CLASSIC GAMING
Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side
Developer - SEGA
Publisher - SEGA
Genre - Beat-em Up
Year of Release - 1993
System - Sega Genesis Mega Drive/Sega CD


Fighting games have never really been ones for deep plots.  Usually, it's all about beating the living hell out of anyone on the opposite side of the screen, be they man, woman, or animal.  A few notable exceptions have been made in the world of fighting games for story.  Tekken has its characters crossing paths with each other (especially the Mishima family clan that have been prominent throughout the series), Soul Calibur (the more weapon-based historical form of Tekken), and a few others that should be named.  One of those games that should be mentioned is Eternal Champions.


Originally beginning on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Eternal Champions was Sega's footholding attempt during the early 90's craze of fighting games, when titles such as Final Fight, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were being released and made everyone rush to the arcades.  However, one of many unique things about this game, was that it was built solely on the console, never from the arcade.

Story - The story, while short for each character, is enough to give them a real reason to fight other people.  Each of the game's characters were small but very important people in human history by some discovery or event that alters humanity for the better.  However, all of them have died before their historical prime and so human history has changed for the worse.  A strange being, known as the Eternal Champion, hails from 9999 A.D and tells of how his world is suffering grievously from its past.  However, he cannot decide who of the chosen humans should survive and complete their historical destiny.  So he decides with the old Darwinian way that has been fine with evolution for years, the survival of the strongest.


And so the characters are pitted against each other, battles that span over time itself in their own time periods, ranging from 50,000 B.C to 9999 A.D, where the final test of truth happens for the character you choose to fight with must prove him or herself against the Eternal Champion himself.  After you defeat him, you are given a scrolling ending that explains what happened to your chosen character after they are brought back to life.  It's sadly anticlmactic for such a game to just give out a written epilogue rather than at least some graphic pictures.
All the characters have their own stories, relevant stages to their time periods, their own fighting styles which the game also explains about with their biographies quite nicely, and it is a greatly interesting story about the darker side of human history's long years of war, deceit and greed.  More characters were added to the Sega CD remake, as well as a few alterations to their stories and the additions of several special joke characters who even had their own small stories and fighting styles, albeit with much simpler attacks.


Gameplay - The controls for this game are not as easy as one should expect them to be.  Most fighting games had the traditional layout of the 8-directions and 6-button layout, so despite the fact this game never went to the arcade, it forced players to use this layout on the basic Genesis controller of 3 buttons, meaning you had to go and get a more elaborate controller with 6 buttons, or use the Genesis' Start button to switch between Kick and Punch.
There are 3 punch attacks and 3 kick attacks ranging from weak to strong, as well as the block, grapple, jump and crouch that is the usual norm of a fighting game.  Characters can also be dazed if hit several times in a row.  All these features were basically mimicking Street Fighter II.
But one major innovation the game had originally was the Special Attack Meter.  Each character had their own series of special attacks which depending on the attack took more of the special meter.  This was made really to prevent matches from becoming slinging matches of special attacks or be trapped and hit repeatedly by one annoying special move.  However, the varying degrees of power usage from the meter caused players to defend a lot or depend on normal attacks greatly for the remainder of the battle.
The Genesis game also had one major problem.  It could not perform multi-hit combo attacks, apart from a few select multiple hit moves.  By these difficulties, there was very little chance of ever making a comeback.


However, the Sega CD version revamped all of this thanks to more memory being available, and had more forgiving changes made.  The special attack meter was kept but most moves now used less of the meter, as well as some special attacks that did not even use the meter.  Also, combo attacks were introduced onto the Sega CD game which allowed comebacks to be more easier, as well as making the fights more even balanced somewhat, even if this did introduce the danger of button mashing into the game, but there are always a few with any game where it's possible.

Another original innovation that the game had was its 4 different forms of finishing kills, similar to that of the Mortal Kombat fatalities, and could only work when the opponent had 20% or less of their health left and they were dazed.  First there was the Overkill, which was also in the Genesis game and were activated when you defeated your opponent and they fell onto a certain spot of the battle stage (usually a pixel or two wide), where they are promptly given a brutally visceral end by some element of the stage, such as being burnt at the stake on the Salem stage, or gunned down by drive-by mobsters in the 1920's.
Secondly came the Sudden Death, which was added to the Sega CD and is basically, an Ultra Overkill, where even if there was a little bit of life left in your opponent, they were attacked specifically on one part of the stage and again given a gory but different end.
Third, almost every character had a special Vendetta move, which worked exactly like a Mortal Kombat fatality, by only working when you input a series of button commands.
And lastly, the Cinekill, which was a very rare and actual 3D FMV of the Eternal Champion given a tragic end to your opponent.  This only happened when you had a full special meter while your dazed opponent's was empty.
The game emphasised on brutality for its character battles, with having finishes that were even more detailed than Mortal Kombat's had ever been at the time.


Graphics - Eternal Champions have quite an impressive graphical style for not only their characters but also their stages.  The characters are nicely animated in all of their moments while the stages give a great feeling of the period it's based in, but this is nothing particularly special, you can get this in Street Fighter.  The FMV moments are quite blocky but not a bad effort for the early 90's, even though it seems quite dark to see at most times.
The best graphical feature you will have are your finishing kills.  The Overkills and Sudden Deaths are some of the most underrated moments in videogames and especially in videogame violence by the sheer 2D quality of the blood, sinew, bone and guts that come flying from your opponents when you meet the right criteria for their unfortunate ends.
But apart from their fatalities looking actually more detailed than Mortal Kombat's, there is little else that is innovative or memorable of the game from its graphics.  But for 1993 they weren't in any way bad.


Music/Sound - The Sega CD version brought with it a different more fuller musical score from its synthesised Genesis equivalent.  The game offers in music a mixture of techno and rock with several nice guitar riffs and nice enough beats of techno to beat your head to.  Of course that flies over your head when you're busy trying to crack your opponent's skull into the floor, so I can say that it is rather good music for the background when fighting.  The key tune you should hear is the Eternal Champion's battle theme, a very different kind of theme from the rest of the characters.  While it is electronic, it imbues a mystical aura relevant to the fighter and the stage of the Eternal Champion, giving the great feel of the last battle at the end of human's time itself.

Although this game did not make a remarkable arrival on the Genesis/Mega Drive by its terribly packaged control system and slow playing handicapped battles, the Sega CD remake is something of a lost gem.  It is a series of short stories over time itself about a group of people who, while not legendary (and sadly no, you don't get to see JFK kicking some ass Ivy League style against Bruce Lee), they are influential, and give something of an important lesson about human history.  Heck you even learn a thing or two about history as well as the characters' individual fighting styles (even the joke ones from most of the hidden characters are worth reading).

This game has one of the greatest ideas of a battle, a battle of human history itself.  Pharaoh versus mobster, alchemist versus ninja, scientist versus gladiator.  And the prize of the game for them is the most precious prize of all.  Life itself.
Because the Sega CD had a limited audience and a short lifespan, this game has become very like its own fighters.  Lost within the depths of time itself, to only ever be found again by a select few group of people who have the power to bring this back again, either by original console, or by emulator.
it's a gem worth peering at.  Even if the endings are somewhat anti-climactic, the stories are great while they last, and it's definitely a different kind of fighting game.

Final's Final Rating - 7/10

Who did you beat the game as, may I ask?  I only managed to beat the game on an emulator as the joke character Slither (yes, that snake in my signature is him).

Yes, that's the guy.  Trident of Atlantis.  He's a good fighter, very acrobatic and has combo potential with his Capoeira fighting style.