The Eternal Champion states in the game's intro that he only has enough energy to send one of the fighters back to change the course of history. No point in sending the worst candidate instead of the strongest one.
^ This here. Also the Eternal Champion has always struck me sort of like... "The Watcher" from Marvel. He watches and observes - and he wants the good things - but he doesn't ever really get involved. So the Eternal Champion wants the Time Line to be fixed - but as CyberDragonEX13 stated - he only has enough energy for one person - he needs to make sure he's sending back the one person who can BEAT him - and prove that the person has the ability to UNDO whatever they died from.
@@TawmisGreybeard This is why Xavier is the best to win the tournament. He invents time travel. He now knows the history of every opponent he faced. He could go in time and literally save all of them if he wanted to, amongst other things. Was always shocked they made one of the fighters have the power to use time travel.
If u google Sega Enternal Champion , Hollywood wants to make a movie , but kinda hope they don't, an adult animated series we're the art style changes with each character and eps would be kool ngl
For me, this game had one of the most interesting lore and story in a fighting game. Loved it. ALWAYS disappointed that it didn't EVOLVED pass its second game in the series. RIP Michael, the creator, who left us too soon. :(
And Eternal,i just found this all out .I knew these songs sounded familiar but was too young to put it together.I felt nostalgic one day and looked up this game and it hit me like wait a minute......lol ..They are even more legendary to me now, so cool
I sux at this game , I played it like it was SF2 or MK as kid , as an adult I actually like it way more nowadays when I play my atgames sega genesis , that cheap sega console , so bootleg and so bad that it's good 😅
I remember playing Eternal Champions as a kid and remembering getting to the bio section, and listening to sad music, and remember being blown away from the sad tragic bio of the characters. It kinda stuck with me and that game always has a place in my heart. Bought a copy on the genesis complete with box and instructions from eBay a couple years back.. Side note: There was a movie I watched decades ago about these people who were going to pull of a heist but the back story on all of them is that they are all going to die anyway.. like from cancer and such.. pretty cool premise.
The easiest answer would been pick the guy from the earliest point in time, which is Slash. He would have created the most good over the being from the dawn of man if you were to debate who should have been given a chance. This might have made the lives of the other champions better as a result(or potentially erased them from existence.) but if you were picking from the greatest impact that would been the best answer. Slash would given humanity a leg up in medicine and knowledge as he returned with memories of everything he expereinced in the tournament. He uses his knowledge of fire in his ending to scare the cavemen who were going kill him which Xavier taught him. Which I think is largely the point of why the Eternal Champion puts them all through it. it's not just test them, but to educate them so they can actually make the difference they were meant to. The potential good even of them has rubs off on each other. They become a greater sum than their individual parts by them interactting with each other. Otherwise he could just pick any of them and send them back, and it probably would changed very little without changing them as well. This of course fails because each time a champion is chosen, the world still suffers a dark outcome. This is shown in the sequel, challenge of the darkside. The Dark Eternal is preventing the Eternal Champion from fixing this, as he hide several other champions from the tournament. The yin and yang must be restored to balance to truly fix things. So the tournament does infact have some sort of supernatural energies being brought forth by them fighting each other.
I think it harkens back to it being based on mortal Kombat . I feel like the lesson is that life is precious and no matter how you try to make death a spectacle it's a miserable tragedy most of the time no matter what .
Mortal Kombat didn’t even touch time-travel until part 9 came out, and that was used as a whole plot thing. Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side is more of an updated version of the original game, it adds a bunch of new playable characters (including two forms of the Eternal Champion,the Dark Champion, and a bunch of animal mascots!), but some of the endings are a bit more hopeful, in that some characters briefly teamed up to help each other escape their fated deaths, and some even time travel themselves. It also establishes the Eternal Champion’s era as 9999 AD, aka the very end of the whole timeline. A third game was planned as a sort of ‘everyone fights to fix the entire timeline’ and restore the balance (with the changing timeline affecting the appearance of characters/stages thereafter), but it was booted off the Saturn to push Virtua Fighter instead. Weak. The creator of the series, Micheal Latham, passed away in April 2021. He did share a few design notes and had some colourful commentary about the video game industry at the time, if you check out the interviews he did in recent years. I still miss him a lot.
I didn't realise he passed away DAMMIT..R.I.P Michael Latham. I hope his legacy can carry on and I hope if it can comeback it will get the success it really deserved back then before sega got petty.
