Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side

[Melf]

With its expanded plot and specific extras, Challenge from the Dark Side is more of an director's cut than a full-blown sequel. Designer Michael Latham has pushed the Sega CD to its limits, upping the playable character count from nine to twenty-four (!), and by making the game bloodier than its cartridge cousin - almost to the point of overkill (no pun intended). Sprites are more detailed, speech clips have been expanded and sound clearer, and the game is the only title on the system to push 256 colors on-screen simultaneously. Regardless of feelings for the game itself, one must at least commend Deep Water on their mastery of the Sega CD hardware.

[Baloo]

I was just playing this today, and I must say Xavier in this game is a cheap fuck with that new Shoryuken move that always goes into your jump attacks. It makes beating the computer as him virtually impossible. Everyone else in this game is actually rather easy compared to the first game.

[Deo]

The computer is so goddamn cheap, using an infinite number of combos in a row without having to wait, recharge, or anything at all.

[Wesker]

Regardless of feelings for the game itself, one must at least commend Deep Water on their mastery of the Sega CD hardware.

Deep Water was nothing more than a label employed by Sega of America for adult-themed games. This was also used on games like the Sega Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D, since it didn't have any censored content compared to the original PC version.

Development kudos for both this and the first Eternal Champions shall go to Sega Interactive Development Division.

[cj iwakura]

Deep Water had one awesome logo sequence, if I remember right. A shark attacking a victim, and their emblem appears in the blood in the water.

[Barone]

I was just playing this today, and I must say Xavier in this game is a cheap fuck with that new Shoryuken move that always goes into your jump attacks. It makes beating the computer as him virtually impossible. Everyone else in this game is actually rather easy compared to the first game.

You have to understand each character's strategy. Several characters have a more defensive approach in this game. Also, several are too slow to block air attacks from some other fighters.
Xavier is the opposite. It has an aggressive AI and a very strong air attack/defense. You have to change your strategy in order to beat him.
It will require some additional training, but he usually jumps toward you and when he is doing it he becomes vulnerable to mid-range fire attacks (you have to catch him in the beginning of the movement). The timing is difficult but it can be done for sure (easier or harder depending on the character you have chosen).
He also abuses of some weak straight-forward attacks... Block them and use some fast floor attack to benefit from it.
Yes, just a very few mistakes are allowed but with a fast character like the hidden Chin Wo you'll just need around 10 credits to master it.

The computer is so goddamn cheap, using an infinite number of combos in a row without having to
wait, recharge, or anything at all.

I disagree. It's all a matter of strategy.


Great review, Ken. Your observations about the gameplay details were perfect IMO.
I'd gave it an 8 but a 9 is no offense.

Here is a good link from the Whip Ass Gaming site showing all special moves from all characters, as long as their portraits:
http://www.whipassgaming.com/genesis...champ_demo.htm

[Josh]

You have to understand each character's strategy. Several characters have a more defensive approach in this game. Also, several are too slow to block air attacks from some other fighters.
Xavier is the opposite. It has an aggressive AI and a very strong air attack/defense. You have to change your strategy in order to beat him.
It will require some additional training, but he usually jumps toward you and when he is doing it he becomes vulnerable to mid-range fire attacks (you have to catch him in the beginning of the movement). The timing is difficult but it can be done for sure (easier or harder depending on the character you have chosen).
He also abuses of some weak straight-forward attacks... Block them and use some fast floor attack to benefit from it.
Yes, just a very few mistakes are allowed but with a fast character like the hidden Chin Wo you'll just need around 10 credits to master it. It's all a matter of strategy.

Thanks for the strategies, agostinhobaroners.

From,
Josh

[Barone]

I was playing this game with two friends the other day and this game is really awesome...
They never heard about it before (they are old school gamers but EC is far from being popular in Brazil) and they really enjoyed it. One of them is really gifted for arcade sticks, so he put the Japanese Sega Arcade Power Stick 6B into good use. We were playing Samurai Shodown on the 3DO before this one, but they didn't enjoy it that much (despite this version being superb).
IMO Eternal Champions's mechanics tends to produce more balanced fights than games like UMK 3 (extremely unbalanced), SFIIPlusCE, Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury 2... The characters are also better balanced IMO...
We had a fantastic playing session thanks to this game (and International Superstar Soccer Deluxe, but that's another story).

I find awesome to see so many animation frames during the fights... Chin Wo does look like Bruce Lee! All the backgrounds are full of details, little animations here and there, parallax... Ramses III stage is my favorite and it looks superb.

A unique title overlooked by many people.

[Zz Badnusty]

Eternal Champions CFTDS was one of the only games that interested my Nintendo friends. I dare say a few of us put more two-player time in on that one than any other game I owned. One of my friends would even come over specifically to play it as we both were trying to unlock and see everything. iirc, "vendettas" were the hardest finishing moves to pull off, and I don't think we ever saw all of those, nor all the cinema kills.
We had a lot of fun playing chicken vs snake and other neat match-ups. I'm remembering now, playing Chin Wu vs the chicken quite often too. Haha, good times.
I also quite clearly remember we got our asses handed to us time after time during the final boss fight.

[sheath]

I noticed the 256 colors comment in the OP. I've taken screenshots from emulators of every level in this game and never found a screen that exceeded the 61 color limit. The game doesn't use shadow and highlight (which doesn't increase the color actual color count anyway) or mid screen palette swaps, but it does use a lot of selective dithering that makes things look nice with filtering on.

[Baloo]

That's an old urban legend, Eternal Champions does not use 256 colors at once in-game.

[Zz Badnusty]

Yeah, the original post should be edit to correct the misinformation.
As was also mentioned, "Deep Water" was not a game developer.

[NeoVamp]

As was also mentioned, "Deep Water" was not a game developer.

oh man I still remember Gamepro explaining how "Deep Water" was gonna be Sega's special label for adult games,
I'm pretty EC:CD was the only one that ever used it.