Eternal Champions is a fighting game released by SEGA for the SEGA Genesis in 1993. It was practically SEGA's answer to Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. The game had a six-button layout that was kinda similar to Street Fighter II. The game also had a special attack meter that decreases each time a character uses it, which was almost similar to Art of Fighting.

In the game, you could do stage-specific finishing moves known as "Overkills". It triggers if you land your opponent at the right spot. The life bars disappear and an element of the background kills your opponent. An enhanced semi-sequel of the game called Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side (also known as Eternal Champions 2 or Eternal Champions CD) was released for the SEGA CD in 1995. The game introduced new finishing moves called "Cinekills", where they play full-motion video cutscenes of the victim getting killed. There were also new stage-specific finishing moves called "Sudden Deaths", and character-specific finishing moves (that were practically Fatalities) called "Vendettas".

Eternal Champions tried to set itself apart from other fighting games at the time with unique features, such as a heavier emphasis on its story, which we'll get right into, and characters pulled from different timelines. An immortal, extraterrestrial and all-knowing being known as the Eternal Champion foretells that humankind will soon cease to exist because of the unjustly and untimely deaths of certain key individuals throughout history, who were destined for greatness. In order to restore balance to the world, the Eternal Champion gathers each of these souls from time seconds before their deaths. Since the Eternal Champion has enough power to restore only one of these people to the life that was stolen from them, he decides to organize and hold a fighting tournament between them, where the victorious champion will be able to regain their life and change their fate while bringing balance to the universe, whereas the losers will be forced to die just as they were historically recorded.

The game included nine playable characters to choose from:

- Shadow Yamoto: A modern-day (1993 A.D.) Japanese ninja assassin. Shadow was thrown off the rooftop of her employer's skyscraper before she could publicly expose her syndicate's murderous deeds.

- Larcen Tyler: An ex-cat burglar from 1920s Chicago. Larcen used to do jobs for a local crime boss. He was hired to plant evidence in the hospital room of a rival mafia leader. It was only when he got into the hospital room that he discovered that his real target was the Chief of Police, and the "evidence" was actually a bomb. Larcen was killed in the explosion that destroyed most of the hospital.

- R.A.X. Coswell: An American cyborg kickboxer from 2345 A.D. R.A.X.'s trainer installed a virus into his exoskeleton software to ensure he lost a crucial match. As a result, Coswell died during that match.

- Slash: A prehistoric hunter with high intelligence from 50,000 B.C. Slash was sentenced to death by the elders of his tribe, who feared that he would use his superior intellect to overthrow them.

- Trident: An artificial humanoid being created by the Atlanteans from 110 B.C. Trident was killed by a rival before he could compete in the final match of a gladiator tournament. As a consequence, the Roman Empire banished his race to the sea where they were eventually brought to extinction.

- Midknight: A vampire-like mutant who went into hiding in Vietnam. In his former life, he was Mitchell Middleton Knight, a well-noted British biochemist. He was hired by the U.S. forces to spike water supplies during the Vietnam War in 1967. He became exposed to the chemical, due to an airplane malfunction, and, like every other victim, he was mutated. Before he could create a cure, he was killed by a vampire hunter hired by the government.

- Jetta Maxx: A Russian aristocrat from 1899 A.D. Jetta was working undercover as a circus acrobat at the time of her death. A Boxer rebel sabotaged her tightrope equipment ahead of a major show in China. She fell to her death in front of a live audience. When her true identity was revealed, it heightened tensions between Russia and China.

- Jonathan Blade: A Syrian bounty hunter from 2030 A.D. Blade was hired by the government to help track down a terrorist who had stolen a lethal virus. Just as he was about to capture the terrorist, a group of special forces agents opened fire on both of them, which accidentally caused the terrorist to drop the vial and release the virus.

- Xavier Pendragon: An alchemy student from 1692 A.D. Xavier was burned at the stake under false accusations of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.

Beating arcade mode with any of these characters would reveal an epilogue explaining how the winner avoided their original death and then went on to make a positive change in their era.

As I mentioned before, a semi-sequel was made for the SEGA CD in 1995 called Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side. It included the nine playable characters and the non-playable boss from the first game, and added 13 new playable characters (nine of which were hidden), some new stages, and a new boss.

Four of these playable characters include:

- Riptide: A pirate from 1566. Riptide and her whole family were killed by a ruthless pirate after discovering the location of his stolen treasure.

- Ramses III: An Egyptian pharaoh from 151 B.C. When Ramses washed ashore in the Nile River, his death had been assumed to be an accident due to him being a poor swimmer. Only his killer knows he was pushed.

- Raven Gindar: A voodoo priestess from 1802. To gain Raven's trust, an aging witch doctor pretended to be an injured old man. He subsequently used her own magic hourglass against her to drain her of her youth until she died.

- Dawson McShane: A Scottish sheriff from the American Wild West in 1849. Dawson was hanged by the neck by a notorious gang as payback for arresting one of their members.

Three of the hidden characters were:

- Thanatos: The human form of the Greek god of death. Thanatos was turned human by a rival god's curse. Since he kept some of his supernatural abilities, he was executed under false charges of witchcraft.

- Chin Wo: An acupuncturist and healer from Hong Kong in 1815. Despite his hate for violence, Chin Wo had been a champion fighter for the Emperor of China. A younger rival challenged him to a fight to the death, but he refused. The rival then killed a beggar and framed Chin for it. The rival made an offer to drop charges if Chin accepted his challenge. For his declination, Chin was executed on a false charge of murder. Chin was originally intended to be in the first game, but he was removed due to memory limitations with the SEGA Genesis.

- Thomas "Blast" Chavez: A sergeant and helicopter pilot for the Green Berets in 1955. Blast was killed during his final mission in Vietnam when his co-pilot betrayed him and set off a grenade in his helicopter just after take-off. Like Chin, Blast was also going to be in the first game, but he was also removed because of limitations.

And the rest of them were joke characters, including one:

- The Senator: A Senator of Washington, D.C., as his name suggests, except by the time of the game, he was recently removed from office. Through multiple bribes from corrupt organizations, he had become rich and powerful. His re-election campaign for 1995 revolved around exposing corruption in politics. His past sponsors rallied to ensure he lost. After losing all of his money on an unsuccessful campaign, he suffered a heart attack and died alone. Apparently, he's the only character to die of any natural causes. The Senator was created to mock lobbyists who had conspired together for video game censorship.

I’m thinking that we need SEGA of America to hire their own development studio and have one of SEGA's Japanese development studios help co-develop a soft reboot of Eternal Champions, which will hopefully result in becoming a franchise. For the original nine playable characters and the Eternal Champion, they should make new arrangements of their themes from the original game, and for the characters added in the SEGA CD semi-sequel, including the Dark Eternal Champion, they should make new arrangements of their themes from Challenge from the Dark Side. The main protagonists of the Eternal Champions franchise should be Shadow Yamoto and Larcen Tyler. Also, generally, I think we need SEGA of America and SEGA Europe to hire more of their own development studios.