Back when Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II were fresh sources of parental and congressional outrage, Sega decided to jump on the fighting game bandwagon with an original fighting license of their own. Combining the cartoony world of Street Fighter with the gore of Mortal Kombat led to the Sega Genesis title Eternal Champions and its Sega CD sequel, Eternal Champions: Challenge From The Dark Side. A third installment of the game for the Sega Saturn was eventually scraped by Sega's Japanese arm because management decided that Virtua Fighter was where the company's fighting future belonged. We all know how that turned out.
Before the Eternal Champions series was snuffed out there was this interview with producer Michael Latham. In this three page Q&A he discusses from just where the original concept came, which characters were cut by Sega management, and how the game engine itself works. It's an interesting look back in time to when shockingly brutal fighting games were new and Sega itself was still running in the console race. Where are you now, Jetta Maxx?
