Sonic the Fighters

Sonic the Fighters, also known as Sonic Championship on arcade versions outside Japan, is a fighting video game developed by Sega AM2. First released in 1996 in arcades on Sega's Model 2 arcade system, Sonic the Fighters pits players in one-on-one battles with a roster of characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The game was built on top of the 3D fighting engine for Fighting Vipers (1996), an earlier fighting game by Sega AM2, and it serves as the debut 3D game in the Sonic series. The idea for a Sonic the Hedgehog fighting game was hatched when a Sega AM2 programmer was dabbling with a Sonic the Hedgehog 3D model in Fighting Vipers. The smoothness of the character animations convinced Sonic Team to approve of the project and supervise over it.

 

A home console port for the Sega Saturn was canceled, so the game never reached home consoles until 2005 on the Sonic Gems Collection compilation for GameCube and PlayStation 2. The game was re-released again in 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, featuring new playable characters and an online versus mode. Across all these releases, critics held mixed opinions of Sonic the Fighters. They generally believed the graphics were great, especially the cartoon-like moves and animations of the characters. The gameplay, however, was criticized for being too simple and rudimentary. It was ultimately regarded as disappointing for fans of the fighting game genre but an obscure novelty for fans of the Sonic series.