Often in the face of completion, there are at least two constants, the rivalries intensify, the technology gets better, and the only way up is to go beyond. In 1996, hoping to capitalise on the success, combined with the rapid advancements in technology to play with, it was time for the Eternal Champion to embrace the change for the ultimate outing in Eternal Champions 2 Challenge from the Dark Side.

For those tuning in, The Eternal Champion has to pick a successor to succeed him, picking physically fit specimens who were taken before their chance, across the vast timeline of humanity. Placing all the candidates in a brawl to win a chance at a second chance at life. Here, more characters are given a second chance. Joining the fray includes a Senator, a cowboy, a Vietnam vet et al. As fighters lurk in the background that even the famed Eternal Champion couldn’t match.

With the Mega-CD expanding its capacity to over 150 times the cartridge, Eternal Champions has a lot of space to play with. Eternal Champions 2 meets this challenge by bolstering the number of characters willing to get a second chance, ballooning up to 24, a lot more than the nine returning fighters. Unlocking said characters still feels like an arcane practice almost 30 years on, and the cheat-code-entering process feels just as demanding as the difficulty, but the locked-away characters are worth it. A lot of its space is used to deliver video cutscenes, an almost far cry from the limitations just three years ago. 

With the way that Mega CD worked, the gameplay remains largely similar, as sprites from the game three years ago, and the iconic sound chip still produced a funky and raw sound. An extra three buttons do go a long way in augmenting the gameplay. The combos and minutia of the combat have been reworked somewhat, still retaining that trademark difficulty that the first game wore with pride. Cinekills are the brand-new fatality personalised for the victim, utilising the latest in C.G.I graphics at the time, to inflict their deepest nightmare. It is certainly cool stuff, and if you can’t pull them off yourself, I implore you to at least seek them out somewhere else.

Ultimately, Eternal Champions 2 would be the final title for the franchise, as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat kept the pressure on, and decades later, are still reaping the rewards. The game tried to meet the challenge by expanding everything on offer and showed what would happen if the first game was given a little more room to breathe; the multimedia heyday intersected with the full brunt of the Attitude Era, giving even more interesting characters a chance to complete. Maybe in the future, some unknowable entity will give these characters another chance, until then Eternal Champions ends on a fabulous coup-de-grace.

If you want more positive reviews delivered to the e-mail box of your choice, you can click on that little text bubble at the bottom of the screen. Do you agree or disagree? or have a suggestion for another pop-culture artefact that needs a positive light shone on it? Leave a comment in the comment box below! But remember to keep it positive!