List of Eternal Champions characters

Eternal Champions title screen, showing all of playable characters from the original game (top left: Larcen; top right: Slash; left to right: Xavier, R.A.X., Trident, Shadow, Midknight, Blade, Jetta)

The following lists the characters of the Eternal Champions series of fighting games. The characters come from a variety of regions and eras. While many of the fighting styles in the game are real martial arts, they are often paired with characters of anachronistic times and origins.

Design

To choose the game's characters, Sega held a biweekly 'focus group' made up of all ages, where a list of archetype characters (pirate, ninja, etc.) were voted on, after the number was whittled down to 50 characters, loose sketches were drawn, which were then reviewed by 'kid testers' and finally reduced to ten resulting in the nine characters of the game, including the Eternal Champion. Sega also sent the original version of Eternal Champions back to the artists because "the women [characters] were not as clothed as they should have been."^[1]

Introduced in Eternal Champions

Slash

A caveman from the Prehistoric Great Rift Valley in the year 50,000 BC. He did not train in any specific martial art, and instead fought in any way which could cause as much pain as possible. Being a hunter of superior intelligence, he would often search for ideas and methods to provide ways of better living for his tribe; however, as time went on, he drew much resentment and animosity from his tribe's elders for his way of thinking. It was at a meeting that he was cornered, and stoned to death for speaking out against the elders in public.

Trident

A gladiator named after the trident that replaced his hand, he was a hero to his race from Atlantis in the year 110 BC. As a master of capoeira, he represented his race of people in a battle against the Romans. Should he have won, then his people would receive share of land alongside the Romans; however, due to a Roman gladiator's treachery, he was crushed underneath a falling stone pillar. As a result his people were forever banished to the waters.

Xavier Pendragon

A former blacksmith from Salem in the year 1692, at the height of the Salem witch trials. He practices hapkido cane-fighting. After failing as a blacksmith, he tried his hand at alchemy. He eventually discovered a clean, unlimited source of energy but before he could put it to use he was captured and burned at the stake after being labeled a warlock.

Jetta Maxx

A young Russian woman from the year 1899, who abandoned her originally aristocratic lifestyle to become a circus acrobat and travel the world, in the process learning savate and pencak silat. Targeted by a Chinese Boxer revolutionary, she died after her sabotaged tightrope and safety net snapped, causing her to fall to her death. The manual mentions her as being a cousin of Czar Nicholas II.

Larcen Tyler

An ex-cat burglar from 1920s Chicago, who worked for a Chicago mob. As a practitioner of the praying mantis fist (tanglangquan), he carried out many jobs for his boss, Mr Taglalini, though he refused to kill. One day, he received a mission: to plant false evidence in the hospital room of a rival crime boss; however, upon arriving Larcen found not a rival crime lord, but the Chief of Police. Realizing the package was a bomb, he attempted to throw it out the window but was not fast enough. The blast killed Larcen, the Police Chief, and most of the people in the hospital. He is the main protagonist of the spin-off game, Chicago Syndicate.

Mitchell Midleton Knight (Midknight)

A London-born biochemical scientist and Jeet Kune Do practitioner who worked for the CIA. He was assigned to make a biological weapon which was intended to be poured into the water supply of North Vietnam during the war; however, in a freak accident, he himself was exposed to the virus and was turned into a vampire-like creature in 1967. Despite the fact that he hungered for blood, he refused to harm and kill others. He spent many regretful years trying to invent a cure but to no avail, and was killed in the year 2100 by a vampire hunter, who drove a magnesium stake into his heart.

Shadow Yamoto

Female ninja from Japan in 1993. Her fighting style combines ninjutsu with moves similar to jujutsu and the art of invisibility. As a member of the Black Orchid Corp, she rose through the ranks, and became a top-notch killer. After successfully carrying out many missions, she questioned her superiors about the consequences of failure. The answer given to her is that she herself would be assassinated. Feeling vulnerable and endangered, she then decided to escape, and reveal the organization to the public authorities. However, the superiors arranged her death, and had her pushed off the 101st floor of the Corp building, before she could blow the whistle. Shadow was the most popular character of Eternal Champions^[2] and so she became the main protagonist of the spin-off game, X-Perts.

Jonathan Blade

A former police officer from the year 2030 who was dismissed due to a very short temper, he practises kenpo karate. He then became a bounty hunter back in his home country Syria, and was in deep pursuit of a mad scientist, who threatened to destroy the human race with a lethal virus. Although he came close to killing the scientist on several occasions, he was only ordered to capture, and bring the scientist to justice. Finally trapping the scientist in an alley, he attempted to retrieve the virus. They were suddenly hit with a stream of lasers, causing the scientist to drop the vial, containing the virus. It is clear that he was set up and killed by his own government. The last image that Blade saw was the broken vial containing the virus.

R.A.X. Coswell

A professional kickboxer from the year 2345 (R.A.X. stands for Robotic Artificial Exoskeleton). He was born in a time where the popularity of martial arts started to fade. Martial artists started to combine with machines, and began an era known as "cyber fighting". With a strong desire to stay relevant, he underwent painful surgery to be injected with cybernetic implants, therefore becoming a half human/half machine: a cyborg. He soon began winning many fights, and achieving fame. In order to win a wager for an upcoming championship match, Coswell's corrupt manager implanted a virus into his cybernetics, which would cause his R.A.X. system to shut down. During the championship match, his manager activated the virus & shutdown his R.A.X. system just before he could land the final blow, causing his death.

