Double Take: Eternal Champions

[GameUser-16-32-128]

I have the Sega-CD version and I've only played it once! Actually, I haven't played anything for 8 months now. I'll get back into my gaming once I move to my new apartment.
All I can say about this game is that it is very hard and it has some likable characters such as Larsen and Shadow.

[Ecco]

I own and love Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side (Sega CD).

Yup me too. It's awesome.

I haven't played the Genesis' Eternal Champions since I was a little ankle-biter. But I remember not liking it, with stiff slow gameplay, uninteresting graphics, and brutal difficulty. IIRC I also couldn't find any single character that I really enjoyed playing with. (There are only 9 after all.)

anyone considered doing a side by side comparison of the orginal and mega-cd game....

Sounds like that would make a great article. The review of EC:CftDS also does a good job of comparing them and pointing out the upgrades and additions to the 2nd game. But I think a Side-by-Side would still make sense, b/c the 2nd game is so much more huge, complex, and gory than the 1st. There would be so much material to cover!

Also I think a Side-by-Side would be helpful in pointing out that the 2nd game is to a great extent a sequel to the Genesis game, which is not obvious by the title. I would imagine both of these games pass under the radar for many people. Especially EC:CftDS.

[Baloo]

i can't tell if this whole article is being facetious, but i'm willing to nod on the side of it.

not to say the game is shite (it isn't) but quotes like "Never have I seen such a diverse cast of characters in a fighting game." without any sort of derision make me turn my head to the side in curiosity.

Oh no, I was being serious. Every other fighting game have the same cast of characters. There's the male ninjas, the Bruce Lee clones, the hot chick, the god of some kind, the movie star, the super-evil possessed spectre, the boxer, the schoolgirl, the robots, the old Chinese guy (Lau Chan, Gen), the guy with Drunken fist, it's the same old shtick in every fighting game. It feels most fighting games there has to be a person that capitalizes on some fighting game stereotype.

The two characters that might not seem very original in Eternal Champions are Shadow and RAX, but even still, they're storylines and personalities and the other little minor details in the game make them a lot more interesting than say, Kitana and Cyrax from Mortal Kombat.

I really haven't seen another fighting game series than Eternal Champions where you can play as Alchemists from the 1800s, 1920s gangster, vampires, futuristic bounty hunters, wild west guys, voodoo priestesses, pharaohs, and senators in the same game. If you have, then please direct me that way.

[Ecco]

Oh no, I was being serious. Every other fighting game have the same cast of characters. There's the male ninjas, the Bruce Lee clones, the hot chick, the god of some kind, the movie star, the super-evil possessed spectre, the boxer, the schoolgirl, the robots, the old Chinese guy (Lau Chan, Gen), the guy with Drunken fist, it's the same old shtick in every fighting game. It feels most fighting games there has to be a person that capitalizes on some fighting game stereotype.

Hmm interesting. Good points and that does make a lot of sense. Certainly some games pull it off better than others.

The two characters that might not seem very original in Eternal Champions are Shadow and RAX, but even still, they're storylines and personalities and the other little minor details in the game make them a lot more interesting than say, Kitana and Cyrax from Mortal Kombat.

Hmm I don't know if I'd agree that those characters in EC are more interesting than Kitana and Cyrax. Well actually Cyrax is a pretty stupid character, but MKIII was just altogether a mess imo. MK is good and MKII is pretty awesome imo. In general I think that the MK characters are quite interesting though. The EC characters have more extensive background stories etc., but I for one think MK characters are still more interesting in general. They often have intentionally mysterious pasts, as part of the MK mystique and mythology.

As a kid I would think about the different MK characters, and their backgrounds. (I had SFII:SCE which I played all the time. I didn't have MK games till much later, so I would daydream about the MK characters in school, and draw them on my schoolwork.) For example, I'd wonder why Scorpion and Sub-zero both looked so similar, yet had nearly opposite abilities. Why in the world does Scorpion have a fire-breathing skull head when he takes off his mask? Why would the god of thunder be involved in the tournament? Who was Reptile, and how was he related to the other ninjas in the game?

As a contrast, the EC characters are, well, pretty extensively explained; not much mystery or mythology there.

