So a little while ago VGDensetsu mentioned this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VGDensetsu/status/1639311082723459083 So I was like And a couple days later, we got the reply! And today posted: I wonder if there's ever been any reference to the game prior to this?
So wait, Sega's whole ploy on getting Naka back to Japan was to create a vaporware game directed by another guy and hope it made him jealous/interested enough that he would return? Very on point all around is all I can say.
Fighting Circus definitely feels like NiGHTS's missing link between "we wanted to make a game where you could fly" and "so we made weird dream-clowns the main characters". Interesting.
I'm getting distinct shades of "failed fighting game" from it too though; you know the ones. All those titles made in the wake of SFII that just didn't catch on - Konami had loads, but Sega also did Dark Edge and Burning Rival before they struck gold with VF. Even without internal politics shenanigans involving Naka I fail to see how this actually could've been successfully released.
I don't know what the time period for this is, but if it's say, 1994/1995 (i.e. just before NiGHTS) you're competing with AM2's Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers. And maybe Sonic the Fighters. I'm not sure I would be wanting to challenge AM2 with their military grade arcade hardware.
In '93 Gamefan referred a few times to an upcoming Sega game called Real Fighters, later on saying it was changed to Eternal Champions. This was quite some time before anything about Burning Fists / Force Striker existed... I think.
As I was doing my one-in-a-while check of SEGA patents, I found the patent for Fighting Circus, applied on December 27th, 1994. I found it through Naoto Ohshima's patents (this is one of 2 he has, the other is a 1996 one with Takashi Iizuka so is probably NiGHTS), but there's a lot of inventors on this one. Yosuke Okunari of course, who on Twitter linked an article where he talked a bit about the game, and mentioned 3 of these other developers Masahito Shimizu aka tsurumy-0600, who transferred over from arcade development (Star Wars was his most recent game) to coordinate Fighting Circus before or at the same time he was directing Astal. Koji Aiba, a programmer who joined in 1994 alongside Okunari, who later did some Victory Goal games and is a co-inventor of the patent behind Pro Yakyuu Team mo Tsukurou!'s character customization. Yasuhiro Watanabe, also a new 1994 programmer, who did Sega Rally Championship after this, but became a CS3/SONICTEAM member through NiGHTS, and has a patent relating to Burning Rangers. And there's one other inventor with no mention in that article Masahide Kobayashi, director, of The GG Shinobi series and Asterix fame. He was pretty busy around this time with Metal Head and Chaotix for 32X. As for what the patent's about... I always have a tough comprehending patent speak, which is in Japanese a language I can barely read at all, and it's extra tough when I haven't got a finished game to reference. But, the idea seems to be that the game would have had 2D movement in a 3D space (so a precursor to NiGHTS) and the view would rotate to keep your character in a direct line with the closest opponent.
Looks like it's some sort of lane switching mechanic similar to Fatal Fury, but with the camera switching to face the targeted opponent. The different lanes seem to be tied to the opponents and not the stage. This allows the lanes to intersect one another unlike Fatal Fury or other lane switching games like Guilty Gear Isuka, Yu Yu Hakusho: Makyou Toitsusen. This is obviously all my interpretation. It looks like maybe they were trying to go for a fancy 3D perspective against multiple opponents without sacrificing the traditional 2D fighters controls.
I gave the history section about the game a rewrite, partly because of the new information, but also because the stuff being sourced from GSK... I don't think think they double-checked their memories, because some things got muddled (there were 2 newbies besides Okunari, the programmers), and then there was misinterpretation of what GSK said, turning Naoto Ohshima and the "senior game designer" into a single person. Fighting Circus#History
I hope Ohshima Team can maybe bring this idea back. It seems it has genuine potential to it. I really miss surrealism like this.
