Fighters Megamix
From Sega Retro
Fighters Megamix is a 1997 fighting game developed by AM2 and published by Sega exclusively for the Sega Saturn. It combines several characters from various Sega games, from the complete cast of Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting Vipers to Janet from Virtua Cop 2 and the Hornet car from Daytona USA, while allowing to play the bosses of both games without cheat codes. It still remains as one of the best Saturn games, and one of the best in the genre during the 32-bit era.
Highly advertised, it followed Virtua Fighter 2 as a high-profile 3D fighting game for the Sega Saturn. Intended as an introduction to Virtua Fighter 3 (which was never released on the Saturn), Fighters Megamix introduced the concept originally used by King of Fighters, mixing characters and styles from different games - not only the open ended rings from VF are present (but now, with no ring-out), but also the close cages from Fighting Vipers. VF characters have new moves taken from VF3, but the most impressive feature was the dodge move, which allowed the character to sidestep, avoiding a dangerous blow and opening at the same time room for a counter. Sega capitalized on this, calling Fighters Megamix the first "real 3D" fighting game in the market.
Unlike most other games by AM2, Fighters Megamix had no arcade release. However, in 1998 a Game.com port was released by Tiger.
Unlockable characters
At the start, only the characters from Virtua Fighter and Fighters Megamix are available, extra fighters can be unlocked by completing different courses (series of six bouts). Those characters are all based on other Sega games, including some planned, but unreleased for the console, like Sonic the Fighters. Those characters are Akira and Sarah from Virtua Fighter Kids, Hornet from Daytona USA, Janet from Virtua Cop 2, Bean and Bark from Sonic the Fighters, URA Bhan (improved version of Bahn), RentAHero from Rent a Hero, Deku, Siba from Virtua Fighter 3, and Candy with a different outfit.
Another unlockable character, Pepsiman, only appeared in the Japanese release.
Resources
Box Art
US cover
EU cover
JP cover
