Played as part of the Sonic Gems Collection for the Nintendo GameCube.
"Put away those suicide notes," proclaims Sega Saturn Magazine in their February 1996 issue, "Sonic is back!" Oh thank goodness, the only thing keeping me bound to this mortal coil was the release of a jank-ass 3D fighting game starring Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm saved!
Sarcasm aside, I see just as much potential in a Sonic the Hedgehog fighting game as I do an on-foot racer, and just like Sonic R, I view Sonic the Fighters as a pretty weak attempt to make good on the concept.
Maybe I'm just saying that because I don't care much for Fighting Vipers either, and there sure is a lot of Vipers' DNA here considering Sonic the Fighters practically gestated in its womb. It all started when one of Fighting Vipers' programmers added Sonic and Tails to the game in their spare time, and after Yu Suzuki found out about it, it was kicked up the chain to AM2 head Hiroshi Kataoka. Kataoka wasn't sure Yuji Naka would be into the idea of Sonic characters beating each other senseless, but Naka was reported as saying "Oshima's animals must suffer," and the rest was history.
Oshima himself was rather impressed seeing his character animate in 3D, telling Sega Saturn Magazine "I feel that the punches and kicks are very well done - they look realistic." No doubt he said this shortly after seeing Sonic's hands inflate to three times their size and clap around Knuckles' head. It's cutting-edge stuff, and suffice it to say, Sonic Team was pretty happy with the direction AM2 was taking. Me? Not so impressed.
Like other early 3D fighters, I just don't think there's a whole lot of meat here. Strafe around and whack your opponent in the back of the skull with a full combo for like, a third of their health. Rinse and repeat. Something about these games with their high damage outputs and clumsy special attacks makes them easier to play (for me) by mashing punch and kick, and the AI seems to allow this as a valid way of winning. If I were to play this with another real human being, or possibly some sort of copy of myself made manifest through intense thought, I might get a little bit more out of it, but if I'm in a position to play a fighting game against someone else then why not go for something on the Neo Geo or like, Street Fighter 3? Hell, loading MUGEN up with Sonic characters sounds more fun to me.
Sonic the Fighters is a product of its era and one that meets the standard set for 3D fighting games of the mid-90s just fine, which is why I also find it lacking in the same way I do its contemporaries. Trying to translate the deliberate movement of 2D fighters to a 3D space with the quality of hardware available at the time, especially on console, left a lot of these games feeling stiff and clunky, even after three years of iteration following Virtua Fighter. That's my hot take. Sonic is not back, time to die
"Put away those suicide notes," proclaims Sega Saturn Magazine in their February 1996 issue, "Sonic is back!" Oh thank goodness, the only thing keeping me bound to this mortal coil was the release of a jank-ass 3D fighting game starring Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm saved!
Sarcasm aside, I see just as much potential in a Sonic the Hedgehog fighting game as I do an on-foot racer, and just like Sonic R, I view Sonic the Fighters as a pretty weak attempt to make good on the concept.
Maybe I'm just saying that because I don't care much for Fighting Vipers either, and there sure is a lot of Vipers' DNA here considering Sonic the Fighters practically gestated in its womb. It all started when one of Fighting Vipers' programmers added Sonic and Tails to the game in their spare time, and after Yu Suzuki found out about it, it was kicked up the chain to AM2 head Hiroshi Kataoka. Kataoka wasn't sure Yuji Naka would be into the idea of Sonic characters beating each other senseless, but Naka was reported as saying "Oshima's animals must suffer," and the rest was history.
Oshima himself was rather impressed seeing his character animate in 3D, telling Sega Saturn Magazine "I feel that the punches and kicks are very well done - they look realistic." No doubt he said this shortly after seeing Sonic's hands inflate to three times their size and clap around Knuckles' head. It's cutting-edge stuff, and suffice it to say, Sonic Team was pretty happy with the direction AM2 was taking. Me? Not so impressed.
Like other early 3D fighters, I just don't think there's a whole lot of meat here. Strafe around and whack your opponent in the back of the skull with a full combo for like, a third of their health. Rinse and repeat. Something about these games with their high damage outputs and clumsy special attacks makes them easier to play (for me) by mashing punch and kick, and the AI seems to allow this as a valid way of winning. If I were to play this with another real human being, or possibly some sort of copy of myself made manifest through intense thought, I might get a little bit more out of it, but if I'm in a position to play a fighting game against someone else then why not go for something on the Neo Geo or like, Street Fighter 3? Hell, loading MUGEN up with Sonic characters sounds more fun to me.
Sonic the Fighters is a product of its era and one that meets the standard set for 3D fighting games of the mid-90s just fine, which is why I also find it lacking in the same way I do its contemporaries. Trying to translate the deliberate movement of 2D fighters to a 3D space with the quality of hardware available at the time, especially on console, left a lot of these games feeling stiff and clunky, even after three years of iteration following Virtua Fighter. That's my hot take. Sonic is not back, time to die
4 Comments
@DeemonAndGames I'm gonna mod Virtua Striker 2 and replace Giant Bean the dynamite with Jet out of pure spite for Sonic the Fighters.
@Weatherby Hey! Don't mess with us Bean the Dynamite fans, we are LEGION!... Ok I might be the only one, but legion nonetheless!
i just played this today; i still think its some fun to play with someone for like a half hour. I think the ability to do commands is kind of jank yeah. The animations are crazy fun though; great art style.
DeemonAndGames
6 months ago
This is not a joke, by the way, it's real and it's glorious https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lTKz2NQUUis/maxresdefault.jpg