WOW man that shit sucks! I didn't know he passed away... I used to play Eternal champion religiously, I bought this game 3 times for the Sega Genesis because I keep loosing it or a Hurricane destroy my house. but I do recall going to Ecuador and playing this game once again religiously, and with inviting new friends to join me in the games. then when the Sega Collection came out my brother and I since we live in different states nowadays, we bought it right away to play, yes you guess it. Eternal champion, forward it to 2024, my sister in law came over, we hang out, she the same age as me 39yrs old. and she was feeling very blue with some problem with her husband, so I told my wife and sister in law, "want to play Eternal Champion? I will buy it off stream for $0.99" the Sister in law laugh her ass off saying is not possible. I did and we play for countless hours! it was a blast from the past, and we all had a Blast! especially to see my wife interact with her sister was a thrill to see, it seem as if all problem was completely gone. The following day, she bought Super Nintendo Controllers for her laptop (yes their USB, yeah i know Nintendo!) and downloaded Steam to play Eternal Champions on her way back home, so now she introduce her triplets Eternal Champion which they call mom Old but they say they enjoy the blood and violence lmfao (their only 7yrs old) LET MAKE THIS GAME LIVE FOREVER! ah man... Thank you Michael Latham, you're work is never forgotten, and for making our bad lives or choices turn into cherish moments. Not everyone can't do that you know. RIP
It's sad, man. Michael always has EC in his mind, and he was planning on getting a remake/revamp at some point (even released some renders in Unreal Engine and named the project "Eternal Successors"), but he never could. Now that he's gone, his dream hardly would be fulfilled.
This franchise didn't get nearly the love or attention it deserved... with the right backing, I'm almost certain it could've been the next Mortal Kombat; instead, we only ever got the two games, plus some spin-off material ( _I actually still own copies of the "Choose-your-own-Adventure" books based on the games!_ ) Yes, definitely one of the most bittersweet names in the world of forgotten beat-em-ups..!
To explain the "you must defeat The Eternal Champion rule", according to supplemental material such as the books and comics (Provided it is cannon to the lore.) he does give the contestants time to train, Similar to something like the Hyperbolic time chamber in Dragon Ball Z. This rule in your opinion either gets cleared up or muddied further with the sequel in which the contest is stuck in a time loop due to the lack of the missing contestants withheld by The Dark Champion. The endings also are a bit more bittersweet in the sequel as well. For example in the original, Blade saves the scientist and knocks out the government agents while withholding his temper, which caused his downfall in the first place. He then goes on to save the world from the virus which killed so many. I'm sure there are a few more details I missed. In the sequel, the same occurs but now every bounty hunter has been sent after Blade. He can never return home and must remain on the run for the rest of his life. Again, I'm sure there are a few more details I missed. I would have loved to see there story resolve. Sadly, the only way for that to happen is if the fans make it happen. Which is potentially bittersweet as the story itself. Anyways, thanks for reading. It was a great video! :D Sources: gamebooks.org/Series/142/Show stc.fandom.com/wiki/Eternal_Champions
I wanted a third game for this series since I loved the SegaCD/MegaCD Challenge from the Dark Side where you can play as a chicken, a snake, an owl or even a monkey. Hell, I'd take a damn pc port or something at this point.
@@desmaku87 I know :( which broke my heart. It was mainly due to EC being made by Sega of america and Virtua Fighter being made by Sega of Japan. Sega favored their Japanese developed games over their American counterpart.
Yea I had EC as a kid back in the day, and it’s definitely the saddest fighting game that I’ve ever played, easily. Reading those character bios with that sad music track in the background was beyond depressing as a kid. It was sad but at the same time it also made me feel uneasy, especially sitting in a dark room as a 7 year old, lol. I have a lot of great memories of this game man, I wish SEGA would find it in their hearts to make a new one but sadly I doubt that will ever happen.
Great video dude. I had all the same bittersweet experiences. Opened this up on Christmas morning, only to find out everyone was dead already. Totally gutted me lol. Can also confirm some of the endings in the sequel are a bit more uplifting, Slash created a living Utopia so hey that's pretty awesome!
