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Sonic Championship is a fighting game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The game's original Japanese title, Sonic The Fighters, is used in North American and European releases of Sonic Gems Collection.
Plot
Dr. Robotnik (Doctor Eggman in the Japanese version. His North American name, Dr. Robotnik, was misspelled as "Dr. Robotonic") has built the Death Egg II, along with Metal Sonic. Tails alerts Sonic to this and they plan to fly into space via the Lunar Fox, a spaceship Tails built in an effort to stop it. However, as it is a single seater, only one of them can go and it requires the energy of eight Chaos Emeralds. The two set off in the Tornado to find them, detecting one in Knuckles's possession. Sonic demands that he hands it over, but Knuckles queries as to why Sonic should be the one to go. It's therefore decided that a tournament of sorts will be held to see who has the honor of piloting the Lunar Fox.
If a character defeats all eight opponents, they will go on to face Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik. However, the player has to defeat Dr. Robotnik within 15 seconds of his stage to get the ending. If he is not beaten on time, the player receives a Game Over. If the player wins, the playable character escapes the exploding Death Egg II. Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic are seen after the credits, seeking vengeance.
Image of Sonic and Knuckles ready to fight.
Development
Masahiro Sugiyama, a character designer at AM2, added Sonic and Tails into the fighting game Fighting Vipers. Yu Suzuki saw this and decided to present the idea of a 3D Sonic fighting game to Hiroshi Kataoka. Suzuki then presented the idea to Yuji Naka. Initial thoughts about the game were that the game would give Sonic a negative and violent image, and Kataoka thought that Naka would not approve, but Naka loved the idea and approved of the game's development. This was Sonic's first 3D debut and had Naka's full support. The game was released in Japanese arcades in June 1996, running on Sega Model 2 hardware.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack CD was also released containing the complete 24 track collection which was composed and arranged by Maki Morrow and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi. Similar to Yuzo Koshiro's works, the soundtrack has a notable influence from dance music such as House and Eurobeat.
Characters
Playable
* Sonic the Hedgehog — Sonic uses his Spin Dash and other normal abilities to attack his opponents.
* Miles "Tails" Prower — Makes use of his twin tails to fly and fight, giving him a distinct advantage over the other fighters.
* Knuckles the Echidna — Knuckles is the most powerful fighter with strong, repetitive punches.
* Amy Rose — Known in-game as Rosy the Rascal, she specializes in defensive abilities being able to deliver super-powerful counter attacks.
* Espio the Chameleon — Espio attacks using his chameleon-like abilities, his senses and instincts.
* Fang the Sniper — Fang uses a popgun and mainly uses long-ranged attacks.
* Bean the Dynamite — Another projectile fighter: his solution for everything is bombs and explosives, but his attacks are relatively weak. Based on the characters from Dynamite Dux.
* Bark the Polar Bear — A very powerful, yet slow, character who specializes in grabs and short-range abilities.
* Super Sonic — Sonic can transform into Super Sonic, the only secret character of the game, during Round 2 against Metal Sonic if he successfully defeats all opponents without losing once.
NPCs
* Metal Sonic — The game's "final stage", as Eggman's top robot, he has a wide range of effective moves, such as shooting a laser from the fan vent in his chest.
* Doctor Eggman — The final boss of the game, appearing in a "Bonus Round." To achieve the good ending, he must be defeated in 15 seconds or less.
* Clones — Grayscale versions of the eight regular characters that only appear when a character fights him or herself, but they are playable if two players use the same character in which case one of the players will have the shadow character. They play the same as their normal counterparts.
Sonic versus Metal Sonic.
Release
The game saw very limited release in North American arcades, as Sega of America considered the game's portrayal of Sonic and his friends to be too violent, and feared it gave Sonic a negative image. Nevertheless, many years Sega would shy away from this stance with a new and completely different fighting game for the Game Boy Advance called Sonic Battle, and later Sonic himself became an unlockable character in the Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with a large amount of his moves actually based on attacks that he used in Sonic the Fighters.
A Sega Saturn version of the game was also announced but never released, though some elements appeared in the Saturn game Fighters Megamix. The game was ported to home consoles on Sonic Gems Collection, for the GameCube in North America and, in Europe and Japan, the PlayStation 2 and the GameCube. In the port, model data of all unused characters was removed. Character data still exists, but upon selection, the game crashes due to the missing models.
Not seen as one of the best Sonic games, but most of Sonic's attacks in Brawl came from Sonic the Fighters. If you're interested, feel free to discuss anyhting about Sonic the Fighters here.
