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That’s... that’s some polygons you got going, there. As the legend goes, some schmuck
programmer working on Fighting Vipers coded in Sonic and Tails on a lark, and managed
to convince Yuji Naka and the bigwigs at Sega that this was a GOOD IDEA. Spoiler: THIS IS
NOT A GOOD IDEA. I mean, seriously. It doesn’t help that this game falls in that period of
time where Sonic was sitting on the couch, double-*** chili dogs and watching Maury,
wondering what the hell happened to him. Just look at the opening cinematic! DR. ROBOTONIC.
Robotonic. I don’t even. Congrats, Ehrgeiz, you’ve found a game that makes you look
good by comparison.
The game plays similarly to Fighting Vipers, with a guard/punch/kick control scheme and
some early combo mechanics (but distinctly LACKING the Pepsiman cameo). Should make for
a pretty basic game, right? A little too basic. The game boils down to blowing through your
opponent’s barriers (using special guard-breaking attacks), then doing everything in your power
to maintain priority while they can’t block. And then you win. And then you do it again,
against opponent after opponent, collecting the eight chaos emeralds you need to fuel
this rocket and take the fight right to Dr. Robotonic. So apparently Tails is capable
of building a rocket capable of reaching this satellite with a living cargo, but not a missile
capable of just blowing it the heck up. Let’s face it, there’s not that much of a difference
between Chaos Emeralds and Huge Materia, is there? Sorry for the speculation, I just needed
something to take my mind off the fact that the majority of the game comes down to mashing
one button, and maybe holding down on the joystick to do a guard-breaking attack. Sure,
there are kicks too, but pretty much every character in the game has the same three-hit
kick combo, which makes them look like they’re a dancing Disney character. All we’d need
is an old-timey black and white... dear God.
Sometimes, branching out and trying new things is a good idea. The late 90s to... well, today...
was a tough time for Sonic, and he needed whatever work he could get. Heck, even Bela
Lugosi did Plan 9 From Outer Space. (Well, part of it.) But the end result is a short-run,
arcade-only game that probably should’ve stayed that way, but was unearthed for inclusion
in the Sonic Gems collection on the GameCube. And I think “gem” may be kind of a strong
term for this one. After all, by the standards of that compilation, Sonic CD is a “gem.”
This isn’t Sonic CD. It was almost on a CD, specifically a port to the Saturn, and
then folks thought better and scrapped that idea. The next time a programmer comes up
to you, after jamming iconic characters into a game where they have no business being,
you HIT THEM. HARD.