I love how the game poster has the actual 3D models of the characters in it instead of more polished renders or some artist commissioned artwork. It's like they're so proud of their polygon count they're going "yeah kids, look at this, this is gonna sell, it's full 3D baby!"

My favorite thing about Fighters is Sonic and Knucles have their own rival theme song, 'North Wind.' I wish more fighting games did that

I get people disliked how easy the single player arcade mode is. Honestly though, it’s kind of refreshing to have a 90s fighting game where the AI isn’t blatantly cheating you out of quarters.

I really love the vibe of the game, AM2 puts such a distinct charm into their games that you just don’t see now

Sonic the Fighters deserves alot of love and respect. Its wild how the game that was made by the legendary AM2 and based off of Fighting Vipers is considered one of the worst but its a underrated fighting game and thank you showing it some love

Funnily enough, the 3 obscure characters in the game, Fang, Bean and Bark, are typically paired together in side material like the comics, which honestly makes sense. Their personalities mesh together pretty well and make their group, Team Hooligan, one of my favorites whenever they’re allowed to show up.

I love seeing people’s reactions to Bark deleting health bars in this game, dude’s just built different lol

The Gems Collection was one of the only games I had on my PS2 for a good few months, so it was all I played. Specifically, I played Sonic the fighters all the time. It's only until I got more into the internet that I see how many people just don't like this game. I still don't see why because it's genuinely one of the better spin off games. When I first started I'd just mash the punch button too! It wasn't until I actually took the time to just read the move list, I realized this game actually has a lot more than it initially seems. I wish Sony hadn't removed all its sonic games from PSN on the PS4 because I'd love to play some Sonic the fighters online and see how much it's evolved.

I always think about the interviews saying that they weren't sure if this game would work given how stubby the classic sonic designs are so its so awesome that despite that they made one of the most faithful and expressive interpretations of the characters ever at that point

Thank you for giving this amazing game the video it deserves, and for the shoutout! We’re in agreement when it comes to other reviews of this game not exactly being well-researched or informed. Always hoping that Sega decides to release this game again so we can have more success with our tournaments!

This game always showed up in those "Top 10 Worst Sonic Games of All-Time" lists, and when I played it in Sonic Gems Collection my first thought was "What were they talking about this game's fun as hell"

so glad you did this. the community for this game is very small and passionate and they've been dying for a video that actually represents the game without the snobbery that comes from both sonic fans and traditional fgc player when talking about this game.

I do believe there's a reasonable amount of love for Sonic the Fighters, mostly over Honey the Cat but there was a proper tournament arc on the comics before they were cancelled. That one featured a Sonic OC version of Jane from Fighting Vipers and just... regular Segata Sanshiro somehow.

This game definitely has a lot of fun with its animations. The OST is killer too, even by Sonic’s already high standards there.

Fun Fact: did you know that this game released in North America in arcades under the name Sonic Championship but it was a limited release because Sega of America feared the game would be considered to be too violent despite the violence in the game being all slapstick

5:26 DISCOMBOBULATE

Yessss yesssss! Sonic the Fighters is so rad. In that one interview Heidi had with the developers, I remember they mentioned giving the character modeler a 3D Sonic keychain as reference for how he should look in full 3D. I had that exact keychain!! They really did such a fantastic job converting that into a Model 2 character model, and then on top of that, gave everyone such over the top fun cartoony animations. I wanted to play it so much and waited for the advertised Saturn port so badly, but when it never came my kid Sonic heart broke. I remember the only arcade that had “Sonic Championship,” the American name for the arcade game, was in the Sega owned Gameworks arcade in Las Vegas. Whenever I’d go with my family to Vegas, I’d head to Gameworks and try to get a 1CC with Sonic, which was pretty tough bc I was terrible at VF controls as a kid. I think they had that cabinet up until the late 2000s, or whenever Gameworks closed, because I was able to get that 1CC eventually after learning VF in VF4. In college, my friends and I would play the Sonic Gems Collection version and get some heated battles. We’d have a bunch of sets with my buddy’s Knuckles vs my Sonic. To this day the custom versus song between Sonic & Knuckles, North Wind, traumatizes my friend if I play it for him. Good times. Did you ever hear the vocal cover of Bark’s theme that Takenobu Mitsuyoshi did? It’s pretty killer