Well everyone is going to know the sad story of Eternal Champions very soon. The hollywood reporter and others just announced that SEGA has teamed up with hollywood to make a movie of Eternal Champions. Here's a quote i copied and pasted "Jurassic World franchise’s Derek Connolly has been tapped to write Eternal Champions, a live-action feature adaptation of the Sega video game for Skydance, Deadline can confirm. David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger will produce for Skydance, alongside Toru Nakahara for Sega. Rob Ree will exec produce, with Aimee Rivera overseeing the project for Skydance." I never in all my years as a SEGA fan and fan of this game in particular that it would ever get a movie based on it. Especially with the history it has behind the scenes at SEGA and that its been a dormant franchise for so long. This is truly exciting.
Anyway in case you didn't know yet, SEGA of japan recently trademarked Eternal Champions along with titles that was shown on that SEGA new game era trailer and other titles that are strongly rumoured to be getting an update and a remake. Considering that EC was never a SOJ game and the history with EC its a big deal and it coincides with what they were saying about bringing back classic titles. Kid Chameleon and Altered Beast was also trademarked on the same day. Anyone familiar with how SEGA japan works is they only do that for games and things they planning to release not to keep the ownership going like they do in the states. So it looks like a new EC is coming which is bittersweet since the creator of the game passed away 2 years ago.
I really hope they do a remake for this game. I played this game when I was 7. My oldest sister who is a TOM Boy and looked up to as a brother because I was the only boy out of 4 girls, has turned me into this game and Mortal Kombat.
I saw the announcement, but since there's no trace of EC there, I was skeptical about the remake. I hope you are right and we get a good version of this awesome game.
@@kenrichgumanid9235 Well now we know the reason. SEGA and skydance who is onnected to paramount pictures that made the sonic movies announced an ETERNAL CHAMPIONS movie.
In case you missed it, it probably has something to do with the announcement of a film based on Eternal Champions. I'd prefer a remake of the game as well of course, but a film can be a nice distraction too.
Could you imagine if they remade this and made it more violent in this would probably be an amazing game if they made it for like PlayStation 5 or something
You fully echoed the way I've always felt about this game, but have never really been able to talk with anyone about it because nobody else I knew had the game. I don't know why this game was so under the radar because the gameplay, environments, and story are really solid.
I played this game as much as street fighter and mortal Kombat. But as a kid I never really considered the storyline as sad, except I do recall it being eerie and unsettling.
Google *Sega Enternal Champions* talks of a movie , honestly hope not because current hollyweird sux ash , now an CN Toonami animated series would be freaking awesome. But didn't realize the lore of EC , kinda reminds me of DBZ/DBS Trunks timeline , it a sad outcome
So they are all losers in a since. Couldn’t hack it in the real fighting world and got merked, so they are trying to redeem themselves in the afterlife basically. Eternal champions, makes sense now.
If they get it right, I really think this has franchise potential. Then again, video game adaptations are ridiculously hard, especially fighting games.
The game would have been a lot better without Sega activator support. There's a lot of moves with crazy button requirements because it was meant to make it more playable on the Sega activator
I think the Eternal Champion held the tournament to see who's worthy (Odin-style) of being sent back to change their circumstances, and those who looe aren't worthy, and lastly whoever won & lost fixes the Timeline naturally, like a meant-to-be kind of thing... I think this world make a perfect TV/streaming series! ...Eternal Champions needs a remake at most, and a remaster at least, in my opinion. The original game just needed refinement & more hype, but it had great ideas (and an underrated soundtrack)🤓 🎮
Though this was a short video I really enjoyed the subject matter. It's a topic I felt years ago but never really articulated. I'd love a longer discussion on this topic. But to answer your question, I agree with you. The plight of the characters in this game doesn't really make sense and perhaps if it got a sequel, they could have ironed out the plot holes and came up with more interesting endings. Great video!
Good observation and unique perspective on this game. I felt the same when I read through each fighter's biography - while this sad and catchy track plays. Really a sublime moment there. By the way, I later found out that this track is a rendition of real song. I can't remember which, but it was a rap/hiphop song. Edit: ru-vid.com8VfcJceXsNM?si=uHFfmAh1F-kCYhZI
I was seeing how much Sketch Turner from Comix Zone, Midknight from Eternal Champions, and Morbius from Marvel have something in common. Eternal Champions is certainly part of the Zeitgeist of the time. And also of the Sega Genesis Zeitgeist.
