Fighting Vipers 2

STORY:  The Vipers fought the hot battles at the City Tower.  Despite the conspiracy of the City Mayor, B.M., everyone thought that they had won with his own power.  2 years has past... The City is still under the dictatorship of the mayor.  With growing hatred against the Vipers who stood against him, he proposed a municipal bylaw for the "Viper Hunt", and enforced it. Many vipers were arrested and thrown into jail, the rest who escaped, hid themselves and removed their armors. But, there were few who would not give in to the mayor's oppression, and would continue to fight. Here begin the hot battles of the last Vipers...
 

ABOUT:  Fighting Vipers 2—the surprise sequel to Sega's sleeper arcade hit, Fighting Vipers—was released in arcades (only in Japan) in 1998 and for Sega Dreamcast (only in Japan and Europe) in 2001. A North American release for Fighting Vipers 2 was originally planned but was cancelled. That said, FV2 was a nearly impossible fighting game to come across for most players overseas! Fighting Vipers 2 brings back the roster of the first title and introduces 2 new characters, Emi & Charlie, along with new mechanics, and brand new stage designs highlighting the game's most pronounced features: breakable walls and interactive stages. Some of the Virtua Fighter 3 team worked on Fighting Vipers 2's core mechanics, so the game has backbone and feels smooth at 60fps, similarly to VF games before it.
 

 
The gameplay of Fighting Vipers 2 includes 3D movement through character attacks and waking up from the ground, and even features a parry system! By inputting, f+P+K+G, characters perform an animation where they use their armor to parry an attack. If it connects, they can follow up with a powerful counter-attack or sidestep! The sidestep was a "new" gameplay mechanic—becoming a staple among 3D fighters during this era—with TEKKEN 3 changing the game in 1997 and dominating the 3D fighting space. The Dreamcast version of Fighting Vipers 2 features a plain and minimal main menu with only a few modes and options. Modes include: Arcade, V.S., Random, Survival, Training, and Options. There are 2 secret unlockable characters: Del Sol, a Mexican wrestler with a Sun mask, and Kuhn, a mimic character whose moveset changes after each round, similarly to Dural from Virtua Fighter.
 
Fighting Vipers 2 builds upon the core jumping mechanics, walls, and armor breaking system from the prequel. The enclosed stages can be used to juggle opponents and keep the pressure on with fast attacks and combos. Slower and powerful "charge-up" attacks send opponents flying across the stage into the wall, potentially breaking their armor and even sending them crashing through the wall—causing destruction and low-budget explosions in the background. When part of a character's armor is broken, they are susceptible to more damage in that part of their body. The Armor Gauge displays the current state of each fighter's armor, and there are new effects on the character when the armor is broken. Like in the prequel, this effect is done well visually, with character wardrobes altering as they lose layers of attire. This is one of Fighting Vipers 2's most distinguishing features, as most fighting games during this time period weren't even attempting this level of detail on characters (or stages for that matter).
 

 
Character models are chunky and beefy, until they lose their armor and resemble more human proportions (sometimes). In addition to armor breaks caused by the opponent's attacks, players can choose to break all of their character's armor by inputting f,b,f,b+P+K+G. While characters will take much more damage when they've lost all of their armor, they now have access to an "instant kill" attack that can immediately win the match. When a fighter has lost all of their armor, they can initiate a "Super K.O." move on their opponent. Super K.O. moves are done by inputting forward+P+K+G and when performed on the final hit, will trigger a hilarious over-the-top "stage K.O." animation (unique to each stage). Super K.O. moves count as winning two rounds! See TFG's Featured Video on this page to see some of the Super K.O. attacks.
 
There's something to like about Fighting Vipers 2 gameplay if you're a fan of fighting games like Virtua Fighter 2, TEKKEN 3, Rival Schools: United By Fate, Street Fighter EX or perhaps the obscure Fighting Layer. The gameplay system is fully 3D, even though "most" of the action remains on a 2D plane—until characters are thrown into walls in various trajectories when they're hit with powerful special attacks (some which include built-in sidesteps). These techniques can definitely leverage the 3D aspect of the game and set up spacing opportunities for getting opponents locked against the wall. Waking up from the ground is similar to Virtua Fighter or TEKKEN, with the options of left or right movement from the ground. All characters have some form of launchers, 2-or-3 hit air juggles, ground attacks, various grabs, and guaranteed hits after stuns—making the roster fairly balanced and strong across the board. The parry system adds interesting depth to the game, rewarding perfect-timing inputs with quick movement or fast counter-attacks after parrying. I didn't know you had it in you, Fighting Vipers 2! 
 
