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When I open my Mega Drive version of the game today, the first things to fall out, before a chunky manual that barely fits into its designated space, are several pages of my own handwritten notes: on how to pull off each character's most damaging moves, and more importantly to a teenager in the era of fatalities, how to completely obliterate the opposition. (See them for yourself, below.) "Blade: Get opponent at the very edge of the fan (either side) and hit them. Result: opponent lands in the fan and is completely shredded. Xavier: Place them in front of first door to the right of fire and hit them from right. Result: burned at the stake." I studied, practiced, experimented; I sat in the local news stands after school and copied down instructions until the owner politely threw me out for not actually buying any of the games mags I was poring over. (Sorry, Sega Pro.)
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At a time when every fighting game developer was looking to Mortal Kombat's deadly finishers and ripping them off wholesale—hello Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, Way of the Warrior, Bloodstorm—Sega pushed that viscera-smeared envelope further than anyone, issuing a Mega/Sega-CD semi-sequel to Eternal Champions in 1995, Challenge from the Dark Side, that multiplied the gore and guts of its predecessor by a dizzying amount. This was an absolute bloodbath of a game, unashamed in its devilish reveling in splashing internal fluids and intestines all over the screen. And, again, the teenage me thought this was hilarious. It was all so exaggerated that it couldn't possibly be offensive—okay, perhaps for an elderly relative who'd never watched Evil Dead II. And, again, I set about noting down all the ways to maximize the melted flesh and severed limbs on show."At a time when every fighting game developer was looking to Mortal Kombat's deadly finishers and ripping them off wholesale, Sega pushed that viscera-smeared envelope further than anyone."
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