It should come as a surprise to exactly zero of you that I was and still am a colossal nerd. What came as a surprise to me though, was that when my nerdy middle school self was coming up with the character roster and movelists for the imaginary Sonic game that would never happen, Sonic the Fighters already existed.
Even more surprising to me, this came out before Sonic 3D Blast which makes it the first-ever 3D Sonic game as far as I know! The presentation is unsurprisingly the game's big strength - '96 was a long long way from photorealistic 3D, but this game's colorful palette and cartoonish style crafted a memorable and effective aesthetic from the limited hardware.
Mechanically, the game is built from the same skeleton as Virtua Fighter. While it does create some depth by utilizing blocking as a resource through the shield meter and hyper mode, the rather small movesets and wonky balance means the game eventually turns into a mashfest. And the devs' attempt to fit the blazing speed of the Sonic series into an early 3D fighter led to a game that moves quickly but feels a bit stiff, which isn't the best combination.
Coming back to the Sonic fighting game that existed in my imagination, it would have been built on the engine of a very different fighting game - Marvel Super Heroes. A 2D fighter would have run much more smoothly, looked more like classic Sonic, and having chaos emeralds that you could activate for powerups a la the infinity stones would have been so sick. In the real world though, this isn't half bad! It's not particularly deep but it's pretty good fun to load up with a friend and smack each other around for a bit in vs mode.
Even more surprising to me, this came out before Sonic 3D Blast which makes it the first-ever 3D Sonic game as far as I know! The presentation is unsurprisingly the game's big strength - '96 was a long long way from photorealistic 3D, but this game's colorful palette and cartoonish style crafted a memorable and effective aesthetic from the limited hardware.
Mechanically, the game is built from the same skeleton as Virtua Fighter. While it does create some depth by utilizing blocking as a resource through the shield meter and hyper mode, the rather small movesets and wonky balance means the game eventually turns into a mashfest. And the devs' attempt to fit the blazing speed of the Sonic series into an early 3D fighter led to a game that moves quickly but feels a bit stiff, which isn't the best combination.
Coming back to the Sonic fighting game that existed in my imagination, it would have been built on the engine of a very different fighting game - Marvel Super Heroes. A 2D fighter would have run much more smoothly, looked more like classic Sonic, and having chaos emeralds that you could activate for powerups a la the infinity stones would have been so sick. In the real world though, this isn't half bad! It's not particularly deep but it's pretty good fun to load up with a friend and smack each other around for a bit in vs mode.
2 Comments
You have no idea how much I always theory-crafted a Sonic fighting game, it feels like the easiest concept in the world and in the two times they attempted it they flubbed it by either basing it off the VF engine or making it into a weird 4P GBA battle game.
I just need a traditional 2D fighter with KOF style teams, I mean christ Sonic Heroes already started laying the cast out for us. Seriously Sega, work out something with Arcsys or something, it's a guaranteed millions seller.
I just need a traditional 2D fighter with KOF style teams, I mean christ Sonic Heroes already started laying the cast out for us. Seriously Sega, work out something with Arcsys or something, it's a guaranteed millions seller.
Weatherby
10 months ago
I was playing Virtua Fighter just earlier today and was thinking about playing this instead. I think early 3D fighters are pretty rough, but at least this has the charm of being crammed full of Sonic characters.