Most endings in the not very well known Dreamcast fighting game, Psychic Force 2012 were downer endings. For the ones that died or lost someone they cared about in their endings, that was lighter than ones who either lost their sense of self, completely lost their memory or had it wiped, got frozen in time, or just couldn't accomplish their goal.
I think that the Eternal champion represents someone like Hades or the deity Mictlantikhutli who stands with his hands raised in front of him to tear souls apart. It's said that you have to fight him to get back here to see your loved ones
I really had a Love-Hate relationship with the game. I loved to play it, but sometimes, the Champion was really annoying. Especially, when he didn't get into the "right" phases. I always hoped, that the Tiger and the Dragon were the first phases, so i could relax a bit at the end. But if not, i had a very hard time with the game. I once was so frustrated, that i made a "HULK SMASH!" on my console. The cartridge broke, but nothing, what a bit of tape couldn't fix^^ The game still was running, because the platine within the cartridge wasn't damaged. Up untill today, Trident is my favourite character out of all of the playabale ones. Oh, and the AI cheated. Always. Even, if the computer shouldn't have the energy to perform special attacks, it still did. I also think, that the computer never got damage from blocking, while you as player still got a bit damage, when you blocked a attack.
This Game was Amazing for a short period in Time I Played this more then Street Fighter 2 Espcially the Vampire, The Neanderthal Guy, Trident and Xavier. Heck they Were all Great also that Russian Circus Girl She was Hot and Super Fast.
Dude.....people like sad / slasher / terror / psycho movies like Saw or Chainsaw Massacre (did i mention Cannibal Holocaust or that Serbian one?) and they do enjoy it! SCORN has a fanbase! Not to mention other weird games (weider than SCORN?). Eternal Champions may be sad, but it's insightful. Yes, the plot is sad, apocalyptical, but it's philosophical. It goes about how the actions of a few can affect the fate of so many, and what has destiny planned for us. Or what is our role in the great-scheme of the Existence. What really kills the fun in this game on arcade mode is the absurd difficulty to beat the EC. The or-else condition makes some sense (since he has only enough energy to bring one of the fighters back to life), but the boss difficulty is the biggest flaw. Aside from this, it's an awesome game!
I don't think you have to look into the 'why' so much. Going back to before your death to try and change things is just the prize the Eternal Champion can give someone and he thinks it should only be a prize for someone worthy... and he's probably bored, as most eternal immortal beings tend to be in such stories. It's a sad premise though, I can agree with that.
Bout to add another sad element.. the music you were playing during the video, was actually sampled by Bone Thugs N Harmony for the Original Crossroads they wrote for their friend that was brutally murdered
The fatalities in Mortal Kombat were so comical in the 90s. I always laughed at them when I was a kid. When I saw the fatalities of eternal champions when I was 30 I was sooo happy I didn’t play this as a kid. The violence in this was brutal
In many ways, this game is far superior to all the other fighting games of its time (even the great Mortal Kombat). It had so much more depth to its story and backgrounds of characters and a far more diverse line of characters. Xavier was my favorite character but honestly I loved them all and would routinely play as all of them. I really can’t say that about any other fighting game. They were all pretty well balanced with some minor strengths and weaknesses against other specific opponents. Just how a true fighting game should be.
I felt the same too, when I got it. To some extent I was expecting a throw-away fighter (got it for cheap with a discontinued Activator) and not only was the game pretty solid, but they put some thought into the story and characters and I dug all the characters because of it.
There was also a World Heroes port on the Genesis and it was horrendous, everything about it was! The graphics, the music, the sound you name it! It was nowhere near as good as the SNES port! I will still take Eternal Champions over the Genesis Port of World Heroes because it has better music and gameplay, despite Eternal Champions own flaws like being a depressing World Heroes 😂😆
Saddest game ever title SEGA would probably dominate the list. Chakan the forever man on genesis had a sad ending that shocked everyone that played it at the time. Then Eternal Champions came along. The clever and sad part of it is that people dont get is the game itself is in an eternal loop as revealed in the sequel. So everybody eventually wins the tournament only to start it again once they die again. SEGA in the 90s really was bringing it on their storylines which were darker than most games at the time.
If you beat him then you were the worthy one who wasn't meant to die.That's how I interpreted it as a kid, at least. He's searching for the "champion" that died prematurely and screwed up the time line. I agree that he's a good guy. Pretty cool idea for a video game story, IMO. Have you played the Sega CD version? Fantastic upgrade.
