Sonic the Fighters is an interesting little fighting game featuring the Sonic cast back in 1996. I love how the game looks and sounds, and I love how kinetic and cartoony the characters are when walloping each other. The gameplay is pretty basic as the cast has similar fundamental attacks with their special abilities, and like with another Sonic spin-off game, Sonic R, the roster is unbalanced. Some characters are much better than others because of their special moves, like Sonic's spin dash. Characters like Fang or Honey for example are worthless due to how slow and pitiful their attacks are, like why would I play as them if I can dish out the damage with a spin dash? I enjoyed the Arcade Mode, but after beating it with Sonic (which took me about half an hour), there wasn't much to keep me invested for long.

Sonic the Fighters is a charming but very simplistic fighting game. It's a neat little nugget in Sonic's history, but not much else.