Sonic Championship

"Non-violent and totally addictive! This Sonic fighting game is the best!"

This is another fighting game I really like to tinker with: Sonic the Fighters or Sonic Championship in certain regions. This game is not even violent and there are no blood, pops and explosions and stuffs like that, guaranteed so it’s definitely a one-stop for a ‘Safe for Kids’ game if you are a concerned parent about your kid.

Graphics – 9
The graphics can be considered quite good for an arcade version. It’s even in 3D! The graphics are very colourful and every single thing in the game is detailed. The backgrounds are ‘dyed’ with the bright colours and the characters and items are quite detailed in almost 3D (though I wish perfect 3D would turn out much better). The rapid animations and movements of the blue, red, brown, green, white, pink and black characters are nifty and nice. The characters look ‘thinner’ though, a bit like Sonic R’s (though Dr. Robotnik is the same, old, fat, eggy one. There are no flaws in the graphics, fortunately.

Musics – 9
Not all games have cool background music so you are going to enjoy it. It has some mixed up Sonic games’ tunes I think because some of them are familiar! That makes this game even cooler with the ‘Sonic style’ in it! The sound effects from Sonic’s spinning, character’s exclamations and bashings can be heard loud and clear (that’s what every game should have at certain times).

Gameplay – 10
The game is totally awesome in every single aspect. There are a lot of characters to play and some are totally new to you such as Bark and Dynamite. As I had said before, this game is not violent and cruel because there are simply no blood. It’s replaced with rings instead, making this a very suitable game for kids.

The main point here is that you choose a character you want to play as and fight your way to the end, rounds after rounds, turns after turns. As you proceed, the characters you bash against will grow incredibly hard. Also, make sure you have lots of coins when you play this game because it’s really addictive! You will completely forget the real world except playing this game. Also, there’s a bit of secret in the game to make you surprise, maybe a surprise ending or character so find out yourself!

Story – 9
Dr. Robotnik wants to take over the eight (yes, I put and type it right, eight Chaos Emeralds instead of seven) Chaos Emeralds from the eight guardians of them; Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Bark, Dynamite and etc for his yet another spaceship (after his miserable and complete destruction of Death Egg, I suppose). Tails heard this from his computer-generated invention and told Sonic about it. When they meet Knuckles, they talk about it and began to fight over the matter of who will get into Tails’ spaceship to save the world (since there is only one seat in it). Tails gave an idea that whoever wins the tournament or rather, the fight will be the winner and so, all of them agree. So, start playing!

Replay Value – 9
Yes, you’ll play it forever, espeacially with your friends. You’ll play and play and play until you lose the count of time. Since it’s a bit hard, keep your dreams of completing the whole game off.

Overall – 9
I’ve never seen such good fighting games and this is precisely one of them! You really must play this game or you will regret (buy the whole machine if you can!).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/12/00, Updated 05/12/00