 SEGA DRUNK! I've looked at Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, and now let's take a look at a Sega 1-on-1 fighting game, Eternal Champions. And believe it or not, this is actually not an arcade port. It was made exclusive for the Genesis, or Mega Drive. Although the fighters here don't seem too happy about that. Seriously, this is my favorite intro screen ever. I just love this. Now, right off the bat, if you're playing this game, you're probably gonna want to get a 6-button Genesis controller. Otherwise, with just the 3-button controller, you have to press Start to switch from punches to kicks. I honestly don't mind playing this with an original controller, but it's obvious that that approach isn't for everyone. Anyway, what I like about Eternal Champions is that despite being released among a myriad of 1-on-1 fighting games, it still stands out in a lot of ways. For one thing, the game just looks different. The characters, the backgrounds, and especially the color palette, there's kind of a science fiction fantasy vibe here. And yeah, it's kind of cheesy in a 90s way, but I kinda like it. The sound, however, is a different story. The music is fine, but most of the sound effects, like when you land a move or when you hit the ground, are aped from Street Fighter II. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just sorta weird. Like, if you closed your eyes and played this, you'd think you were playing an alternate universe Street Fighter or something. There's also pretty much the same control scheme as Street Fighter, with light, medium, and hard punches and kicks. Of course, there's special moves unique to each character, but in addition, there's a power meter that you have to adhere to, represented by the Yin Yang thing in the corner there. So you can't just spam attacks like crazy. You can also taunt your opponent and reduce their special attack meter as well. Do it when they're down, though, or else it won't work out well for you. What I really like here is that there are finishers not unique to the character, but unique to the setting. So it doesn't matter who you are, you can send someone into the fan, burn someone at the stake, watch them get eaten by a dinosaur, or have them gunned down in a drive-by. The sheer variety here is really fantastic. Going back to the gameplay, though, the biggest impression I got from Eternal Champions is that this game is hard. I enjoy this game, but dear God, I got the ever-loving crap kicked out of me every fight. This isn't tough in a killer instant kind of a way, where it takes practice just to get into the flow of things and to start hitting combinations. This is a different kind of hard, more similar to Street Fighter 2. So yeah, Eternal Champions is a fun time. It's reasonably balanced with varied characters that each have their own backstory presented in the game itself, as opposed to an instruction book or a strategy guide or whatever. There's the one-player story mode, two-player versus, tournaments, a practice mode, and a battle room where you can have a one-on-one fight but screw with the options a bit. Eternal Champions is available on the original Wii Virtual Console and the cartridge is super cheap on eBay. And if you can't get enough Eternal Champions, there's a sequel on Sega CD.