You the black man and woman are the eternal champions and the symbolizes wyt ppl. If you help them with there cause, your situation may not change. If you dint fight their cause then they won't just do the right thing anyways, but they will blame you for the outcome. Confusing you once again because it means the reality where I helped them in their cause, they were never that kind person to begin with. Never understood this about the today wyt ppl.
If crossovers were allowed in Eternal Champions, I nominate both La Seine No Hoshi and Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes in this game series. LSNH took place in the French Revolution and while it is the anime version of Zorro (just with a thicc anime girl equivalent to Cutie Honey), the plot is depressing as the source material it was based on and spoiler alerts, the main heroine Simone Lorraine is the sister to Marie Antoinette under very mad circumstances. Marie Antoinette dies sadly in the finale of the show but Simone ran away from the madness which was the FR, managing to save her sister's kids and was never heard of again. We all know Travis Touchdown's depressing story though if I were to pick where to pluck Travis during a time, it would have to be the end of the first game where he was supposed to die fighting his brother but popular demand asked for a sequel (which is rare for a Suda51 game since he never meant to make a sequel to his games tho Travis was an exception). Oh and Sega of Japan...get over your pettiness and allow Sega of America to do their own thang. Compete against other companies...not yourselves. -_-
I want to address some things i read in the comments. Eternal Champions was SEGA of america's biggest hit. The title sold around a million in units. That's why if anyone remembers that period or seen the merch, it started to get things made around it including an LCD game while it don't mean anything to us only the top SEGA franchises at that time enjoyed LCD game licenses which Virtua Fighter also got. The Sega CD version despite on its way out scored 250k units sold. Buyoed by this SEGA of america commissioned a third title which they told owners of the then new Saturn that it was coming soon on the Saturn box. Now people know EC3 was cancelled. The host of this cool channel mentioned because Sega japan favored their games over Sega of america's. That's correct. EC3 was not the only SOA game cancelled. But not many know the reason. The reason was that tom kalinske who was running SEGA had managed to do something he did when he was at mattel and that was he struck licensing deals for several SEGA games to be made into cartoons and film. Eternal Champions was designated to be made into a cartoon show. So was BUG! a game that sold 150 000 units and the first early successful saturn game,Vector Man that sold 500k on genesis had a deal and Sonic Xtreme had a movie tie in deal. Sega Sports brand had a major merch deal, Ecco the dolphin got optioned for a show. But guess who didn't. Virtua Fighter whom Kalinske could not got any buyers for.The product in question was the VF anime show. When SOJ saw this that's what lead to the games cancellation because they didnt like the fact that their marquee game could not get an american deal but the american games could so out of spite they cancelled the games which in turn stopped the deals they had. Sonic Xtreme survived but ended up getting canned later. Thats why they said EC was keeping VF from being popular but what they really meant was Sega of America's games from genesis was doing that. That's why we saw little to no continuation of popular genesis games from SOA.
The Sega CD version was so freakin good. The improved music. Expanded roster. Unlockable characters. Chicken was insane. Such an underappreciated series.
Loved this game as a kid, Xavier and Midknight were my two favorites story wise. As far as fighting games that had a bleak storyline, Girl Fight had a great twist you only got if you played through all the stories to get to Chrome who was the architect of the tournament. The participants are all in cryo sleep and fighting virtually, but when you play as Chrome you figure out she's having all the women fight to determine who's the strongest and that person is the one Chrome takes as her body when she uploads her consciousness to the winner. Game wasn't popular, but I liked the twist ending for being dark
always thought this game played bad. i never owned the 6 button joypad back in the 90s. i could never beat more than 2 charachters before ide give up and never play it again but atleast the graphics looked better then kasumi ninja and other fighting games at the time
in the 80s this game was LIT easily my most fav played game for the Sega Megadrive' the Fatalities was brutal and still today is brutal' MK defo took some inspiration from this game.
@@desmaku87 Dunno if it's actually as prevalent as he says, but Bone Thugs-n-Harmony did basically rip two songs from the game for their songs Eternal(the character bios song) and Crossroads(the bad ending theme).
One thing that makes it even sadder is that Bone Thugs N Harmony used two of the game's melodies in their songs with one of them being to morn the death of Eazy-E.
