Eternal Champions (Wii)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.0 stars Mediocre
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 4.5 (2.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Frank Provo
• Reviewed on: 12/17/2007
• Released on: 12/03/2007
• Originally published on GameSpot: Eternal Champions (Wii) Review

When Sega originally published Eternal Champions for the Sega Genesis back in 1993, much attention was paid to the large characters and their over-the-top killing blows. Unfortunately, once people began to look beyond those details, many came to discover that Sega's foray into the 2D fighting genre was really defined by its clunky combat system and choppy animation.

Just like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, the main idea behind Eternal Champions is that you pick one of the 10 available characters and duke it out with human or computer opponents in one-on-one matches. The characters are large and intricately detailed, as are the different movie-themed backgrounds. If you're into old monster movies or comic books, you'll appreciate the character designs. There's a cyborg, a merman, and some sort of caveman. Midknight is a vampire clad in biker gear that literally loses his flesh when he loses. And then there's Larcen, a weird hybrid of a 1920's burglar, a gumshoe detective, and Batman.

Each character has a healthy selection of basic punches and kicks, as well as a repertoire of Street Fighter II-style special moves that can usually be performed by pressing multiple buttons simultaneously, or by charging in one direction for two seconds and then pressing in the opposite direction along with one of the attack buttons. Special attacks can't be abused in Eternal Champions because you have to wait for your inner-strength meter to refill every time you perform two or three in quick succession. However, the meter does refill rather quickly. At the end of the match, if you're standing in just the right spot and hit your opponent with a heavy attack, he or she will be thrown into the background and obliterated by an overkill scene. These overkills are too outlandish to be taken seriously, although there's no denying the shock value of seeing someone burned in a bonfire or cut to ribbons by an industrial fan.

Between the inner-strength meter and the charge-based nature of the characters' special attacks, you can't spam fireballs in Eternal Champions like you could in Street Fighter II and expect to get very far. Eternal Champions places more emphasis on making contact with standard attacks and chaining them together for devastating combinations. That's fine, except that the attacks are sluggish and don't really chain together all that well. The timing required to land a jump kick or counter is tough to judge, and the window for transitioning from one move to the next is ridiculously short. It doesn't help matters that the CPU can read and react to your button presses the instant you make them. For those reasons, you'll find yourself relying on weak punches to keep opponents at bay and a few well-placed heavy attacks to do the dirty work. Good fighting games make you feel like you can bust out a variety of combos at any moment. With Eternal Champions, you feel as if you're being held back every step of the way.

Continue reading

Compare prices for Eternal Champions

This product is currently not in stock at any of our online merchants.

Email me when this product is available