I loved this game growing up! Pure BLISS when it appeared in Lost Judgement as a playable arcade cab. Picked Bark the Polar Bear cos he has a command grab lol! So happy youre covering it Mr. Winquote

I know that two second joke of Guile being in the character select screen probably took some doing so I want you to know that your effort is noticed, good job

Bark looking like alex is EXACTLY why i like him. Surprised someone even mentioned this

Its absolutely INSANE how hood Sonic the Fighters looks, some of my favourite stylistic 3D models in the series for literally every character, and their animations are spot on

That 3D Guile model ROCKS 12:31

I thought it was pretty interesting to learn the crazy history about this game. To be honest, I didn’t know that sonic and tails was playable in a fighting game for a hilarious joke. But then sega turning that joke into fighting game is pretty mind blowing also pretty cool they made that honey character from fighting vipers into an actual Sonic character. I never played this game, but I always saw it as a cool game. Never understood the hate for it though.

This video came out great and I am glad people are enjoying it. I helped GuileWinQuote with the recording of this video by playing some online matches against him. The tags are cut off due to screen size, but whenever you see "yBones" on P1 and "GuileW" on P2 that is us netplaying. I had to do a lot of troubleshooting to get the PS3 emulator netplay working right on my PC so I am glad that paid off.

This is a game I hope to see get a fan decompilation. The idea of being able to natively play this on pc with online play, new characters and updated controls is amazing!

I think this is the best looking fighter on the Model 2 when looking at it from an artistic side, the characters are very expressive and the low poly look helps it even more, kinda sad that Sega delisted this game off the PSN store in 2020 for Europe, but not in the USA for some reason. The sound quality isn't that great when comparing it to other Model 2 games but the music slaps, especially the remastered versions that came later.

If you want to talk more about good FGs with bad/unfair reputations I think the DOA series is one of the best to bring to the topic, god knows how many offenses I got yelled to me by just recommending the game.

It is definitely an underrated and unique Sonic game. Glad to see the attention it deserves.

Great video, dude. Fighters is definitely one of the more underappreciated 3D fighters I know of. Like you said, I think the distaste largely comes from the "anything Sonic does that isn't running fast is automatically bad" crowd and how a lot of Sonic fans who played it when they were younger probably didn't understand it. I love that Bark got brought back for a boss in Mania and appeared in a Classic Sonic special issue in the IDW comic.

I’ve always loved this game. It was super exciting when it got re released in PS3. I really wish I’d seen this in arcades as a kid. It would have been right at home. It feels nostalgic to see these characters portrayed in this 3D super polygonal style.

I didn't grow up with any real arcade culture here in the UK, however I did have the absolute pleasure of playing a Sonic the Fighters machine at Segaworld in London in the 90s. It created a huge impression on me and, as stated in this video, it was Sonic's first ever polygonal appearance. Not the deepest fighter for sure but it oozes charm and honestly I wish the mainstream games had more of this Warner Bros. animation.

Happy to see some positivity for this game, it's always been a niche favorite of mine. As a Sonic fan, who's also a Looney Tunes/classic Animation fan, who ALSO really respects fighting game animation, it brings me a very specific kind of joy seeing how creatively it brings all those parts together. I've never really wanted to pick up a fighting game more complicated than Smash Bros until I saw this and button mashed through the campaign a few times, but I'm happy to know people in it's actual target audience can get complexity and fun out of it.

Considering the popularity of Sonic fan games, and retro decompilation projects, I'm surprised a decomp project for StF hasn't shown itself yet. Hopefully this game _"Blows up??"_ -after this, so we can really see some magic happen Thanks again WinQuote, cheers!

Ah yes, the real Sonic cycle. "I heard this game is bad" *plays game* "Honestly it's not so bad"

I wanna see a sequel to this game honestly.

God, finally. A video on this game without it being unfairly dunked on by people not into fighters or Sonic all that much. Always loved this game, its style, music, and visuals. So timeless. Thanks for the great video!

The animation is awesome, especially for its time

One of the selling points of Lost Judgment was the fact it had Sonic the Fighters playable in it, for some for the first time without having to emulate it themselves. I remember running to the arcade the first change I could so I could enjoy it for a bit lol.

