Eternal Champions:WHY is the game so freaking HARD?

[Grounder]

The characters are awesome, but the game is too hard! I can never get past the second opponent! And the Sega CD sequel Challenge From The Darkside is even harder! What kind of learning curve does this game have?

[MadeManG74]

It probably just has broken AI that knows all your moves. Either that or you just need to practice it more. I never really liked this game much (apart from the overall concept and characters, which as you said are fantastic) and couldn't get used to the mechanics myself, but if you got a grasp on that you might slowly get better.

This game would be perfect fodder for a cool remake.

[ROJM]

The characters are awesome, but the game is too hard! I can never get past the second opponent! And the Sega CD sequel Challenge From The Darkside is even harder! What kind of learning curve does this game have?

 The game's AI adapts to your playing style but the megadrive version AI cheats ie the power meter doesn't need to be on for the character your fighting against to use their special move. The mega CD version is probably the better one to play with because they fixed this problem and the mves and combo's are beter to pull off.

[SEGA_Portuguese]

The character design of this game is fantastic. Seems that Eternal Champions 3 was cancelled, its a shame.

[ROJM]

To me that was the biggest crime under the whole SOJ/SOA managemnet wars of the mid nineties. EC should never have been canned since it was a succesful series. People scoff of the idea that the japanese excecutives felt that EC was stealing VF's thunder but really that was further from the truth and in those days people tended to go with the home grown console fighters rather than the arcade ports. It wasn't science why EC and its rival Killer Instinct was popular with the gamer casuals/console fans of that era.