This article has a talk page!Now more commonly advertised under its Japanese name of Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Championship sees the spiky blue mascot taking on Fighting Vipers, with mixed results. Due to Sega of America's fear of the game being seen as violent (despite its violence being 100% slapstick), the game saw an extremely limited release outside Japan.
A Saturn port was planned but never materialized, and the game remained an obscurity until Sonic Gems Collection. The game was rereleased on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in November 2012, which included a couple of characters who weren't playable in the arcade release.
Prerelease Info
Unplayable CharactersThere's quite a few characters the player never gets to control in here...
Unused StagesMuch the same, some stages the player was never meant to access.
Unused ModelsTake a closer look at scrapped and unused objects found within the game's files!
Unused MovesView the various mystique animations that could have been.
Unused SpritesSee the sprites one wasn't meant to see.
Unused AudioListen to the sounds that previously went unheard.
Debug ModeCheck out 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙉𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙇𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙡!Unused Modes#
Aside from the typical Arcade Mode, a few additional modes were planned to be available to spice up the arcade ladder, but ultimately failed to materialize. Said modes include:
Random Mode#
A mode where opponents were supposedly replaced by other ones. This mode previously appeared in Fighting Vipers, and the sprites and coding indicate that it was properly set to return in this game and wasn't merely a leftover. Even so, it wasn't quite completed and several oddities occur as a result, including:
- All the opponents (except for Metal Sonic and Eggman) are instead replaced with Knuckles.
- The AI for all the opponents are carried over to Knuckles.
- When finishing the game, you aren't allowed to put your initials in the high score table, as it Game Overs after the ending.
Ranking Mode#
This mode would give the task of completing arcade mode whilst trying to attain the highest score. It's another carry-over from Fighting Vipers, and is even less developed than the other mode. The game does actually have the programming to keep track of the player's score and show it on a final ranking screen, but essentially all the associated code and score values are copied over with little change. Even said ranking screen is carried over, sprites and all, just with a missing background.
Honey's Automatic Mode#
Honey has programming in place for Automatic Mode, the only unused character with such a distinction, though it is clearly incomplete. While most of her moves function as expected, including being set to use her regular grab and Foot Crush up close, she performs Spin Dash when pressing Punch from far away, a move she should not have access to. This is presumably a leftover from Knuckles' programming, as his Automatic Mode system seems to have been used as a basis for the other characters.
Unused Attract Mode Sequence#
Deep within the game's files, an unused version of the game's Attract Mode cinematic can be found. Compared to the final version, which gives a short story summary before jumping into gameplay demos, this version is more in line with the Attract Modes from Sega AM2's other fighting games, giving a roll-call for each of the playable characters as they perform one of their signature actions. This cinematic seems to date back to a much earlier version of the game that was closer to Fighting Vipers codebase, in fact it was made assessible in the first place through injecting that game's code into this one, namely the code it uses to call Attract Mode functions. That aside, with regards to the sequence itself the following observations can be made:
- It plays the unused variant of the Character Select theme, indicating that this is what the song was originally intended for.
- There are 2 long pauses in the sequence between action shots, first at the start before Sonic's action, and another in the transition from Amy's to Fang's. It's likely that the game was meant to display 2D graphics that overlaid the screen at these points. What these graphics are and whether they still exist in the game's files is currently unknown.
- The game has still-working code to display the characters' nameplates as they appear, but it doesn't seem to work in calling Bean and Bark's nameplates. This might have something to do with their status in this game as brand-new characters that likely didn't have determined names until later in development.
- Bean's action has him throw a single bomb at his opponent from a standing position. He does not have a move that matches this in the final game, but it does match a move that Mechless Eggman has, indicating that it originally belonged to Bean earlier in development.
- Metal Sonic appears prominently in the end as the recipient of Bean and Bark's actions. This may have some correlation with evidence showing that he was planned to be a playable character.
(Source: biggestsonicfan)
Regional Differences#
The game's Test Menu features a "Region" setting, which causes changes to accommodate the game's region of release depending on the option. Sonic The Fighters defaults to the "JP" setting. Switching the game to the "USA" setting causes the following changes to occur:
USA Setting#
The game shows a "Winners don't use Drugs" screen before starting, a common occurrence in arcade games released in the U.S. at the time.
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The intro text reading "REVENGE OF DR. EGGMAN" is changed to "REVENGE OF DR. ROBOTONIC", a clear misspelling of Dr. Robotnik, Eggman's localized overseas name at the time of release.
(Source: biggestsonicfan, Sonic Retro)
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All text that displayed in English with Japanese subtitles simply shows the English text with no subtitles.
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The message box showing that the Death Egg II is going to self-destruct is in Japanese on the "JP" setting and in English on the "US" setting.
Despite the game already having an English mode in the "US" setting, and little non-English text otherwise, SEGA opted to slightly alter the game internally for its overseas release as Sonic Championship. The game, which is set to "US" by default, contains the previously mentioned differences plus the following more:
Sonic Championship (U.S. release)#
Several new graphics were added to the game to replace certain existing ones, listed directly after the preceding final graphics in the Scroll_Test_2 menu. These new graphics do not over-ride their original equivalents internally, thus said graphics simply exist unused in this release.
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All instances of the game's title being shown were naturally altered to reflect the new title.
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Eggman's nameplate was replaced with a new "Robotnik" one. This is only seen during the Mech Eggman boss fight in the arcade ladder, but the change was also applied to all other characters that used the nameplate.
For whatever reason, a Fighting Vipers logo was also added to this release's files. Of course, it's unused.