I know everyone is praising the video and the game that it is about, but I wanna highlight something low-key amazing that Guile did in the beginning of the video: The pitch perfect description of the long enduring appeal of Sonic The Hedgehog He manage to distill the entire Internet's ever changing conflicting feelings on The Blue Blur and he did this in a few short sentences. Brilliant! It's true - if Sonic wasn't a big part of your childhood, you will never understand why people love him, not even if his games where universally praised. You either get it or you don't - it sucks that there is hardly a middle ground, but that is Sonic in a nutshell: 0 to 60 in under a minute and back again.

12:27 Oh, man. What a great video! That was a very funny section, I'm glad you included that. Thanks for being so positive. ❤

just the background stage graphics alone look pretty impressive & better than some of its Am2 contemporaries.

This game is owed a sequel. Like, I remembered my brothers making fun of this game all the time as a kid, but I never really got to play it until the Gems collection. And I was kind of blown away. It was Virtua Fighter...with Sonic. And I loved both, so naturally it appealed to me.

Great video. I was definitely one of those kids who thought this game was bad. But when I came back to it after getting into fighters, I realized it's actually quite fun. Seems like it'd be a blast to learn with friends.

I. LOVED. Seeing Amy take the gun and shooting Fang. It was a real joy.

The models and animations in this game have probably aged the best out of any low poly 3D game I've ever seen from the 90's

Sonic the fighters is really great imo.

I played this game on my PS3 and I instantly fell in love with it, and it's now one of my favorite fighting games ever.

i love seeing you fighting griffybones, like of course of all people he would be the one to run some sets with you 😭

Sonic the Fighters has that early 3d look that I love and that keeps getting more and more popular as time goes on. Looking at it gives me a similar feeling as the old Mega Man Legends games, the colors are all super vibrant and pop, really helps the low poly models fit into the world. I'm glad to see that Sonic the Fighters has it's own small tight knit community. I liked the game as a kid, but honestly I would go back to Sonic R on the Sonic Gems Collection much more frequently. It's truly a product of it's time, in many ways it feels like a really good fan-game that's aiming for that specific era of Late genesis/CD/Early Saturn of Sonic. I can't blame too many sonic fans for looking over the game, since unless you're a fighting game fan with at least one other friend who also wants to try to get into the game, all there really is to the game is an arcade mode, at least on the Sonic Gems Collection maybe in the PS3/360 version there's more to it. So if you're not someone looking deeply into the game's mechanics and trying hard to see what it's about (or aren't familar enough with fighting games to know what too look for in other fighting games), it's pretty easy to overlook compared to the many more single-player focused sonic games. I hope one day this game gets a rerelease with a practice and VS mode to go with it (even Tekken 7 doesn't have a way to play against CPUs in the VS mode, which seems insane to me) because it genuinely looks like a very fun game to play!

FINALLY somebody sings the virtues of Sonic the Fighters!! i remember being very impressed by it as a kid playing it on gamecube and even though i knew jack shit about how to play it i was like "this looks really really good" and "why didn't they do this again" also i literally just noticed watching this video that bean's wind-up uppercut is a direct reference to how Bin/Pin from Dynamite Dux attack. very very cute :)

I always had a soft spot for this game. My family would take trips to Las Vegas every summer when I was a kid, and an arcade my dad would take me and my brother to had a sonic the fighters cabinet. My brother and I would usually kill time with this game waiting for other games to free up from others playing them. I haven't played this in a while but this video made me wanna check it out again.

