It's now been a few years since we were first
wowed by Virtua Fighter in the arcades. Never
before had the world seen a true 3D fighting game,
and those that were tiring of Street Fighter and its
many clones were elated. Seeing Virtua Fighter on
the Saturn made a lot of people happy, and VF2
was an immediate selling point for the Saturn. Sega
kept hammering away at the genre with games like
Fighting Vipers, and Sonic the Fighters, and
stablished themselves as the industry leaders in this
field. Many Saturn owners are eagerly awaiting the
release of Virtua Fighter 3, and Sega's latest
ompilation title is exactly what the doctor ordered
to keep these people sane till VF3 hits the shelves...
Fighters Megamix.
While any Virtua Fighter or Fighting Vipers fan will
want Fighters Megamix, the game is a must have for
anyone who has neither, since you're essentially
getting everything offered before, plus more. The
biggest draw card for Fighters Megamix, is the fact
that all the Virtua Fighter characters have got the
Virtua Fighter 3 moves. So while this is not as good
as VF3, those wanting to master the game can do
so with Fighters Megamix. The real novelty lies in
having bouts between characters from different
games. The Fighting Vipers characters still have
their body armour, and to compensate for this the
Virtua Fighter characters have all been given
armour breaking moves.
The game has both a Fighting Vipers mode and
Virtua Fighter mode, the difference lying in the
characters abilit to backflip out of attacks before
they hit the ground. Virtua Fighter fanatics will find
Fighting Vipers mode extremely annoying, as it
makes the whole game way to easy to float your
opponent at the start of the bout, and practically
finish them off before they hit the ground. Something
that Fighters Megamix should have had was the
replay mode that came with Fighting Vipers, but it
was left out. As is common in all 3D fighting games
now, there's a team battle mode (which lets you use
characters twice), a practice mode, versus mode,
survival mode, and of course single player mode.
The practice mode is great in that it teaches you all
the fab VF3 moves, and includes those winning
combos. Survival mode is a little different to most,
since you actually take far less damage than normal,
and it's really a test of how many people you can
defeat in a time limit, rather than a true survival
mode. Single player mode is enhanced, in that there
are many courses to play through, like "Dirty
Fighters", "Girls", Smart Guys", "Muscle", etc. This
is particularly useful if you feel you have a weakness
against a particular style of opponent.
Visually everything is there, except the resolution is
perhaps not quite what it could have been. In
ompensation for the slightly grainy visuals, Sega
have included good light sourcing, which is perhaps
a little silly, since people would probably
appreciate
the graphics engine concentrating on the resolution
instead of how realistic the effect of the sunlight is
on Dural's metallic skin. The backgrounds are a lot
better than in VF2, actually using some of the VF3
backgrounds (without the 3D terrain). You can
choose to play with or without cage walls, and the
levels without walls go on forever like in Tekken, so
there are no more ring outs. The sound effects and
music in Fighters Megamix are quite unremarkable,
and if anything, seem to be the area which Sega
paid the least attention to when they made the
game.
Fighters Megamix is an obvious must have for any
Virtua Fighter 3 fanatic, or anyone who's been
dying to play as their favourite character from
Virtua Fighter 2 or Fighting Vipers and wipe out the
characters from the other game. A good
compilation that doesn't really break any new
ground, but delivers the goods nonetheless.
Visuals: 87
Nice light sourcing, but could have been a little less
grainy.
Sound: 79
Okay, but uninspiring. It wouldn't have taken Sega
much to fix this.
Gameplay: 91
Tons of characters, tons of moves, tons of
options...
Overall: 93
A good solid fighting game that should keep
anyone busy for quite some time.
