Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave

Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave (known in Japan as Fighting Champions DX) is a 2.5D fighting game developed by Racdym and published by ACS. It is a spin-off of the Fighting Champions series. Released in 1997 for Arcades (ACS TGX Modeller System) and the PlayStation as an exclusive title.

Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave combines the 2D gameplay of Fighting Champions with polygonal 3D graphics. Story-wise, it is an alternate retelling of the first game’s events, with some characters from the later games, as well as a couple of new ones.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave is based off of the previous title in the series, Fighting Champions III, while also borrowing several elements from 3D fighting games around the time like Virtua Fighter and Tekken.

The game includes new gameplay mechanics, such as the Rave Combo, which allows players to cancel normal, special and Super Power attacks together to create a powerful combo of their own. Rave Combo mode can be activated by pressing any three buttons during Power mode (full Power gauge), and drains the Power meter continuously.

The game takes advantage of the third axis by including a Sidestep feature. By pressing QP+QK (for a background step) or SP+SK (for a foreground step), the player can move toward the foreground or background and dodge enemy attacks. However, unlike the sidestep maneuver in Sentoki: The Strongest Warrior, the sidestep in Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave is far more limited, owing to the game's 2D nature.

Each game of Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave is conposed of 10 stages. 8 fights against the regular fighters, 1 fight against a “rival”, and the final battle with Kabuto.

Story
As an alternate retelling of the original Fighting Champions' plot, the story is roughly the same as with the original. The game is not canon with the series' main timeline.

The World of Fighting tournament. The biggest and most prestigious fighting tournament in the world. Every year, many fighters from all over the world, each with their own reasons of participating, gather around to see who is the strongest of them all.

Hosted by the notorious Irakawa syndicate and its leader, the crime lord known simply as “Kabuto”, the winner of this year's tournament will be given $1,000,000 as a prize, if they can beat Kabuto and his henchmen first.

This year, 12 fighters battle it out to see who is the strongest fighter of them all. The question remains: Who will come out victorious?

From Fighting Champions (1992)

 * Ryuga

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Akira Kamiya


 * Kevin Rage

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


 * Sasuke

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Toshihiko Seki


 * Bash Dillinger

Birthplace: 🇦🇺 Australia

Voice Actor: Takashi Nagasako

Lucio Coltello

Birthplace: 🇮🇹 Italy

Voice Actor: Keiichi Nanba


 * Kabuto

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Hirotaka Suzuoki

From Fighting Champions II (1993)

 * Mysti

Birthplace: 🇪🇬 Egypt

Voice Actress: Maria Kawamura


 * Yu Taeyon

Birthplace: 🇰🇷 Korea

Voice Actress: Yukana Nogami

From Fighting Champions III (1995)

 * Paula Perez

Birthplace: 🇧🇷 Brazil

Voice Actress: Mika Kanai


 * Claude LaRue

Birthplace: 🇫🇷 France

Voice Actor: Kaneto Shiozawa

New

 * Go Yoshimura

Birthplace: 🇯🇵 Japan

Voice Actor: Hideyuki Umezu

A retired judo master from Japan. He joins the World of Fighting tournament to rebuild his destroyed dojo.


 * Farrah Rosenthal

Birthplace: 🇬🇧 England

Voice Actress: Yuriko Fuchizaki

A mysterious yet prim assassin from England. She joins the World of Fighting tournament to assassinate Ryuga.

Trivia

 * As ACS' core development team was busy in the development of Sentoki: The Strongest Warrior, which released the same year, Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave was instead developed by Racdym, who had previously developed the 3D fighting game Heaven's Gate, which featured similar mechanics.
 * Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave is one of the few ACS fighting games that run in a standard framerate of 30fps, instead of the usual 60fps.
 * A Nintendo 64 port of Fighting Champions: Maximum Rave, was originally planned, but was never released.