When Fighting Vipers and the Virtua Fighter series just aren’t enough to quench your thirst for combat, you just smash them both together and get your fight on! Fighters Megamix is one of the Saturn exclusives that was a real draw for a lot of people. It was a fighter with a lot of variety. With just over thirty characters to choose from, you can keep yourself nice and busy unlocking twelve of them through their challenge modes. It features maps from both of its parent games, as well as a few you’ve never seen in a fighting game
What’s great about this game is that you can play with characters that you can’t in other iterations; that includes boss characters. While the framerate can drop in some arenas rather easily, it’s still a lot of fun to play through all of the game modes. The very idea that they included characters like Janet from Virtua Cop 2 or a completely original character like Bean The Dynamite (which is just a bean with a hat) just goes to show you how much fun they had making this game in order for you to play it.
Is this game perfect? No, it’s not. There is something of a real problem with these mechanics. It comes in the form of some of the Fighting Vipers characters. Fighting Vipers not only have an armor mechanic that makes them tougher than usual, but some of them have a fighting style that is entirely too fast for other characters. This becomes very apparent in the Boss Battle challenge. They can get very hard to deal with and their cheap combos will be anger inducing. The best way to handle them is to answer them in kind. Just get yourself a boss Fighting Viper character and go crazy on them.
This also means that balance can be an issue with some of the Fighting Viper characters as opposed to Virtua Fighter’s line up. So, when you’re playing a two player game, just be sure you understand which characters can be played with whom. Either way, this is a perfect game to play with friends for retro parties.
If you’re a lover of 3D fighting games, this is definitely your go to. The fact that you can fight as a car (very poorly, I might add, his controls are atrocious) only adds to how tongue-in-cheek this game is. If nothing else, it’s worth unlocking all of the characters you can and having some fun with friends. Out of all of the fighting games you can find on the Saturn, this one is more than worth your time.