As a Sonic fan since the very first game, and as a fighting game lover, I must say Sonic The Fighters is a very underrated Sonic game and also a very underrated fighting game. As said in the video, the game is simple, but really fun to play, specially casually. But I would love to see the chaos this game can offer in a serious tournament match. I always pictured this game to have a strong inspiration in Looney Tunes / Tex Avery cartoons, and hear you cited exactly the same thoughts of mine in this video was a real surprise. Amy even have an open-guard throw move, who point away to trick the opponent to look for nothing. LOL 😂 All characters, except Bark, Metal Sonic and Dr. Eggman, can do the Weapow Grab with DOWN + Guard + Punch, but it only works against Amy (takes her hammer), Fang (takes his gun), Bean (takes his bomb), and Espio (pull his tongue). Another example of Looney Tunes vibes into the game. As said in this video, Sonic The Fighters was last re-released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Sadly, for the PlayStation boys, the game is stucked on the PS3 up to this point. But for the Xbox boys, they are lucky to have this game on the backward compatibility catalog. So, if you have a Xbox 360, any Xbox One system, or a Xbox Series X|S, you can get this underrated gem now for only US$4.99 (and if you are from Brazil, you can get the game for only R$10,00, an even cheaper price than the today's currency convertion... It's like US$2,00 in Brazil using today's convertion). For me, I have both the PS3 and the X360 versions. ❤ But it's kinda lame the PS3/X360 re-release don't have a training mode, a sound test, and an option to turn off the "Operating Method" (a.k.a. Manual/Automatic selection after selecting the character). Also, Sonic The Fighters is also available inside the game Lost Judgment, among other games like Fighting Vipers, VF5: Final Showdown and other arcade and Sega Master System classics. And as Last Judgment is available on PS4, PS5 Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Steam, it's an option for the current systems. It's not like a dedicated version as the PS3/X360 version, but it's better than nothing (excepting for the Xbox users, who, again, also have the option to play the X360 version on the current systems). My favorite music in this game is "Try Again", the theme of Dynamite Plant, who is the stage of Bean The Dynamite. It's really comical, and, even yet, amazing to hear, fitting perfecly to the chaos of the battle. Well... The game's sound tracks are equally underrated as the game itself. In Fighters Megamix, Bark and Bean are broken. It's because, I don't know why, the throws of these two characters (including special throws) just work agains themselves, and against the Kids characters, but not against the rest of the cast. So, Bark suffers the most. once he is a grapper. This fail broke my heart. 💔 In the Archie Comics, Honey the Cat is portraited as a clothing design, just like her Fighting Vipers conterpart. It's kind sad Honey is not a fully unique character in the game, taking moves from other characters, specially Knuckles. It could be awesome if many moves of the Fighting Vipers verson of Honey/Candy could be transported to this game's Honey. Also, Honey could had her own stage/theme, but was cut in the final game just like the character itself. Her theme can be listened at the opperation menu and at Sonic Gems Collection (also included at the CD Sound Tracks), and the music name is "Sunset Town", listed as a bonus track. The barrier gauge is valid for the whole match by default, but you can config the game to restock the gauge in each round. But, again, the default setting is to not reset between rounds. The Hyper Mode not just make your character faster, but also enable the character to use a "Super Move". This move can be a new move available during this mode, or an existing move being powered up. Was Yuji Naka's suggestion to make Eggman to use a "clone beam" for the matches against the same characters. And one last thing: Amy's "Head's Up!" have a difficult command: UP, DOWN + Punch. But it's possible to do this move without jumping: With at least one barrier in you gauge, hold Guard, press UP and, release Guard when enter with DOWN + Punch inputs. ;) Oh... I almost forgot: Nice work in this video. 👍

Thanks for giving praise to one of my most favourite Sonic spin-offs. It surprisingly still purchasable on Xbox One and still works fine for what I played

The fact that some guy randomly putting sonic and tails into fighting vipers out of boredom made this entire game happen

wow, that sonic smackdown game looks INSANELY polished. wtf it's so pretty!

Someone at a regional in MB brought a ps4 with this game on it after I hadn't played it in years and without missing a beat I slipped right back into my crazy Bean bomb setups and block pressure even though I only ever played this game like 8 years before ever joining the fgc. Highly recommended for anyone looking for 3D fighting games

Used to run netplay sets on PS3 with a homie from Toronto, and it was SURPRISINGLY SUPER PLAYABLE (poverty Wi-Fi at the time + South Texas to Canada). This game rocks!!

Baberuthless jump scare 0:35

I absolutely will always fall in love with any game that has cartoony physics and model stretching like a looney tunes cartoon. Cel Damage is also a game that fits into that category! But yeah. I only heard of this game via the gems collection, and even with the input lag I had great fun with it.

capcom vs sega concept is the best part of this video, i unironically think that would be the exact kind of wacky fun shit we need to keep fighting games fresh and interesting :p but really this is a great video! DEFINITELY do a vid on the best fan game fighting games! especially for IPs that never got a proper FG

Me & my sister found Sonic the fighters really fun, It's just a simple tekken like game easy to learn.

