Fighting Champions III

Fighting Champions III is a 2D fighting game developed and published by ACS. It is the sequel to Fighting Champions II and the third part of the Fighting Champions series. Released in 1995 for Arcades (ACS Supra³² System) and Sega Saturn as an exclusive title.

The game later recieved an update in 1996 in the form of Fighting Champions III Revenge, which added new characters and stages. Released for Arcade (ACS Supra³² System), and PlayStation as an exclusive title.

Gameplay
Gameplay remains the same from the first game, with a few new gameplay mechanics. New features include the Power meter, a special meter that fills up upon each successful attack. Filling up the Power meter to its maximum level would trigger “Power Mode” automatically, which buffs the player's attack power significantly, at the cost of the meter itself draining gradually upon activation.

Besides giving players an attack power boost, Power Mode allows players to perform a “Super Power” attack, a powerful special move that deals a huge amount of damage. Each character has one Super Power attack, with the Revenge update adding a second one for each character.

The Revenge update introduces “Guard Revenge”, which allows players to retaliate from a blocked attack from the opponent with an attack of their own. Guard Revenge can be performed by pressing either L+M (for a push block) or M+H (for a strong blowback attack) upon blocking an attack, and consumes half of the Power meter. When Power Mode is active, Guard Revenge costs no meter.

Each game of Fighting Champions III is conposed of 10 stages. 8 fights against the regular fighters, 1 fight against a “rival”, and the final battle with Yami. The game marks the return of “bonus stages” which were last seen in Fighting Champions II, but were then ommited in its Maximum update.

Story
The secret scrolls of Shinken-ryu tell of a forbidden method to unlock a fighter’s hidden spirit and grant them incredible power, albeit at the cost of their sanity. The method, known as “Yami” (闇; “darkness"), involves channelling one’s spiritual energy, or “ki” in a way that the equilibrium of yin and yang within the fighter’s spirit will be broken, allowing the dark, monstrous energy of the former to overtake the latter's natural and pure strength.

Yami grants the user power above any human being, but when this power is abused, the dark energy would fully consume the fighter’s spirit, turning him or her into an unstoppable monster who only lives to fight and kill. Due to the dangers of abusing its power, for many years, the Yami method has been hidden amongst practicioners of the Shinken-ryu style. Not even the closest family members are told about it, and it was thought that the Yami method has been all but forgotten.

During the climax of the second tournament, Ryuga once again reaches the final round of the tournament where he would face his brother Kabuto for the second time. The two fought a hard battle, exchanging blows one after another, and pulling off all of their absolute techniques. The battle ended with with both Ryuga and Kabuto within an inch of each other’s lives, with only one last finishing blow seperating them from victory.

However, just as Ryuga was about to unleash the final blow, Kabuto, in a last-ditch effort, taps on the power of Yami, and in one fell swoop, proceeded to turn the tables and brutally beat down Ryuga, only stopping once his brother was unconscious, if not dead. Overwhelmed by Kabuto’s newfound power, Ryuga was forced to succumb to his injuries.

Taking his loss against Kabuto in stride, Ryuga strived to train harder and harder in order to finally defeat the power of Yami without succumbing to the dark power himself. Around that time, a third World of Fighting tournament is announced, with a doubled prize pool from the previous tournament to attract more fighters from all around the world. However, to win the prize money is not Ryuga's goal. Instead, he joins the tournament in order to settle the score with his brother one last time.

Returning

 * Ryuga

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Akira Kamiya


 * Kevin Chrysler

Birthplace: 🇺🇸 USA

Voice Actor: Ryotaro Okiayu


 * Ling Fang-Ming

Birthplace: 🇨🇳 China

Voice Actress: Yuri Amano


 * Baron von Braun

Birthplace: 🇩🇪 Germany

Voice Actor: Banjo Ginga


 * Zuba

Birthplace:  Congo

Voice Actor: Wataru Takagi


 * Andrei Maximov

Birthplace: 🇷🇺 Russia

Voice Actor: Koji Totani


 * Chongrak Sintawichai

Birthplace: 🇹🇭 Thailand

Voice Actor: Yuji Ueda


 * Sasuke

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Toshihiko Seki


 * Chin-Tao

Birthplace: 🇨🇳 China

Voice Actor: Ryusei Nakao


 * Rick Basham

Birthplace: 🇦🇺 Australia

Voice Actor: Nobuo Tobita


 * Lucio Coltello

Birthplace: 🇮🇹 Italy

Voice Actor: Keiichi Nanba


 * Kabuto

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Hirotaka Suzuoki


 * Leon Fernandez

Birthplace: 🇲🇽 Mexico

Voice Actor: Toshiyuki Morikawa


 * Mysti

Birthplace: 🇪🇬 Egypt

Voice Actress: Maria Kawamura


 * Silver Hound

Birthplace: 🇺🇸 USA

Voice Actor: Yukimasa Kishino


 * Yu Taeyon

Birthplace: 🇰🇷 Korea

Voice Actress: Yukana Nogami

New

 * Mustafa Ab-Dul

Birthplace: 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

Voice Actor: Shigeru Chiba

An oil sheik from the United Arab Emirates. He joins the World of Fighting tournament to seek global investors for his burgeoning oil business.


 * Paula Cabrera

Birthplace: 🇧🇷 Brazil

Voice Actress: Mika Kanai

A young and cheerful capoeirista from Brazil. She joins the World of Fighting tournament to find a suitable man to become her new boyfriend.


 * Yami

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Hirotaka Suzuoki

Kabuto completely consumed by the dark power of Yami. He is the final opponent that the winner of the tournament must face before attaining victory.

Revenge additions

 * Claude LaRue

Birthplace: 🇫🇷 France

Voice Actor: Kaneto Shiozawa

An aristocratic kickboxer from France. He joins the World of Fighting tournament to showcase his unique and elegant style of fighting.


 * "Shining Star" Shiina Honda

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actress: Chiharu Tezuka

A joshi professional wrestler from Japan. She joins joins the World of Fighting tournament for the sake of her many fans all over the country.

Trivia

 * The final boss Yami can be unlocked by entering a secret code on the character select screen. When entered correctly, a pair of arrows will appear on opposite sides of the screen, and the player is now able to select Yami by moving the cursor offscreen.
 * As a playable character, Yami retains some of his exclusive moves that seperate him from his base form Kabuto, such as double Ryuenken, a Heavy Koryuzan that hits five times, and a teleport move, but will also lose the triple damage and speed boost that boss Yami has, in an effort to make him more balanced for competitive play.
 * This is the first ACS arcade game to feature a voice cast consisting of professional Japanese voice actors, replacing the previous game’s voice cast which consisted entirely of uncredited staff members. Most of the voice cast reprise their previous roles from the 1994 Fighting Champions OVA.
 * Just like in the previous game, the Saturn and PlayStation ports of Fighting Champions III and the Revenge update, respectively, include the option to switch between both the original and arranged soundtracks.
 * Following the success of the 1994 OVA, Fighting Champions III adopts a brand new anime-esque artstyle, much in the vein of Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha, which was released that same year. The old sprites from the first two games have been redrawn from scratch to reflect this artistic change.
 * Hacking the original Fighting Champions III’s ROM reveals several unused sprites for some of the new Super Power attacks that were introduced in Revenge, indicating that they might have been planned to be included as far back as the original version, but were left unfinished due to time constraints.