Customer Reviews

Eternal Champions - Sega CD

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

+ Pros:

+ Detailed Storyline
+ Unlockable Fighters
+ Several gameplay options
+ Good Music
+ 4 different types of finishing moves

- Cons

- Dark graphics during cutscenes
- Stringent requirements for finishing moves
- Very difficult to play on a standard 3-button controller
- No continues at the final bosses


Back in 1995, there were all kinds of fighting games trying to leech off the success of Mortal Kombat. As the Sega CD era was coming to a close, this game was released.

It was a mixture of a sequel and a Sega CD redesign to the cartridge game Eternal Champions, released 2 years earlier.

The premise was simple: Various fighters in Earth's history were killed before their time. Each fighter could earn a chance to go back in time and change their fate after defeating all their opponents, the Eternal Champion, and the Dark Champion.

Initially there were 13 warriors to choose from, but 9 additional characters (both human and animal) could be unlocked.

The instruction manual for this game was very descriptive. The first 8 pages drew quotes from the Tao Te Ching, Robert Frost, and Bertrand Russell. How many fighting games could boast that, even today?

The following modes of play were available at the start:

Contest Mode: This was the story mode of the game.
Duel Mode: This was designed for 2 players to go head to head with the following choices:
(1) Battle Time
(2) Match Condition
(3) Speed Setting (Slow, Normal, or Overdrive)
(4) Inner Strength on or off
(5) Player Skill Level
(6) CPU skill level

Tournament Mode, with several options:

(1) Single Player
(2) Multi-Player (2 to 16 players against each other and the computer)
(3) Team Player (2 to 16 players can form teams and challenge each other)

Next, the tournament type was chosen from the following list:

(1) Single Elimination
(2) Double Elimination
(3) Round-a-bout
(4) Round Robin
(5) Dominator
(6) Survivor
(7) Expert Survivor
(8) Point Match
(9) Expert Point Match
(10) Sell Your Soul
(11) Possession
(12) Russian Roulette
(13) Sudden Death
(14) Death Match
(15) Count-Down

Throughout the game, there were various ways to finish off opponents, earning an M rating from the ESRB:

(1) Vendettas: Personal kills unique to each character, used against their opponents.
(2) Overkills: If an enemy falls within a certain area of the ground, the life bars vanish and a background element kills them.
(3) Sudden Deaths: This is a type of Overkill that can be activated even if your opponent has some life remaining.
(4) Cinekills: The rarest type of kills - the opponent is taken to the chamber of the Dark Champion for a gruesome death at his hands.

But how was the gameplay itself?

Well, it was actually quite good. With the level of detail given to each character, there was a strong desire to replay the game and see the endings for each one. The kill sequences, while cartoony and overly violent, had some humor attached to them.

However, the game did have flaws:

(1) The finishing moves were very difficult to pull off - they depended on the amount of life remaining, whether the character was stunned or not, the odd combination of button presses, and to trigger an overkill the character had to be in an area that was just a few pixels wide.

(2) At the time, standard Sega controllers only had 3 buttons. With a 3-button controller, the start button did NOT pause the game; it switched between punching and kicking. With a 6-button controller, all punches and kicks were available and the start button paused the game - so this game forced an upgrade to a more expensive controller.

(3) The cutscenes were very dark and grainy, a typical complaint of the Sega CD's limited functionality.

(4) To reach the final stage there were 5 continues, but if defeated by the Eternal Champion or the Dark Champion, the game ended...no continues allowed, which was extremely cruel.

Nowadays, there are cheat codes on the internet to unlock all the hidden modes and beat the game with greater ease, but at the time, it was simply seen as a difficult fighting game on a dying console.

If you have a Sega CD or are interested in getting one, this is a great game to own. Definitely recommended.

Although I do not actually own this game (or even the console) but I have played an emulator of this game and I have to say that this game was way better than it's prequel. The game was kind of infamous for it's extremely graphic violence and gore during the finishing moves (which by the way are more intense than any mortal kombat game (except for the new one) combined). This game is just more of an improved and darker version of Eternal Champions. The only bad things about this game really are:

1. load times (remember people this was the Sega CD which had a 1X CD-ROM drive and was very slow.) especially on finishing moves
2. vast majority of secret characters are really lame
3. because the fact that this game was on a bad console, Sega never released it on any other system. however this game should be on the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation network but of course that would never happened.

