Sonic the Fighters
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| Sonic the Fighters | |
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| Developer(s) | Sega-AM2 |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Release date(s) | May 1996 |
| Genre(s) | Versus fighting game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, GameCube, PlayStation 2 |
| Input | Joystick |
| Arcade cabinet | Upright |
| Arcade system(s) | Sega Model 2 |
Sonic the Fighters (Sonic Championship in US arcades), is a fighting game. The game's original title is used in North American and European releases of Sonic Gems Collection.
An employee at AM2 in Sega added Sonic the Hedgehog characters into a copy of the fighting game Fighting Vipers during his spare time. His coworkers liked the idea, so the game was developed and released in the arcade in May 1996, running on the Sega Model 2B board.
The game saw very limited release in North American arcades, as Sega of America considered the game's portrayal of Sonic and friends to be too violent, and feared it would give Sonic a negative image.
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[edit] Plot
Eggman has built the Death Egg II along with Metal Sonic. Tails discovers this and alerts Sonic. They can get into space via the Lunar Fox. However, it's a single seater that requires the energy of eight Chaos Emeralds. The two set off in the Tornado to find them, detecting one in Knuckles's possession. Sonic demands that he hands it over, but Knuckles querries as to why Sonic should be the one to go. It's therefore decided that a tournament of sorts will be held to see who has the honour of piloting the Lunar Fox.
Given the existence of eight chaos emeralds rather than the usual seven, the validity of Sonic the Fighters is disputed. However, there are eight fighters with one Chaos Emerald for each so it's really for the sake of the gameplay. Another theory that's been presented is that there are indeed eight emeralds but one is a fake, like the one Tails creates in Sonic Adventure 2. Its power is still needed to power the Lunar Fox.
[edit] Playable Characters
- Sonic the Hedgehog - He can transform into Super Sonic during the final matches if he defeats all opponents without losing once.
- Miles "Tails" Prower - Makes use of his twin tails to fight.
- Knuckles the Echidna - Knuckles is the most powerful fighter with strongest punches.
- Amy Rose - Also known as Rosy the Rascal, this game was the first time Amy was seen with the Piko Piko Hammer.
- Espio the Chameleon - Attacks using his senses and instincts.
- Fang the Sniper - A unique fighter, he can shoot from his Popgun, catching his opponent off guard, but is individually relatively weak.
- Bean the Dynamite - Another projectile fighter, his solution for everything is explosives.
- Bark the Polarbear - A powerful yet slow force, his grabs are deadly.
[edit] Prototype Characters
[edit] Nonplayable Characters
- Metal Sonic - Game's Sub-Boss. As Eggman's top robot, he has a wide range of effective moves, such as shooting a laser from the fan vent in his chest.
- Dr. Ivo Robotnik - Game's Boss. Also known as Eggman, this scientist's goal is world domination. His machine is strong, but he's not quite experienced with it.
- Clones - Grayscale versions of the eight regular characters that only appear when a character fights his or herself, but they are playable if 2 players use the same character in which case one of the players will have the shadow character. They play the same as their normal counterparts.
[edit] Hidden Characters
These characters, like Honey, are only accessible by hacking, but don't seem to be prototypes. They may be easter eggs thrown in by the designers for anyone who hacks or could simply be leftover characters that were scrapped from the final version but whose data was left over.
- Rocketmetal (AKA Mecha Sonic Model No.29)
- Robotnik Robot¹
- Alternate Robotnik¹ (seems to be a bit smaller in some fights)
- Robotnik in UFO¹
¹These characters share the name "Dr. Eggman"; thus, these names are unofficial.
[edit] Trivia
- Another character, named Honey, did not make it in the final version but can be accessed by hacking into the Arcade version. Honey is a female cat character that is based on Honey from Fighting Vipers.
- If a character defeats all eight opponents, the character will face Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik (Doctor Eggman in the Japanese version. His North American name, Dr. Robotnik, was misspelled as 'Dr. Robotonic' in that distribution.) The thing is that you will have to defeat Dr. Robotnik within 15 seconds of his stage to get the ending, or otherwise, like Dural from the Virtua Fighter series, the game is still won, though Robotnik wins and you just get a Game Over instead.
- If you hack into the game to play as Dr. Eggman, the game titles him as "Dr. Eggman: Robotnik" and even has his own picture. This is interesting considering that this title screen spelled Robotnik right while the intro doesn't. This is also the first game to implement the Japanese and English names of the same character in all versions.
- A Sega Saturn version was announced but never released; the game was never ported to home consoles until Sonic Gems Collection, for the GameCube and, in Europe/Japan, the PS2.
- Bean the Dynamite and Bark the Polarbear appear in Fighters Megamix.
- A new fighting game was released for Game Boy Advance called Sonic Battle.
- This game marks the return of Espio the Chameleon, a character from Knuckles' Chaotix.
- This game features eight Chaos Emeralds instead of seven.
- Track 7 in the music test belongs to a scrapped stage called Sunset Town.
