Fighters Megamix
Sega Saturn
I remember being REALLY jazzed for this game when it first came out. The year was 1996. I was a freshman in high school who just absolutely loved fighting games. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Eternal Champions were my go-to fighters for the Sega Genesis. When I made the jump to 32-bit with the Sega Saturn, I ended up playing a lot of Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers. Fighting Vipers was a lesser known fighting game that was similar to Virtua Fighter but with armored characters fighting in cages. When I heard that Sega was creating a game with both Virtua Fighter AND Fighting Vipers characters, I nearly jumped out of my seat with excitement. Mash-ups or crossovers between two different franchises are something that’s pretty common nowadays, but back then this was almost unheard of. Not only would this game combine two of my favorite fighting franchises, it would also include unlockable characters from other Sega series (Sonic, Virtua Cop, Daytona USA, etc).
I went out and got Fighters Megamix and it quickly became one of my favorite fighting games of all time... for a few months. And then I stopped playing it. I’d say a good 20 years passed before I ever picked the game up again. Would I still like the game as much as I did back in the late 90’s? Let’s find out!
Story:
As far as I know, this game doesn’t have a story. You just fight, and that’s it.
Gameplay:
This is a pretty standard, no-frills fighting game. You pick a character and you fight the opposing character. There is a timer. Whoever wins two out of three matchups wins. Nothing mold breaking there.
What makes Fighters Megamix unique is the way it mashes up two different gameplay styles into one. Virtua Fighter is more of a slow, tactical, martial arts-style fighting game. Fighting Vipers is faster paced and focuses more on aggression and brute strength. The characters wear armor, and the battles all take place inside caged arenas. You can break the armor of off other characters with special attacks, which makes them more vulnerable to taking damage. If you end the round with a special attack, you can knock your opponent through the wall of the cage, which is super satisfying.
With the odd mix of different gameplay styles, you would think this game wouldn’t work. But it does. Virtua Fighter characters aren’t given armor, however they are given armor breaking attacks to help even the playing field a little bit. Depending on who you fight against, the type of stage changes. Virtua Fighter characters fight in open arenas, whereas if you take on a Fighting Vipers character, the action shifts to a cage match.
There are several different gameplay modes you can partake in. There is the typical one-player mode, a two-player mode, team battle - which I never bothered to check out, and also a survival mode, which I also never bothered to check out.
Unless you like to play with friends, which I don’t, the one-player mode is where you will find the meat and potatoes of the game. There are nine different tracks you can play, each one consisting of six regular fights with a boss battle at the end of the track. Not all of these tracks are available immediately, however. You have to beat the earlier tracks to unlock the later ones. I just went through and beat all of them in order one by one. When you beat a track, the boss character that you beat at the end becomes available as an unlockable character. Unlockable characters include the Virtua Fighter Kids versions of Sarah and Akira, Janet from Virtua Cop, Hornet from Daytona USA, a couple characters from Sonic the Fighters, and more.
Playing on the default difficulty for the game, I finished unlocking all the characters in about an hour. After that, I found that I had no reason to keep playing the game. There is no storyline, no hidden scenes to unlock, no extras outside of the unlockable characters. I don’t have any friends, so playing multiplayer was out the window. I don’t know how this game kept me occupied for so long back in my teenage years. Once you beat all nine tracks and unlock the secret characters, there is really no reason to keep going. You’ve seen everything the game has to offer.
This is a fun game and I had a good time playing it, don’t get me wrong. But on the default difficulty I found the game to be laughably easy, with a replay value that is basically nonexistent.
Graphics:
The game looks a little sloppy now, but you have to cut it some slack. Fighters Megamix came out in 1996, which is 23 freaking years ago. WOW am I old or what? Anyway, this game looked top-notch when it first came out, and I remember drooling over the game’s graphics and how good it looked.
The main thing that stands out to me is the game’s color. Everything is so bright and colorful and bursting with life. Yeah the characters are a little blocky and pixelated. The closer you look at arena textures, the worse they become. Still, that is kind of part of the game’s charm. It is a product of its times. And as blocky as all the characters look, they all have their own unique styles and personalities, and are all easily distinguishable from one another. They may not look great by today’s standards, but you can’t help but appreciate how diverse and well-designed they are.
Sound:
I really like this game’s music and sound effects. Most of the music tracks are pulled directly from their source material. You hear it in Virtua Fighter, you hear the same song here. The same goes with Fighting Vipers. I like how some of the bonus characters have special songs for their stages. For example, Hornet (the car from Daytona USA) has the “Rolling Start” song as his stage music. Janet from Virtua Cop has the theme from stage one of Virtua Cop 2 playing in the background. Overall, this game’s soundtrack is about as “Sega” as you can possibly get. All it is missing is the Green Hill Zone theme.
Sound effects are good, but nothing too spectacular. Just your standard whops, thwocks, grunts, groans, and smashing sounds that are pretty typical in fighting games. I do have to give a special shout out to the game’s announcer, who if I recall correctly also does the announcing for Virtua Fighter 3. I love that guy.
Overall:
I had a relatively enjoyable time playing this game, however I found that the reality of the game’s situation overpowers any nostalgic feelings I have for it. It’s just too dang short and lacking in any kind of substance for me to take too seriously. Give us some kind of cheap story mode. Give each character a special ending, even if it is just a crappy 20 second FMV sequence. Something. Anything to give us incentive to play through the game as each character. Instead, I found that once I’d played through all nine single player tracks and unlocked the secret characters, I had no reason whatsoever to keep playing.
If you have a lot of friends and you like playing with other people, you can probably prolong the lifespan of this game just a little bit with its multiplayer mode. Even then I question this game’s replay value.
For its time, this was a solid fighting game that was one of the best of the Saturn generation. Maybe it is because I don’t really enjoy fighting games anymore, but I found that I didn’t like it NEARLY as much now as I did when I was a teen. It’s an okay game, and that’s about as far as I am willing to go with my assessment. It does a lot of things right with its character variety, unlockable bosses, music, graphical charm, and its seamless blend of two different fighting styles. Even with all that, I feel as if I should have liked this game a lot more than I did.
If you are a diehard Virtua Fighter/Fighting Vipers fan then you should probably have this game in your collection. If you aren’t, then there really isn’t much of a reason to go back and play this. I do enjoy this game, and it does hold a decent amount of sentimental value for me, but I can't imagine I'll be spending much more time with this title, if any, between now and the day I die.
Final Score:
C+
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