''Fighting Vipers 2'' is a 1998

fighting video game The fighting game video game genre, genre involves combat between multiple characters, often (but not limited to) one-on-one battles. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappling, counter- ...

produced by

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

. It is the sequel to 1995's ''

Fighting Vipers ''Fighting Vipers'' is a 1995 fighting video game developed by Sega AM2. A 3D fighter, it uses the same game engine as AM2's ''Virtua Fighter 2'' (1994) but features enclosed arenas and an armor mechanic, and was targeted more towards Western au ...

'' and was released for the

Sega Model 3 Sega is a video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arcade game industry began as a Japan-based distributor of coin- ...

arcade system, before being ported to the

Dreamcast The is the final home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999 and in Europe on October 14, 1999. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, prec ...

in 2001.

Gameplay

The armor system, dashes, and the ability to hurl an opponent through a wall are all retained from the original ''Fighting Vipers''. In addition, ''Fighting Vipers 2'' adds on Super K.O.s, which allow players to defeat an opponent in a single round (instead of by winning two out of three rounds) using a specifically timed multicombo attack.

Characters

''Fighting Vipers 2'' features all 10 characters from the arcade version of the first game, along with four new characters, the latter two of which must be unlocked: * Emi, a computer geek who fights with a self-developed mecha armor. * Charlie, a BMX rider and a rival and former classmate of Picky. * Del Sol, a mysterious Sun masked

luchador ''Lucha libre'' (, meaning "freestyle wrestling" or literally translated as "free fight") is the term for the style of professional wrestling originating in Mexico. Since its introduction to Mexico in the early 20th century, it has develope ...

who presumably hails from Japan. Originally a character from an unreleased

Atomiswave The Atomiswave is a custom arcade system board and cabinet from Sammy Corporation. It is based on Sega's Dreamcast console, sharing similarities with the NAOMI, as far as it uses interchangeable game cartridges, as well as a removable module ...

arcade game known as ''Force Five''. *Kuhn, a copycat character who uses the rest of the cast's moves, similar to ''

Virtua Fighter is a series of fighting games created by Sega AM2 and designer Yu Suzuki. The original ''Virtua Fighter (video game), Virtua Fighter'' was released in December 1993 and has received four main sequels and several spin-offs. The highly influential ...

''s

Dural Dural is a semi rural suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 36 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government areas of Hornsby Shire and The Hills Shire. Dural is part of the Hills ...

Development and release

AM2 AM2 can refer to: * Socket AM2, a CPU socket for AMD desktop processors * Sega AM2, a research and development team for the video game company Sega * Arp-Madore 2, an open star cluster * a fictional element from The Sten Chronicles * Animusic * ...

's Hiroshi Kataoka told ''

Sega Saturn Magazine ''Sega Saturn Magazine'' (originally known as ''Sega Magazine'') was a monthly magazine from the United Kingdom covering the Sega Saturn, a home video game console. It held the official Saturn magazine license for the UK, and some issues incl ...

'' that development began in early 1997 after work on ''

Fighters Megamix is a 1996 fighting video game developed by Sega AM2, a crossover between Sega's 3D arcade fighting games ''Virtua Fighter 2'' and '' Fighting Vipers'', with unlockable characters from several other AM2 games such as '' Virtua Cop 2'' and '' D ...

'' for the

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

had concluded, and lasted for ten months. Members of the development team visited

Alcatraz Alcatraz Island () is a small island about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco in San Francisco Bay, California, near the Golden Gate Strait. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fo ...

early on in the project for inspiration for the caged stages and the character designs were inspired by the "fashionable sports that are being played by young people today, such as BMX riding and skateboarding along with their associated music culture".

Motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution motion (physics), movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in Military science, military, entertainment, sports ...

was utilised for the opening sequences and winning and losing poses, but the majority of animation was done by hand. Both of the new characters were designed by Imai Toonz. ''Fighting Vipers 2'' was planned for a release on Dreamcast in the United States, but this was later cancelled. The game appears as a playable arcade game in the 2023 video game '' Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name'', marking the game's first ever official re-release since the Dreamcast port.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Fighting Vipers 2'' on their June 15, 1998 issue as being the second most-successful arcade game of the month. Jim Preston reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game for ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'', rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "Dreamcast software sales were always sluggish in Japan, and with mediocre titles like this it's not hard to see why." On release, ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' magazine scored the Dreamcast version of the game a 30 out of 40.''ドリームキャスト - FIGHTING VIPERS 2 (ファイティングバイパーズ2)''. Weekly Famitsu. No.915 Pt.2. Pg.52. 30 June 2006.

References

1998 video games 3D fighting games Arcade video games Dreamcast games Fighting games Multiplayer video games Sega arcade games Sega video games Sega-AM2 games Video games developed in Japan Video games produced by Yu Suzuki Video games scored by Hidenori Shoji {{Fighting-videogame-stub