Fighting Vipers (Arcade/Sega Saturn, 1995)

 

Going to continue to step outside of my wheelhouse here, with something I've been meaning to check out for 30 years. Back in the mid-90's, 3D was starting to become all the rage, and systems like the Playstation and Saturn seemed really high-tech to those of us "stuck" with a Super NES. I always liked Virtua Fighter, but I remember hearing that Fighting Vipers was the REAL hardcore Sega fighter. Well, today I'm going to find out, by leaping to THE THIRD DIMENSION: The Wave of Tomorrow!

Playing the arcade version, technically, as it's the easiest to get running in this day and age.

We get the standard 90's fighting game intro showing various characters posing. Here's Bahn with his kendo stick. Easily the most appealing character of this game to play as, in my opinion. He looks like a legitimate fighter.

Bahn is basically M-Bison.

...This guy is supposed to be 17?

.....His special move is the "Big Stroke"

I think Honey is the most popular character overall. She's the one I remember seeing in advertisements / mentioned in magazines talking about the game. This was also around the time of Tomb Raider starting to make sex appeal in video games a thing.

Course, for us SNES kids, sex appeal in games was already a thing. We had Terra, Celes, Ayla, Schala, and of course the nastiest, freakiest little sex puppet in Chrono Trigger: Fiona.

There's also this skateboarding dweeb, who is actually kind of appealing to play as because he uses the board as a weapon. Gonna give that a try first.

This is a pretty standard early 3D fighter along the lines of Virtua Fighter or Tekken, however it's noticeably slower and "heavier" than those games. The battles are surrounded by a cage, so ring-outs aren't the common occurrence they are in those games. Not even sure if they can happen at all.

This is interesting, because you can knock your opponents into the cage - and vice-versa - which does added damage.

This is pretty damn sharp-looking for early 3D. Some of these character designs are pretty weird though. Are rollerblades really conducive to doing martial arts? Like, Picky isn't trying to fight while on the skateboard.

Next up, Picky must face himself in a Mirror Match!

...not sure why the K in his name is red, but only for the player.

Take enough damage in the right areas and your character's armor will shatter, which is kind of interesting. After that, they'll take more damage.

Trying Bahn next, and it seems you have to start the game all over to switch characters.

The green figures in the corners of the screen seem to denote strength of the character's body armor. This could make for some strategic brawls (wearing down a body part, etc) but the fights are over so fast that I'm not sure how much any of it matters.

I mostly just back my opponent against the cage to wail on them.

Finish the fight with a strong enough attack and you'll knock your opponent RIGHT THROUGH THE CAGE. This isn't a wrestling cage match, so it doesn't hand them the win.

After dispatching Picky, I move on to the Handsome Character, Tokio. ...wait a minute, why did we put the fighting cage on an airplane runway?? Watch out!

WATCH OUT JESUS CHRIST HELP

This game seems really unsafe in general. Fighting on airport runways, fighting in rollerblades, underage fighters who definitely aren't legally able to participate.

You can sprint by double-tapping, and Bahn has a sick charging knee attack. Like many attacks in this game, it feels heavy/impactful and satisfying to land.

After slamming Picky through the cage, I've avenged my earlier loss.

I think this area is supposed to be a gas station near Area 51. This is one weird game.

Sanman is probably the game's most forgettable character. He's just...a guy, and looks like he's taking time out of his day job of being the pump attendant at the above gas station.

His big move is that when he throws, he rolls his foe up into a ball and chucks them. That's kind of cool. Other than that...he's just like, some guy.

Finally. Bahn is face-to-bangs with Honey in a battle of "who will represent the franchise". None of the other characters in this game have "main character" aura besides these two, IMO.

Honey is also one of the tougher characters to fight when the CPU plays her. She's lightning quick and input-reads, like I'm playing the arcade version of Mortal Kombat II.

Her running attack is a FLYING BUTT SLAM. I hope she does this to her lovers. They think they've got her in crash position, and WHAM, she knocks them across the room.

Next up is Raxel, who is basically a guy cosplaying as Thor only without the hammer.

He KNOCKS BAHN OUT OF A SKYSCRAPER.

The game is very challenging at this point, and I'm only able to eke out (barely) wins by using certain moves that the CPU has issues with. The running knee is a good one, as are jump kicks (which historically the CPU seems to have issues with in a lot of fighting games).

This is how close the fights got... winning by timer with a sliver of health left.

Arcade fighting games really do not mess around. Some of the toughest games I've played. Even if they're only like 30 minutes long, it's a 30 minutes that'll make you fight for it. They must have eaten up quarters back in the day.

The penultimate fight of the game is against ::thunder crashes:: JANE.

She proceeds to COMPLETELY MURDER ME. You see, she's the OP character of the game, with a punch combo that's hard to stop, and the CPU gets very aggressive with it. At this point my best bet is to try to stay ahead on points and wait out the timer to get timer victories. The timer is over quick.

ASSSS!

After about twenty tries, I almost got her...only to have this absolute bullshit play out. This has to be the worst thing I've ever seen in a fighting game. I backed off to just run the timer out, then lost 60% health from one punch.

Well, there's only one thing to do now. Start over and play as the wildly-overpowered character!

AND HER NAME!

IS JANE CEEENA!

DOO DOODOO DOOOOOOOO!

DOO DOODOO DOOOOOOOO!

DOO- Alright, this one fight is really tough for some reason. Honey doesn't mess around, and seems designed to get around most of Jane's offense. Probably due to her lithe frame, I can't spam punch combos like I can with most of the others.

There we go.

DOO DOODOO DOOOOOOOO!

I arrive at the fight that stopped me before. And despite the rest of the game (besides Honey) being easier than it was as Bahn, this fight is still a tough one. However it's much more manageable now, and only takes me around 4-6 tries.

That was one of the toughest fighting game opponents I've ever faced.

And now for the actual final boss...

...B.M.? Who?

....Butt Munch? Borg Massacre?

B.M. is a guy in a serpent costume. As far as final bosses go, he's kinda cool I guess. Basically the fighting game version of Snake Man.

I wasn't sure if this was one of those "you get one try at the final boss, then the credits roll either way" situations that were common with early 3D fighting games for some reason, so I went all out from the start to try and get this guy down in one try. After how tough Jane was, it seemed like a near-impossible task.

Nope, I got him on the first try, barely. That was super-exciting. I might have just gotten lucky. Well that's it for Butt Munch. The only character I'm gonna remember fighting is the Kintaro of the game, Jane.

Really solid game here, even as someone who isn't hugely into 3D fighters from this era. Everything feels impactful. I like Tekken 2 more, and this could have used some of Tekken 2's energy sparks, but it was a good run outside of that time I got punched for 60% health.