Confirming rumors that have been circulating for some time now, Sega today announced the Model2 Collection, a digital collection of five classic Sega titles originally developed for their Model2 arcade hardware. Among those titles is Sonic the Fighters, a somewhat obscure Sonic-themed fighting game built on the Fighting Vipers engine and previously rereleased as part of Sonic Gems Collection. Most interesting to note is that this new release appears to include several characters not previously playable in the game, such as Metal Sonic and Eggman (who were previously bosses), as well as Honey the Cat – a character based on Candy (known as Honey in Japan) from Fighting Vipers. Retro aficionados will know that Honey was actually buried in the data for the original arcade release but not playable without hacking the game, so to see Sega put in the effort to make her (and the boss characters) playable is truly refreshing after some of their more lackluster porting efforts in the past. The Japanese site for the Model2 Collection also makes mention of online play, which could be a big selling point for this rerelease as well. Currently there’s been no information about an overseas release, but Sonic the Fighters is due to hit Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this fall in Japan. See the trailer after the break.
Sonic the Fighters
Spotted by a few eagle-eyed fans on NeoGAF, it looks like the USK, the equivalent of the ESRB in Germany, has listed a few classic Sega fighters that appear to be coming soon to Xbox Live Arcade. Joining Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting Vipers is the whimsical arcade brawler Sonic the Fighters, wherein Sonic and his friends decide to… beat the living snot out of each other.
The game was first made available to home consoles through the Sonic Gems Collection in 2005. Color us unsurprised if this port of the game turns out to be an upscaled version of the title included there. As with the rest of Sega’s digital releases, it’s safe to assume a PSN version will be coming down the pipes, and likely a Steam version as well. We’ll bring you more as info from the game is surely to come out of Sega in due time.
Special thanks to forum member grap3 for the image below.