Sonic the Fighters

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Sonic the Fighters

Developer(s)	Sega-AM2
Publisher(s)	Sega
Release date(s)	May 1996
Genre(s)	Versus fighting game
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Platform(s)	Arcade, GameCube, PlayStation 2
Input	Joystick
Arcade cabinet	Upright
Arcade system(s)	Sega Model 2

Sonic the Fighters (Sonic Championship in US arcades), is a fighting game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The game's original title is used in North American and European releases of Sonic Gems Collection. The game was once planned for release on the Sega Saturn, but was cancelled for that console.

1 Development
2 Plot
3 Characters
4 Reception
5 Trivia

[edit] Development

An employee at AM2 in Sega added Sonic the Hedgehog characters into a copy of the fighting game, Fighting Vipers, during his spare time. His coworkers liked the idea so much, the game was developed and released for the arcade in May 1996, running on the Sega Model 2B board.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Plot

In this game, Eggman has built the Death Egg II, along with Metal Sonic. Tails alerts Sonic to this and they plan to fly into space via the Lunar Fox, a spaceship Tails built in an effort to stop it. However, as it is a single seater, only one of them can go and it requires the energy of eight Chaos Emeralds. The two set off in the Tornado to find them, detecting one in Knuckles's possession. Sonic demands that he hands it over, but Knuckles queries as to why Sonic should be the one to go. It's therefore decided that a tournament of sorts will be held to see who has the honour of piloting the Lunar Fox.

If a character defeats all eight opponents, they will go on to face Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik (Doctor Eggman in the Japanese version. His North American name, Dr. Robotnik, was misspelled as 'Dr. Robotonic' in that distribution.). However, the player has to defeat Dr. Robotnik within 15 seconds of his stage to get the ending, or otherwise, like Dural from the Virtua Fighter series, the game is still won, though Robotnik wins and the player receives a Game Over instead.

Given the existence of eight Chaos Emeralds rather than the usual seven, the validity of Sonic the Fighters is often disputed, but as there are eight fighters with one Chaos Emerald each, it can be argued that it is really for the sake of the gameplay. Also, Knuckles's Emerald may be the Master Emerald, or when Eggman clones a character he might also copy one of their Emeralds.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Playable

Sonic the Hedgehog - Sonic uses his Spin Dash and other normal abilities to attack his opponents.
Miles "Tails" Prower - Makes use of his twin tails to fly and fight, giving him a distinct advantage over the other fighters.
Knuckles the Echidna - Knuckles is the most powerful fighter with strong, repetitive punches.
Amy Rose - Also known as Rosy the Rascal, this game was the first time Amy was seen with the Piko Piko Hammer. Amy specializes in defensive abilities being able to deliver super-powerful counter attacks.
Espio the Chameleon - This game marks Espio's second appearance since his first appearance in Knuckles Chaotix. Espio attacks using his chameleon-like abilities, his senses and instincts.
Fang the Sniper - A unique fighter: he can shoot from his Popgun, catching his opponent off guard, but is relatively weak without it.
Bean the Dynamite - Another projectile fighter: his solution for everything is bombs and explosives.
Bark the Polarbear - A very powerful, yet slow, character who specializes in grabs and short-range abilities.
Super Sonic - Sonic can transform into Super Sonic, the only secret character of the game, during the final match against Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik if he successfully defeats all opponents without losing once.

[edit] Cameos

Metal Sonic - The game's "final stage", as Eggman's top robot, he has a wide range of effective moves, such as shooting a laser from the fan vent in his chest.
Dr. Ivo Robotnik - The game's final boss of the game, appearing in a "Bonus Round". Also known as Eggman, this scientist's goal is world domination. His machine is strong, but he's not quite experienced with it.
Clones - Grayscale versions of the eight regular characters that only appear when a character fights his or herself, but they are playable if 2 players use the same character in which case one of the players will have the shadow character. They play the same as their normal counterparts.

[edit] Easter Eggs

These characters are only accessible by hacking, but don't seem to be prototypes. They may be easter eggs thrown in by the designers for anyone who hacks, or could simply be leftover characters that were scrapped from the final version but whose data was left over.

Rocketmetal (AKA Mecha Sonic Model No.29)
Robotnik Robot¹
Alternate Robotnik¹ (seems to be a bit smaller in some fights)
Robotnik in UFO¹

¹These characters share the name "Dr. Eggman"; thus, these names are unofficial.

[edit] Other

Honey - a yellow cat-like character with black hair, that never made it to the final version of the game. Little is known about Honey other than she is based on a character of the same name from the Fighting Vipers game, which Sonic the Fighters was based upon.

[edit] Reception

The game saw very limited release in North American arcades, as Sega of America considered the game's portrayal of Sonic and his friends to be too violent, and feared it gave Sonic a negative image. (Yuji Naka however liked the idea.) Nevertheless, a new fighting game was later released years later for Game Boy Advance called Sonic Battle.

A Sega Saturn version of the game was also announced but never released; the game was never ported to home consoles until Sonic Gems Collection, for the GameCube and, in Europe/Japan, the PS2.

[edit] Trivia

This article contains a trivia section.
Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.

Sonic versus Fang in Sonic the Fighters (Sonic Championship)

If one hacks into the game to play as Dr. Eggman, the game titles him as "Dr. Eggman: Robotnik" and even gives him his own picture. This is interesting, considering that the title screen spells Robotnik correctly while the intro doesn't. This is also the first game to implement both the Japanese and English names of the same character in all versions.
Bean the Dynamite and Bark the Polar Bear appear as playable characters in Fighters Megamix.
Track 7 in the music test belongs to a scrapped stage called "Sunset Town".