I really haven't seen another fighting game series than Eternal Champions where you can play as Alchemists from the 1800s, 1920s gangster, vampires, futuristic bounty hunters, wild west guys, voodoo priestesses, pharaohs, and senators in the same game.

True, but I think some people are turned off by the wild diversity of the characters, and don't take the game seriously as a fighter... I think that's how I felt when I was younger.

[findout5]

Based on this I'm gonna get this game and give it a chance.
I can get it for really really cheap - I see it all the times in 2nd hand stores!

[mrbigreddog]

Yeah, but everyone has a karate style in Mortal Kombat, that was the point there.

Silly Ole Bear!!!

[The Coop]

I personally found the Sega-CD followup to be better. The Art of Fighting-ish attack meter in the Genesis game, while interesting, hindered the flow of the fights too much at times. The Sega-CD game seemed to smooth out the gameplay... not to mention improved the graphics and music, added a lot more fighters, more stages, more deaths, gore being added, etc. This all made the Sega-CD game feel more polished, and made it considerably more enjoyable to play IMHO.

Nonetheless, nice article.

[acdc]

love the game

played it only out with larsen
that cyborg dude that give a sniffing foot to your oponent
en that half eaten vampire guy

but the last boss only one shot at him and when you lose it s back to the start with you

[Phantar]

I really don't think this feature was all too well or even necessary. Why make such a big point out of the storyline of eternal champions? SNK fighters were pretty story-driven as well (almost too much in the case of Art of Fighting I and Fatal Fury I were story mode limited you to the set of characters available).

I think you got storyline confused with character backstory. I DO agree that one of the strongest point of Eternal Champions was truly fleshing out the characters without making them seem too cliché or stock (as e.g. in Mortal Kombat).

However, looking at the article at hand it seems that your familiarity with the genre is limited to the Mortal Kombat- or Genesis games. True, regarding the Genesis library that's understandable, but if you see the necessity to compare the game to its contemporaries, then I kind of miss the SNK-brawlers (Fatal Fury II or Samurai Shodown) here.

Also, it's a favorable "Double Take" on an already favorable review (Eternal champion received an 8 out of 10 on this site), the latter of which isn't even taken in regard.

Sorry if I see all of this too critical, but overall I feel the feature to be too shallow.

[cabear]

agreed. i think EC, while a competent sega fighter, tried to do too much with too little. i know the reviewer loved the game, but c'mon, look at it with some objectivity, it doesn't control very well (at times very stiffly) and combos can be hard to figure out. I dont wanna spend eighteen hours trying to learn every nuance of shadow's move set just to beat the game. The mark of a good fighter is the pick up and playability of it. Sure mortal kombat wasn't deep, but even if you couldn't figure out the moves, you could still grasp the simpler moves to keep you entertained. EC simply didn't have that. SF2 only had a few moves a character, yet you could still pick a character and play it and have fun. Also the few moves the character did have was enough. EC's 6+ moves a piece only meant you had to learn that many more moves and better still, WHEN to use them. The fatalities it had were cool if and when you could actually line everything up, which made them really not fun to do.

The spirit meter works in theory but you can't replenish it quick enough, and the cpu doesn't even care about it, unlike in AoF where you could both regenerate your own bar AND deplete your enemy's.

A complicated game and more then likely fun game for someone who sticks with it but for the most part there were many reasons it fell by the wayside.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Eternal Champions owns muthafucka's souls

[Jesse813]

Great Article Baloo, though I must admit I'm not a big Eternal Champions fan, when it comes to Genesis Fighters for me theres no beating Street Fighter II

[Ecco]

^Yes for me SFII:SCE is the best Genesis fighter! When I was young I poured so many hours into that game, when I wasn't pouring my hours into Sonic 2.

[jerry coeurl]

Sorry if I see all of this too critical, but overall I feel the feature to be too shallow.

Yeah, it feels like a puff piece. There's just not a lot of real info there. I don't understand the necessity of this Double Take when, as Phantar pointed out, the game already has a favorable review.

[Baloo]

At the time that I wrote this, I hadn't read the Eternal Champions review actually (I believe I was under the impression that the score given on here is a 6, no idea why) and I wrote this when I was on a kick for Double Takes. I do feel that there is a lot of negative feedback when it comes to Eternal Champions in general though.