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Retro|Spective 152: Fighting Vipers

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    Retro|Spective 152: Fighting Vipers




    History in Games:

    1995 - Fighting Vipers
    1996 - Fighters Megamix
    1996 - Sonic the Fighters
    2001 - Fighting Vipers 2

    Overview:
    This new series of Sega fighters was developed as a way of appealing more towards western gamers with its primary distinction from Virtua Fighter being the use of breakable armour and a more freeform approach to fighting. The game shared the same engine and a similar battle system to Virtua Fighter 2 and whilst the arcade edition failed to gain much traction the home version was a notable release for the Saturn. The project was naturally extended next into the development of Fighters Megamix due to the similarities with the VF series, the new game brought the casts of both series together along with bonus fighters and also was intended to introduce players to some of the mechanics that would go on to form the basis of Virtua Fighter 3. This entry sold well but never received a follow up. Another title spawned from Vipers was Sonic the Fighters after a programmer on the game modded Sonic and Tails into the title and this inspired Sega to commission a full game based on the idea. The game was notable for being the first time Sonic was modelled in 3D. It was six years later from the original before a sequel arrived, this new game received solid reviews and was a typical sequel but sales were too sluggish for the franchise to live on.








    Share your thoughts and memories of the Fighting Viper games and side projects

    #2
    I've always loved FV, from the Saturn version to the DC version of 2 and the 360 version of the first game...which is happily BC and ever remains in my XB1 HDD to play on a whim.

    It's just so SATISFYING to smash armour off, smash peeps through walls, plus it's got this cool and funky atmos, proper vintage SEGA through and through.

    Yeah, get the 360 vers on the Xbox One. It looks really crisp, colourful, buoyant. Plays like a dream and looks like a dream at super-smooth 60fps. Goes cheap a fair bit, you can get it for bobbins at points.

    That's probably my fave age of SEGA. That cool, colourful, smooth n' sexy polygonal gaming funk. Also got DAYTONA USA, SONIC THE FIGHTERS, VIRTUA FIGHTER 2, CRAZY TAXI, VIRTUAL ON ORATORIO TANGRAM taking up permanent residence in my XB1 HDD for when I need a blast of blue sky gaming.

    Yeah, they're all BC, too. As are NIGHTS, JET SET RADIO, GUARDIAN HEROES, SPACE CHANNEL 5 PT. 2, SEGA BASS FISHING, SONIC ADVENTURE 1&2...prob a few more. All BC. All blue sky gaming.

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      #3
      MEGAMIX was great n' all...and the PAL Saturn version had one of them late-model durable plastic cases that are really, really great and SEGA UK shoulda been using them from the start!

      But 30fps? It always felt ugly to me, especially after playing them back to back. It just felt rougher and less sexy, even if it is a really great game.

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        #4
        I remember loving Fighting Fighters on the Saturn -- it offered something different that really impressed me. The crunching action kept me coming back for more and more. I also liked the characters, music, and overall design. It may have been lacking when it came to content, but I still got a lot out of it.

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          #5
          I'll never forgive them for removing Pepsiman from the export versions.

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            #6
            Originally posted by Hirst View Post
            I'll never forgive them for removing Pepsiman from the export versions.


            Everyone should have got to see Pepsiman.

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              #7
              Despite owning the DC version - it came in a large bundle of games - I'd never played it, but this thread prompted me to try it. I had quite a lot of fun.

              I quite like Megamix and FV, although I rarely fire them up. If I'm in the mood for a blocky fighting game I usually go for Tobal.

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                #8
                Originally posted by Marius View Post
                Despite owning the DC version - it came in a large bundle of games - I'd never played it, but this thread prompted me to try it. I had quite a lot of fun.
                I haven't played the sequel on the Dreamcast for ages, so I'll give it a go. I have vague memories of it not impressing me back in the day.

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                  #9
                  Fighting Vipers is a game I've always wanted to like, but just never have.

                  I was quite a big Virtua Fighter fan, so I was really excited to try it; I first got a chance at an arcade in a service station on a school trip

                  Ever since, I've just never gotten along with it. Virtua Fighter is an extremely well-designed game; but to me, FV just feels janky. I think it's not helped by how many of the FV characters have some of the VF characters' moves, or in some cases, a reasonable chunk of a specific character's moveset, but they're not the same and as a result, I find it hard to get into.

                  I think it's also that it shares a problem with VF, in that Virtua Fighter is only fun when you know what you're doing. It's not fun for someone mashing the buttons and flailing around; Namco always did that better with Tekken and Soul, where obviously the games have depth but there's still plenty of fun for a beginner. In VF and FV, if you do that, the characters just do very basic fighting movements. This is also a personal thing in that because VF was always niche in the UK, and FV was, therefore, a niche within a niche, I was never pushed to get good at it. It seemed like a waste of time.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Asura View Post
                    I think it's also that it shares a problem with VF, in that Virtua Fighter is only fun when you know what you're doing.
                    Yeah, this pretty much killed all these games for me. And it the thing is that most of the moves didn't really have an easily learnable system - they were a unique combination of buttons and directions. So essentially the game was a test of memory, like that Simon game or Mortal Kombat fatalities. Once you've got the basics of Street Fighter 2, by comparison, you can switch character and figure out most of their useful moves in minutes and be playing well enough to have a lot of fun very quickly. VF and Fighting Vipers and the like was, for me, just about learning inputs. And that's no fun for me.

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                      #11
                      I just see it as a fun, shallow 3D blue sky SEGA beat 'em up where you can twat folk with guitars. Fun n' slick n' shallow n' fun.

                      It was a PERFECT Saturn game. Perfect. And still sexy.

                      This was never 3rd Strike to me. It's WYSIWYG all the way. It's lush, funkily lush, vibrantly violent.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Dogg Thang View Post
                        Yeah, this pretty much killed all these games for me. And it the thing is that most of the moves didn't really have an easily learnable system - they were a unique combination of buttons and directions. So essentially the game was a test of memory, like that Simon game or Mortal Kombat fatalities. Once you've got the basics of Street Fighter 2, by comparison, you can switch character and figure out most of their useful moves in minutes and be playing well enough to have a lot of fun very quickly. VF and Fighting Vipers and the like was, for me, just about learning inputs. And that's no fun for me.
                        Y'know, this post made me think about how fighting games might be affected by the enormous success of Smash.

                        Like, Smash is a big deal for plenty of reasons, but I think that core to its success is that, for the bulk of the characters, once you learn one character's moves, you've kinda learned them all, because barring a few specials, most of them are based on a theme. So, the smashes always go in the same directions, etc.

                        It's not like in Virtua Fighter where, for example, in VF1, every character had a throw activated by pressing A+B, except for Akira, who just didn't for no good reason. Generally in those games, hitting forward>foward>punch would do some sort of dashing strike, but with Jacky & Sarah, it's a throw. Dead or Alive has even more of an issue with this, because those games have epic move redundancy, i.e. tons and tons of moves that do basically the same thing, and the only real variation is the timing (to support the parry system) which is great, but that only really works for quite high-level play.

                        Smash, Power Stone... These games are really straightforward.

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