Thankfully, the 360 port can still be bought and played on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S through backwards compatibility! (Or if you've got a copy of Lost Judgment, you can play it in the in-game arcades, along with Fighting Vipers and VF5:FS!)

Good to see some respect laid to the name for once. And for actually describing how the mechanics work, weird how I never see that mentioned amongst the sea of "game bad because reasons."

Bark absolutely needs to come back. I think if superstars 2 is a thing in a few years turning bark, bean and fang into an actual villain trio would be really cool

Fantastic video! I’d love to see one on bushido blade. I know it’s not exactly a fighting game but you cover a lot of those types of spin offs

I didn't know this game had a bad rap. It's not spectacular and kind of silly, but by no means bad. The aesthetics of it all in particular are absolutely top notch

I love this game and I love Bark. So glad to see someone finally bring up Fighters in a positive light! And yes, bring back Bark!

It's about time someone complimented this game's character animation!

From what i understand about Bean is that he is the son or grandson of one of the two ducks from Dynamite Dux. He is hinted as being half duck half woodpecker.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, I LOVE THIS GAME, WOOOOOOOOOOOO, THANK YOU GuileWinQuote FOR MAKING A VIDEO ON THIS! Also, play Sonic the Fighters Blitz, it's such a good 3D to 2D fighter fan-Game

I got this game in the 360, You could say im a 2010s starting fighting game player, at the time I didnt knew there was a fighting game community and tutorial for many fighting game that I played, I have to discover how to do combos all by myself. UMVC3, MK9, MKvDC and Sonic The Fighter were my game I slowly switch back and forth on learning each game. This game is so much fun, you learn how to play it casually to competitively without knowing youre already getting used to it. Most fighting game are missing the "fun" aspect back then and wanted to be more of a ESport, SF6 has finally stepped down a bit and let the game be a game that everyone can pick up and play as they get into it. The animation for this game is amazing for its times, the model are lively, so many cool move like taking Amy Hammer and taking it away from her, the attention to detail. This was the only game that Masahiro Sakurai used to create Sonic Moveset for Smash despite being so rushed. Back then I has started to enjoy fighting game and over come my anxiety on playing online as I enjoy it, as a person who is on the spectrum. I enjoy the 360 era.

THAT GUILE MODEL LOOKED PERFECT!

Sonic the Fighters is underrated and goes hard. AM2 did a great job, with this title that has unfairly bashed over the years. It genuinely has potential to be something great with some updates and more features.

A few years back I hosted a tournament of this game just for me and some friends and it was an absolute blast. The game is not only fun, but more deep than you'd think so it felt like there was a level of skill as we played more. Bark is my boy

I played Sonic the Fighters at Sega Gameworks in LasVegas. It was a damn good time.

This channel is fantastic. I remember finding a Sonic The Fighters AND a Fighting Vipers arcade cabinet at an arcade I frequented when I was a kid. The sonic one blew my mind and I spent all my quarters trying to finish it. Had to wait like 7 years to be able to play it at home on the gems collection.

As someone who used to be obsessed with sonic and a animation buff, i always liked how this game looked. From the animations to small details like how the attack vfx looks straight out a tom and jerry short. its all good shit. My siblings and i played this when it was on playstation plus and we had a blast. Lots of people dont like this game and thats ok imo but i personally find it fun and holds up well which is something i cant really say for some of the other spinoffs that came around the same time as fighters.

Thanks for the look on this game! I agree with you, unless you grew up with Sonic, you really wouldn't be able to understand his appeal. I didn't grow up with this though. Seeing it explored and explained makes me more fascinated with Sega's 3D fighters now. Maybe it's time I learned how to combo as Akira Yuki...

I think there ought to be more Sonic fighting games. Sonic's inherent fast pace lends itself really well to the genre and it's crazy we havent seen more of them.