 

  
As a 1998 game (released in 2001 on Dreamcast), Fighting Vipers has simplified 3D fighting engine which doesn't come close to the side-stepping fluidity of SoulCalibur or even games like Rival Schools: United By Fate and Project Justice which feature a raw sidestep. Even so, the entertaining jumping mechanics like wall jumps and "backwards running"—where you can run forward but away from opponents and trick them into chasing you, only to jump off of the wall and do it again—make FV2 a completely original experience. It might've been an unintended mechanic, but it exists in the game and is a funny (and effective) gameplay quirk, as all characters have several back-turned moves on the ground and in the air. For advanced players, it's important to learn the deflections and guard breaker moves common to each character, as well as air escape moves which allows you to quickly recover from potential air juggles (only working in certain situations, of course). Overall, Fighting Vipers 2 features quirky but playable 3D gameplay thanks to the core mechanics and the fairly deep and entertaining movesets of the character roster.
 

Page Updated: March 6th, 2025 Developer(s): Sega-AM2 Publisher(s): Sega Platform(s): Arcade, Sega Dreamcast Designer(s): Hiroshi Kataoka                  Director Youji Kato                              Chief Designer Kentarow Nishimura        Character Designer Kaoru Nagahama               Character Designer Makio Kida                            Character Designer imaitoons                               Original Character Designer Artwork By: Arcade, Sega Dreamcast Release Date(s): April 1998                                 Arcade Jan. 18th, 2001                      Dreamcast 2001                                            Dreamcast Characters:  Bahn, Emi, Charlie, Honey, Raxel, Picky, Grace, Tokio, Jane, Sanman, Mahler, Del Sol, Kuhn Featured Video: Related Games: Fighting Vipers, Fighters Megamix, Last Bronx, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Fighter Remix, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Fighter Kids, Virtua Fighter 3, Virtua Fighter 4, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution, Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Fighter 5 R , Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, VF5: Ultimate Showdown, VF5 R.E.V.O., Fighting Layer    Gameplay Engine    Story / Theme    Overall Graphics    Animation    Music / Sound Effects    Innovation    Art Direction    Customization     Options / Extras     Intro / Presentation     Replayability / Fun     "Ouch" Factor     Characters     BOTTOM LINE            Final Words: While I got a chance to play the original arcade version of Fighting Vipers at the arcade shortly after it released... I would never come across a Fighting Vipers 2 arcade cabinet during my childhood arcade adventures, living in North America. After playing a shiny FV1 cabinet at Disney World Orlando, I became a fan of the quirky-yet-cool character roster and "off-the-wall" 3D fighting action that made Virtua Fighter 2 (a game I loved) seem rather "slow". The graphics of FV1 were sharp for their time, with 60fps making the animations great! The air recoveries, faster gameplay, breakable character armor, wall jumps & wall kicks, and big hits—knocking opponents through walls and breaking parts of the stage—was the selling point of Fighting Vipers. Action! After decades of waiting, I finally played Fighting Vipers 2. While the core gameplay mechanics are intact for returning fans like myself, let's just say... the sequel was not nearly as "epic" as I was hoping for. In the early 2000s, other fighting game series were evolving very quickly in technical and graphical prowess, and Vipers 2 really looks "last-gen" and unfinished—especially considering the Dreamcast port was released in 2001. Lest we forget the all-mighty feature-rich SoulCalibur on Dreamcast was released on 1999. To say the Dreamcast version of FV2 is "bare bones" is a gross understatement. The game's main menu is painfully-boring and immediately lets you know you're playing a low budget fighting game. What gives, Sega? The Fighting Vipers 2 main menu might be in the top 5 "worst fighting game main menus" of all time. The character select screen and modes aren't much to write home about either. Worth mentioning, this game never released in North America! It seems like those in charge at Sega were not taking fighting games seriously at this time. Flaws aside... I was looking forward to playing Fighting Vipers 2 and relearning some of the characters I remember from the first game. As I was expecting, the character movelists are still impressively large and considerably dynamic for the time. Each character has launchers, various air attacks, air combos, throw options, just frames, and more moves than you