The Sega fighting game that deserved better.
I love all the artwork to do with Eternal Champions.
Ignore my words for a moment and look at those screenshots and the photos from the manual.
Lovely character models, aren’t they?
None of this would matter if the game lacked personality and wonder, but it has both.
It’s also a rock solid fighting game that even now I struggle to succeed at.
Eternal Champions felt like it was somewhere in between those two.
The game endeavoured to have a story.
Said manual introduced each of the nine playable characters.
They were all from different eras of history.
My favourite was Rax.
This is probably because he felt a bit like a Ryu rip-off, but with cybernetic implants.
He was from the 24th century where cyber kickboxing is all the rage, it seems.
I’m scratching the surface here but Sega certainly didn’t.
It borrowed from its competition, one of the more distinctive things being its Overkills.
Fatalities by another name, each Overkill was ridiculous and incredibly bloodthirsty.
Thought Mortal Kombat could be absurd?
That definitely stands out.
It wasn’t gory like Mortal Kombat but it was certainly memorable.
Other Overkills included being pulled under the water and eaten by carnivorous plants or a ‘simple’ drive-by shooting.
Also, predictably given Xavier’s past, you could also burn someone at the stake.
That was pretty unpleasant looking for the time.
Perhaps the weirdest part though?
Technically, no one is bad in this game.
Instead everyone’s simply trying to save mankind by defeating each other in battle.
It actually makes for a disjointed affair as it’s hard to fully ‘get’ Eternal Champions.
Instead, you focus on simply figuring it out.
After all, there was no way of finding out anything other than by experimentation back then.
To help your chances, there are extensive training modes and ways to challenge yourself and hone your skills.
Good luck with that.
A third one was advertised for the Sega Saturn but never came to fruition.
Despite that, I have fond memories of Eternal Champions.
