Anyway, it has been awhile since my last 'rave'. The subject of this rave is Eternal Champions. The original Genesis/ Megadrive (as we called it in Australia) version. EC has one of the coolest soundtracks and one of my favorite songs is the song it played during each characters biography. The song is so pimp that Bone Thugs N Harmony (Ohio stand up!) even sampled it for one of their songs.
Eternal Champions was released back in 1993. It was touted as Sega's in house answer to Street Fighter 2 and in a lot of it's ads it seemed like EC was mocking SF II. However for all it's bravura, it was not so and SF has continued to a be a Juggernaut in the gaming industry and EC has faded to obscurity. EC has some awesome stuff tho. First are the characters, each character were fully fleshed out protagonists with long back stories. When ether it be Shadow, the female assassin or Trident, the merman from Atlantis. It was not just the characters too, each protagonist practiced a real martial art, where ever it be Savate (Jetta) or Muey Thai (R.A.X.) and the game explained the history behind their art as well. It was detailed and the storyline was different. It wasn't just a tournament to see who was the best, it was a tournament to determine who deserved a second chance at life.
The graphics were detailed and the stages were lush, especially for a GEN/ MD game. EC also had a very innovative system of performing special moves where all moves were charge motion attacks (think Guile from SF) or multiple button inputs. Add a very detailed and fun to muck around with training mode, multi playing modes like tournament, kumite and more. It had tons of good stuff.
Also I have already added my favorite song from the OST above but the whole games music was very nice as well. The intro song and biography song especially stick in my head even when I am not playing the game.
The only problem tho was the game play, Eternal Champions had issues. LOL I am being nice, it had major issues. Anyone whom has played it will understand what I mean.
EC Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) was one of the most frustrating computers to fight against back in the day. LOL it's like Western programmers don't know how to make a game challenging but they know how to make a game cheap (hello Mortal Kombat 2 as well). I like a good challenge. It is why I love playing Ninja Gaiden Black, one of the most challenging hardest games ever but EC was ridiculous. Add to the fact that the A.I. also lets you opponent cheat. EC tried to be innovative with a ying/yang bar, that goes away as you perform special moves. You do a really damaging attack, your ying/yang bar suffers as a result and it will take awhile to come back. Now if the A.I. would actually respect the rules of the game, it would have been fair but nope. Even when the computer's ying/yang bar is tapped out, it can still perform all of it's attacks, you however ain't got nothing to work with but basic attacks and throws (which can't be broken). When certain characters like A.I. Trident can continuously put out his force fields which really messes us your game even when he should not be able too, it gets a bit frustrating.
Add the fact that EC does not have the conventional continue method. If you lose to someone, you get sent back a couple matches. So example, you are at player # 6, Jetta. Jetta pwns you (very hard to beat, always speeding up (as mentioned above without loss to her ying/yang bar) you then get sent back to player #3, Larcen (who is also a bish to fight). You then have to fight Larcen all over again, Player # 4 and Player # 5 and then you get your rematch with Jetta. WTF?! It's like by trying to be innovative, the creators made it retarded.
Oh and don't get me started about the last boss, the Eternal himself. Dude's first form already cheats with a invicibility move and then you have to proceed to beat his other 4 forms...with one life bar. Each form get proceeding cheaper too, his shark form especially and then ultimate grand daddy of B.S, if you lose two rounds to the Eternal, it's game over and you get the bad ending automatically. Nope you don't get sent back, you don't get a chance to continue. It is over.
LOL you now you are probably thinking, is this really a rave, it sounds more like a rant and I got to be honest, this game really lives up to my blog title. It is a rant and a rave but it's more of a rave because flaws and all, I still like this game. I still enjoy mucking around with it. I love the music, the characters, the setting. It's one of the fighting games where you actually want to see each characters' endings cause they are so involving.
EC was one of the many niche games I really got into back in the day. It and Primal Rage (another quirky fighting game with quirky special moves) were def played a lot by me. It had its issues but it was still a fun game. Now in the next part I will rant about its sequel and boy, talk about upgrade you...
pP
I enjoyed your review and it will always be one of my favourite games, but I have to say, that all those cheating AI things you mentioned only made the game that more of a challenge and I loved it even more for it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally beat the Eternal Champion, it was so satisfying, unlike most games where pretty much any button basher could do it.
Each character had so many moves, that this game was definitely one to master.