Wooow memory umlocked! I remember button mashing to this as a kid. Thanks for this man much love 👍

I’ve always loved this game, I actually think it was the first fighting game I ever played, and one of the few I ever got to play on an actual cabinet, a pizza place I went to as a kid had a cabinet and I remember absolutely loving it. Glad to see you give it some love. Now if only Sega would bring the 7th gen port to modern consoles, cause I don’t have anything that has it, and it’s a pain in the ass to emulate

thanks for covering sonic the fighters! it was my first fighting game ev er and got me into the genre when i was a small kid so im happy about it finally getting the good attention it deserves for being a fun and wacky fighting game

Definitely not the only one to compare Bark to Alex, exactly why I like him myself! Haha. Was happy to see him even for a brief moment in Sonic Mania.

Haven’t touched this in probably 10 years. You’ve inspired me to set up my GameCube and invite friends over for games!

I’m glad there’s a small fanbase for Sonic The Fighters online. It was my favorite game to play growing up and I recently got to play it on an arcade cabinet with my gf! Thank you for shedding some positive light on this game!

This video reminded me i had this game on my Xbox, i just spent forever beating metal sonic and eggman

I absolutely loved playing this on Sonic Gems Collection. Aurora Icefield has lived rent free in my head for years

Great video, and a fantastic introduction to your channel! One aspect that I think made this game less successful, and all of AM2's games for that matter, was the lack of content on their home ports. Virtua Fighter 2, 3 and Fighting Vipers 1 & 2 were leagues more fun to play than Tekken and Soul Blade, as well as performed better despite the Saturn's limitations. Despite that, Tekken and Soul Blade's massive wealth of modes and number of characters really sold themselves to both fighter enthusiasts and casual gamers alike (and that the Playstation was a wildly more popular games console). AM2 released Daytona USA and Sega Rally, both of which outshone any arcade racing game you cared to mention. But their console ports had mere arcade races, and you could be done with them in an afternoon. As opposed to Namco's Ridge Racer Type 4 had 123 cars to collect, double the tracks, and even damn story and mission modes. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that a port of the arcade version of Sonic the Fighters, along with a bunch of other Sonic games all bundled together, would see the game being appreciated much more now than it was back in the day. But I doubt that would happen. I'm assuming the ports of their arcade games on 360 and PS3 weren't massively successful, hence they haven't seen the light of day on newer consoles. Such a shame.

3:39 I seriously thought I was looking at Smokey Bear. That would have been so funny.😂

I loved playing a ton of this when i was younger and getting put through the ringer by metal sonic. His stage song is too hype to get discouraged though

From all the fighting game made by AM2 for Saturn, I liked a lot Last Bronx and the silliness of Fighter Megamix :-) I played those gamew back then on my Saturn including the sort interesting idea but bad game Dxhird by Takara. still think a lot of Saturn overlooked games like Panzer Dragoon Adel and Burning Rangers deserve a HD remake, loved that machine dearly.

thanks for putting this together. the looseness of this one makes it a perfect game to play casually with a fighting game-playing friend where you can just mess around with the goofy stuff you can do in it. and as you say the presentation is superb, the elasticity of the models is really impressive and the soundtrack is a real favourite too. appreciate you explaining the history too, fighting vipers will never die, and as a few people have pointed out, it's one of the arcade games in lost judgment but we know it needs a proper rerelease. model 2 collection when, m2? my one comment is that perhaps you could include the sources for some of your live-action footage, someone else in the comments wanted to see where one of them was from and i think it'd be good for others to be able to see 'em too.

Thanks for being one of the few content creators for fighting games that doesn't use ugly clickbait thumbnails

first time I hear of this game and am surprised how amazing it looks for its time, the style and animation are full of charm. would love a modern sonic game in this style

Just writing to say that I love your videos, Guilewinquote ! They're always interesting . If you ever decide to make a big 1 hour plus video that takes a super deep dive into a fighting game related topic, I'd definitely watch.

It feels like i'm watching a cybershell video lol

Great video. I love Sonic, fighting games, and early 3D's aesthetic, so Sonic the Fighters is awesome.

Man I still remember playing this game with my cousins! This was definitely an underrated fighting game!

Funny enough, there IS a modern rerelease. Kinda. In Lost Judgment.

Sonic the fighters, I remember seeing a lot of pictures in magazines as a kid. I've also played in on the gem collection in highschool I liked this some games like this should be packed as dlc for some newer games