might expect, with many singular "power strikes" sending opponents flying across the entire stage. The gameplay is stupidly silly and entertaining (and still more fun to play than some other "bad" fighting games during this time period). Furthermore, the universal parry system adds solid depth to the game, rewarding perfect-inputs with counter attacks and even sidestep movement. It's probably more trouble than what its worth, but respect to Sega "future thinking" with these deeper mechanics, at least. This type of 3D movement would be later refined in future installments of Virtua Fighter, TEKKEN, and SoulCalibur. When you connect a big move for the final K.O. hit, you'll send opponents flying through the walls (destroying them) and crashing into destructible elements on each stage. While the destruction elements are satisfying like in the first game, the effects, backgrounds, and camera angles look terribly unfinished and poorly executed on most stages—creating plenty of unintentionally laughable moments. Was it supposed to look this bad early in development? I think not. I assume Sega had bigger plans visually but just couldn't execute them. The plain backgrounds have a mix of grainy and poorly-textured 2D environmental "walls" while other "almost-3D-polygonal-objects" float awkwardly in the background. One stage has three docked helicopters that are almost made of up all 3D polygons, but they're just not. lol. At certain camera angles, the helicopters look like chopped up hunks of metal, with background elements awkwardly hiding their unfinished nature. Another stage has war planes floating in the air, and sometimes the planes are seen awkwardly moving backwards. That's not what planes do, Sega. The background visuals are so laughably incomplete, glitchy, and outlandish that I actually like them in some ways. They're mostly colorful and bright, at least. Even though Fighting Vipers 2 is rough around the edges... I mess with this game. The character roster is something special. There are plenty of entertaining moves and direction-changing throws that allow for fundamental 3D gameplay and also pack all-important "oomph and ouch factor" (as jank and as hilarious as the animation may look at times). Overall, this game makes me laugh often.. so how bad could it really be? I'll tell you how bad. Fighting the lame boss, Mayor B.M. The final boss battle is a jittery-camera-angled mess on a very awkward stage with characters fighting on a "floating giant hand surrounded by long spikes". The boss fight is a boring and frustrating one (even on Easy difficulty settings), with a terrible "twangy" fake-early-2000s-techno soundtrack to boot. It's so bad. It's hilarious that Bossman has fast strings like a proper TEKKEN character, while no one else on the roster can chain moves together as fast as him. Even a mediocre fighting game should have a cool boss battle. This game's boss is an example of how not to do it. A solemn "thud" to end a player's enjoyment and/or first impressions of the game. As a presentation and package, especially at the time of its debut, Fighting Vipers 2 would be a very hard sell even to returning fans of Sega fighting games. In spite of its glaring flaws... I still look for "the best" a game has to offer, and Fighting Vipers 2 is not a completely bad one technically. It's deeper and more fun than any Mortal Kombat game of the era, for example. Speaking of Mortal Kombat, some of FV2's wall breaks K.O.'s are much like "Fatalities"... with characters being knocked off of very high places, into burning buildings, and even into lava (which can happen once per round)—meaning they die and immediately come back the next round. It's hilarious! I almost think some of the devs were nudging Sega to make this a M-Rated game, but they would not commit to adding blood or fleshing out these ridiculous stage fatalities. Fighting Vipers 2 is so bad aesthetically... yet so good. It's hard to give this one a rating. FV2 is especially fun when playing against friends who know their way around a 3D fighting game. FV2's 60fps responsive gameplay engine and many distinguishing mechanics actually help keep its head above water, with Virtua Fighter-esk combos, "modern" high-flying air combos with dramatic finishes, off-the-wall (literally) combos and throws, and innovative stage destruction. Sure, it's poorly executed in the visuals department, but its heart is there. Thanks to the deep character movesets and 3D movement, Fighting Vipers 2 is definitely fun to play... if you can get past the jank and bad voiceovers. Dare I say "more fun" than recent Virtua Fighter games? I dare say it. When's Fighting Vipers 3, Sega?  ~TFG Webmaster | @Fighters_Gen      Click Here for all Box Artwork! Click Here for more Screenshots! FOLLOW    ON:                             TFG NEWS CHARACTERS GAMES