If you own a Sega CD then you must have this game in your collection. highly recommended.

I own all most of the great fighting games, and I still play this one. I don't like to play the computer because it's too hard, but I play friends it's great.
Pros
-Great Charaters
-Great Moves
-Great finish moves
-Great boards
If I ever become rich, I would definitely revamp this video game and whip Mortal Kombat!
This title competed with the Mortal Kombat back in the day until the company went with Virtual Fighter, which does not compare to this game characters and moves.
Love this.
I hope they come out with one in xbox 720!

alot of people bash the infamous SEGA CD add-on, but i'd like to add i loved where sega went with this idea; SEGA CD is/was the only 16-BIT CD based console, and SEGA capitalized on this! if there were others, then they are just too obscure to mention. while the SEGA CD was best known for it's crappy FMV selection of games it did have GREAT games that made the SEGA GENESIS popular to begin with. alas, one of these titles is ETERNAL CHAMPIONS: CHALLENGE FROM THE DARK SIDE...16-BIT doesn't get much better than this!!

here are the PRO's:

-it's the best version/port of this game! because of the extra space allowed on a CD, the developer's of this game where able to pack more 16-bit goodness into this game making it superior to the GENESIS version in many ways.

-the SEGA GENESIS version of this game was good to begin with, and while i suppose people expected the SEGA CD to magically enhance everything, they have to be reminded, SEGA CD is 4th generation and wasn't the next big thing/SATURN/PS1/N64. it's simply 16-BIT on CD!! which is really nice!

-don't expect to see superior graphics, but DO expect to see MORE 16-BIT glory than you would on the CART/GENESIS version. the graphics are crisp! one of the advantages of CD; also you'll notice the level design has been enhanced with more detail to the backgrounds. ie: extra background animations like lightening/thunder, fog, lighting effects, the scenery will change (on the pirate ship, your ship is being destroyed by a neighboring vessel in the distance), awesome foreground, midground, and background animations and scrolling effects. everything seems to be doing something, flickering lights, trees blowing in the wind, rain blowing in the wind... basically, ALOT of details that weren't there on the already graphically good GENESIS version.

-a nice touch is the CG abilities of SEGA CD. no more reading a cascade of text to unfold the story; on this version you're a treated with a nice, FULL SCREEN, cinematic intro! even the title screen is improved with animations.

-the music also enhances the experience of this game. i really dig it! metal, rock, techno, ambience; they've got it all! a nice suprise i noticed is the realism on some stages where you actually hear cars/traffic near-by giving you the impression that you are in the city. the sound definately enhances the mood of the game, and i actaully enjoy this game now more than before, thanks to the power of SEGA CD.

-extra characters: more characters, means more stages, means more variety, means more fun!
i guess that's what makes this a sequel, although i just consider it a superior version/port of the game. for it to be a sequel they woudlve had to add more to the story, albeit it's pretty much the same story line, just being presented in a much better way.

-everything that made this game good is still intact, and honestly the level of violence still makes my stomach turn today, 2010! not so much the blood, there's a little here and there, but the cinematic kills/ fatalities<---they're pretty bloody and creative! the gameplay, in my opinion, is great! for veteran players, they have a very decent combo system, that games like STREET FIGHTER II and MORTAL KOMBAT1 werent doing (aside from baby 3-6 hit combos, SFII)(EXCEPT OFCOUSRE KILLER INSTINCT)

Now some of the CON's:

-i really don't have too many complaints about this game. i know that to pull-off the cine-kills or instant death can be tricky, but in my opinion, some are easy, while others can be hard, but that just makes it more rewarding once you do pull it off. overall, the challenge of this game can make it unenjoyable, hence defeating the purpose of a game.

-it is a rip off of many games. though original in presentation/cast, it never offered anything really new to the table. But again, i can get by this, because everything rips-off something.

-load times. i mean they aren't really that bad, but they are there. if they bother you that much, play the GENESIS/CART version of this game.

-the music tracks just repeat; again, something that never bothered me, but there is a second/moment of silence while the track starts over.

i had to really think about the CON'S of this game, where as, the PRO'S just came naturally, so this game is more AWESOME, than bad.



I'd like to reiterate, this is 16-bit at its best! this is what it would've been like if games in the 16-bit era were all on CD, instead of cartridges. jam packed!

my rating is 4 out of 5