Eternal Champion

Protector of the balance of good, a master of the dragon, tiger, hawk and shark styles. He is the final boss of the game, and an unplayable character by normal means. Having existed since the beginning of time and recognising that mankind would soon meet its destruction, he rescues key individuals who had the potential to do great things for mankind moments before their untimely demise and holds a tournament to determine who will get the chance to change their fate.

Introduced in Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side

Eternal Champion (Version Two)

A protector of the balance of good. Version Two practices the unicorn, elephant, millipede and electric eel styles of fighting. The Eternal Champion is immortal and is the one who gathered the warriors stating that, though they had all died tragically, in his eyes they all had heroic qualities.

Dark Eternal Champion

The protector of the balance of evil, who practices the nature fighting style, is immortal, and utilizes natural disasters as weapons.

Chin Wo

An acupuncturist and monkey fist (houquan) master from China who died in 1815 when he was arrested and executed after he had been framed for a crime by a cousin of the ruling class after he had refused a fight challenge

Dawson McShane

A gambling, self-proclaimed "Lone Wolf" from 19th century Scotland, who moved to the Wild West. He practices Shotowando, a patchwork fighting style of his own invention. He died in 1849 after arriving in a mining town controlled by a powerful and ruthless landowner. He saw a man setting fire to the sheriff's office. Dawson pulled the semi-conscious sheriff from the inferno but he was dying. The sheriff's last request was that Dawson become a deputy long enough to catch the arsonist, the landowner's son who had burned the sheriff's office in order to escape being arrested for a slew of recent crimes and the dying man knew that the townsfolk would be too afraid to form a posse in order to capture him since the landowner controlled so much of the town. Dawson agreed and the sheriff pinned a star onto the Scotsman's vest just before he died. Dawson captured the son and was ambushed on his way to the makeshift courthouse and was hung by the landowner before the circuit judge could hear the case. The two escaped prosecution because no one in town would testify against them.

Ramses III

Ramses III is a Pharaoh from Egypt who practiced Hung Gar and died in 151 BC when he was pushed off a cliff into the Nile. After his assassination. Egypt was taken over by invaders, and over the centuries, the new Pharaohs raised armies strong enough to stop Alexander the Great and his Roman legions from taking over Persia and Egypt. The changes these events created in the time stream were significant, the Egyptian Empire grew powerful and lasted beyond the 21st century. Many countries that would have been controlled by the Roman Empire were either run by the Egyptian Empire or were driven out of their homelands into what would have become Russia. The end result was a future devoid of many different cultures, which drained humanity of its originality and spirit

Raven Gindar

A white magic and voodoo specialist from a tribal village in Trinidad who practices taekwondo and xingyiquan and died in 1802 when her healing spell was turned against her by a black magic voodoo priest, draining her life force.

Senator

A politician from Washington, DC who practiced "Dishonesty" and succumbed to a heart attack in 1995. (This character is likely a joke, directed towards the controversy surrounding violent content in video games.) The Senator is a head and palette swap of Larcen Tyler.

Sophia "Riptide" de Medici

A female pirate from Italy who practiced kajukenbo and was killed by a rival in 1566 when she attempted to steal his treasure. He discovered her true identity and then used her attack as an excuse to attack and destroy the entire De Medici through his criminal organizations. Their destruction had a massive negative effect on the timeline, including the loss of several works of Leonardo da Vinci that the family was hiding until the world could handle their meanings. These works had tremendous religious and scientific implications which would be realized in the 21st century. Without the works of Leonardo and the influence of this massive family line, a future renaissance was never realized.

Thanatos

The ancient Greek god of death prior to 1692 who practices Time, Fate and Fisticuffs style. Thanatos is a head and palette swap of Xavier. During a routine pick-up of a soul, he was confronted by a force that was neither evil nor good. This force seemed to exist in an indescribable middle ground that gave it powers that Thanatos was no match for. This force turned him into a mortal named Vaspian who was thought to be a warlock and was hence killed during the witch hunts of Salem. This force then took the form of death and has been changing the rules of death by taking lives that are not meant to be taken so soon

Thomas "Blast" Chavez

A Green Beret soldier from the United States who practised the "Green Beret Fighting Technique" and died in 1966 in Vietnam when his partner, "Redux", revealed himself as a Vietnamese double agent and tossed a grenade into Blast's helicopter during takeoff.

Animal characters

These characters lacked Vendettas and Cinekills and their stages actually belong to other characters onto whom they piggybacked.

• Crispy, a chicken from a farm, who practices Egg Fu and died by helicopter blitz in 1967. His stage is the same as Blast, which is an adapted version of Midknight's from the first game.
• Hooter, an owl from Salem, who practices Owl-Kwon Do and died in 1692 alongside the character Xavier. His stage is the same as Xavier's.
• Slither, a snake from a bar called the Snakebite Saloon, that practices brawling and died in 1820 while defending his bar. He shares a stage with new character Dawson
• Yappy, a dog from New York City, that practices Shih Tzu Fu and was run over by an automobile during a revengeful sabotage attempt in 1950. He shares a home stage with the hidden character Senator.
• Zuni, a monkey at the Blue Dragon Circus, who practices Monkey Fu and died by elephant stampede in 1902 while trying to put out a fire in the circus tent. His stage is Jetta's Stage.

Reception

Eternal Champions characters were well received. According to IGN's retrospective, "Eternal Champions was able to set itself apart a bit with its unique storyline and absurdly mish-mashed characters."^[3] Complex similarly opined that "the game's cast of female assassins, beastmen and gladiators was so offbeat, it made them more awesome."^[4] Xavier's burning-at-a-stake finishing move was included in UGO's 2010 list of gaming's best "fatalities".^[5]

References