Forget about Virtua Fighter 3. Throw away the pretenders and wanna-bes. Fighters Megamix is the only fighting game a Saturn owner needs. At its heart, Fighters Megamix is a character-driven game. That is to say, it combines all the fighters from Virtua Fighter 2, every one of the fighters from Fighting Vipers, a couple of worthies from Virtua Fighter Kids, and a mess of characters from other Sega titles, including Janet from Virtua Cop 2, and Siba, a character rumored to have been cut from the original Virtua Fighter. One of the more bizarre characters is - believe it or not - the Hornet from Daytona USA that grabs opponents with one tire and uses another to lay a patch on the victim's face. Smokin'.
Gameplay is of the standard Virtua Fighter variety, meaning that pounding on buttons will probably lead to a combo of some kind. There are skills to be learned, but even those who have only a tenuous grasp of the basics should do just fine. Since the computer opponent is incredibly easy to defeat, two-player battles will no doubt quickly become the preferred mode of choice for most players. The dodge button from Virtua Fighter 3 appears in Fighters Megamix, adding another (but uninteresting) angle to the game.
While the graphics in Megamix aren't quite up to the level of VF2 on the Saturn, they still look very good. The game sports a few minor problems with collision detection, but when you consider the sheer number of strangely shaped characters (not the least of which is a huge piece of meat with arms and legs), this is a forgivable quality.
The music in Fighters Megamix is a collection of tunes culled from VF2 and Fighting Vipers. Some additional tracks from Daytona USA and the Sega classic, Afterburner, round out the score. Effects are also nice, but the speech is a bit muffled. Thankfully, the sounds of people being badly beaten more than make up for the muttered speech.
The US release of Fighters Megamix is all but identical to last December's Japanese release of the game. The only difference is that a few of the end-game pictures have been removed, as they were deemed a bit too racy for the younger US audience.
Megamix is a milestone in that, along with Mortal Kombat Trilogy, realizes console gamers deserve more than arcade rehashes. Even if you already own VF2 and Fighting Vipers, FMM is the ultimate Saturn fighting game. If you don't own a Saturn and have even a passing interest in the VF series, this is probably the game you could use to justify purchasing the system.
