Fighting Champions II

Fighting Champions II is a 2D fighting game developed and published by ACS. It is the sequel to Fighting Champions. Released in 1993 for Arcades (ACS Mega¹⁶ System) Sharp X68000, FM Towns, TurboGrafx-CD, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, 3DO, Game Boy and Game Gear.

The game later received an update in 1994 in the form of Fighting Champions II Excellent, which added new characters and stages. Released for Arcade (ACS Supra³² System), Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PlayStation and Sega Saturn.

Gameplay
Gameplay remains the same from the first game, with a few new gameplay mechanics. The game ditches the Punch-Kick-Throw 3-button system from the previous game, in favor of a new 4-button system consisting of Quick Punch, Quick Kick, Strong Punch and Strong Kick, making the gameplay somewhat reminiscent of SNK's fighting game titles.

Becauses of the changes with the controls, throws are now performed by getting close to the opponent and pressing the direction towards the opponent (or away from the opponent, for a reverse throw) and the Strong Punch button.

Fighting Champions II was known for introducing the “Chain Combo”, which allows the player to chain together various normal attacks of ascending strength to create a combo, which could then be further chained into special attacks for even more damage. Chain Combos would later go on to become a primary mechanic in other 2D fighting games in the future, most notably the Darkstalkers, Marvel vs. Capcom and Guilty Gear series.

The previous game did not allow mirror matches between the same character. The sequel fixes this issue by introducing an alternate color pallette for each character that can be selected by pressing Strong Punch while selecting a character. The Maximum update expands on this even further by adding two more alternate colors and mapping them to the rest of the buttons.

Each game of Fighting Champions II is conposed of 13 stages. 10 fights against the regular fighters (save for the one chosen by the player), 2 fights against sub-bosses Bash and Lucio, and the final fight against Kabuto. The Maximum update, with the inclusion of the two additional characters, also increases the amount of stages to 15.

Story
In the previous year's World of Fighting tournament, Ryuga squared off against the crime boss Kabuto in the final round. The two battled a hard-fought battle, which ended with Ryuga defeating Kabuto and knocking his helmet off of his head.

However, what Ryuga saw was a sight that he did not expect to see.

Beneath the helmet of Kabuto, was Ryuga's long-lost older brother Kotetsu, who, like Ryuga, was a disciple of their family's self-developed style of karate, called “Shinken-ryu”. However, his parents always saw Ryuga as the superior one out of the two brothers, leaving jealous and envious of all the attention that Ryuga was receiving, until he decided to leave the dojo at age 13 out of spite.

Since then, Kotetsu vowed to separate himself from Ryuga's shadow by mastering the art of Shinken-ryu by himself. Soon enough, he ended up joining the notorious Irakawa crime syndicate, serving as the loyal right-hand man of the syndicate's leader Gozaburo Irakawa, before eventually becoming the new leader following Gozaburo's disappearance and the lack of any living blood-related heirs.

But in the process, his mind and soul were slowly consumed by the dark side of crime and deception, soon leading to all the atrocities that he had committed. From drug dealing and weapons smuggling, to kidnapping and killing perceived threats.

His defeat at the hands of Ryuga continued to add fuel to the fire that is his immense hatred of him and his family. Ryuga, however, holds no ill will towards his brother, and instead of finishing him off, he simply walked away, unable to bear witness to the man that his brother had become.

Alonst a year after the last tournament, another World of Fighting tournament has been announced. Hosted by Kotetsu, who continued to don his helmet and fight as “Kabuto”, and the Irakawa syndicate, like the previous tournament, this time the stakes have been set higher with a prize of $1,000,000,000, luring in more and more fighters from all over the world.

However, to Ryuga, none of it matters to him, as the only thing that's in his mind right now is to defeat his brother and take down his empire, so as to make him realize the error of his ways.

Thus, Ryuga sets off to the tournament, with a mind full of determination.

Returning

 * Ryuga

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan


 * Kevin Rage

Birthplace: 🇺🇸 USA


 * Ling Fang-Ming

Birthplace: 🇨🇳 China

Birthplace: 🇩🇪 Germany
 * Baron von Braun

Birthplace:  Congo
 * Zuba

Birthplace:  Russia
 * Andrei Maximovich

Birthplace: 🇹🇭 Thailand
 * Chongrak Sintawichai

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan
 * Sasuke

Birthplace: 🇨🇳 China
 * Chin Tao


 * Bash Dillinger

Birthplace: 🇦🇺 Australia


 * Lucio Coltello

Birthplace: 🇮🇹 Italy


 * Kabuto

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

New
Birthplace: 🇲🇽 Mexico
 * Leon Fernandez

A priest turned masked luchador from Mexico. He joins the World of Fighting tournament to donate the prize money to save his church from bankruptcy.

Birthplace: 🇪🇬 Egypt
 * Mysti

A mysterious yet beautiful fortune teller from Egypt. She joins the World of Fighting tournament for reasons that only she knows.

Excellent additions
Birthplace: 🇺🇸 USA
 * White Wolf

A brave native Indian chief from the USA. He joins the World of Fighting tournament to find a way to save their home from imminent danger.

Birthplace: 🇰🇷 Korea
 * Yu Taeyon

A young taekwondo apprentice from Korea. She joins the World of Fighting tournament to win the prize money and pay for her mother's hospital bills.

Trivia

 * As with the previous game, the SNES version of Fighting Champions II and Excellent were censored in accordance to Nintendo's strict censoring policies. Some of the changes include:
 * Certain attacks, like Lucio's knife attacks and Mysti's Shining Scimitar special, no longer draw blood.
 * The character's defeat portraits are edited in order to remove the blood and cuts on their faces.
 * Several winquotes that included references to blood and death were altered as well.
 * The CD-based ports of Fighting Champions II (TurboGrafx-CD, Sega CD, 3DO), took advantage of the consoles' CD capabilities and included an arranged soundtrack.
 * The PlayStation and Saturn ports of Excellent take it a step further by adding the option to select the original soundtrack, sampled directly from the arcade version.
 * A Sega 32X port of Fighting Champions II Excellent was developed and almost completed, but never released. Prototype ROMs of it can be found on various ROM sites.
 * Fighting Champions II Excellent was among the first games to be released for ACS’ Supra³² System arcade board.
 * The design of Yu Taeyon, one of two newcomers in Fighting Champions II Excellent, was allegedly based off of the daughter of the CEO of ACS' Korean subsidiary. However, this rumor is yet to be confirmed.