting it mildly), but there are tricks you can use to win. Still, I'd be lying to myself if I said the single-player was anything but annoying (just face the Dark Champion...). Against a friend however, this is one of the deepest fighting games to play from the mid 90s. I'd even call it close to perfection if some of the mechanics were tweaked (some moves don't work the way they should and lead to some really cheap hits).

This video shows general gameplay with Shadow Yamato and ends with a Drive-By (slowly) Overkill. The game has some pretty beautiful level designs and effects like how the boat gets (and stays) damaged in the third fight, among many other examples. Enjoy.