Ultimate Sonic Smackdown is the latest banger dropped by the Sonic fan game community, and it's filling the Marvel vs Capcom void

We've wanted Marvel vs. Capcom back for years, and the newly revealed Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls looks like it will scratch that itch. But Arc System Works was too slow as dedicated Sonic the Hedgehog fans have raced onto the scene with a marvel of their own.

It's fair to call Sonic the Hedgehog the series with the most prolific fan-game community of all time, considering fan games from Christian Whitehead got that guy hired to make official ports and then eventually lead a team in making Sonic Mania – an official mainline Sonic game and the most beloved series entry in years. Meanwhile Sonic Robo Blast 2 is a well-loved release that's been in various stages of development for over 25 years at this point.

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However, a new challenger has entered the ring in the form of Ultimate Sonic Smackdown, which was announced by YouTuber Choctopus and is a 3 vs 3 tag team fighting game that feels like prime Marvel vs. Capcom.

It feels like a massive homage to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 in particular with it's light, medium, heavy, special control layout; and some of the characters have moves that are ripped straight from the MVC mines with Knuckles' having a Bionic Arm-esque finisher, and Eggman feeling like a sendup to sentinel.

Not only that, but it's out right now and features rollback netcode, which Sonic's other fighting game appearance in Super Smash Bros. doesn't even have. Plus, if you don't fancy keeping track of 3 fighters, it pulls in Skullgirls' best mechanic of being able to pick whether you want one, two, or three characters in your team. At the moment the roster is fairly small with Sonic, Knuckles, Eggman, Mecha Sonic, and Shadow being playable, but it's already a pretty impressive game, and that's only two characters short of 2XKO's roster.

Of course, this was built off the back of the team's previous fan game Sonic Smackdown which was a 1v1 fighter. That game had 17 characters by the end of its run, with the likes of Tails, Amy Rose, and Mighty the Armadillo showing up to proceedings. The key art for Sonic Smackdown prominently shows Rogue the Bat, so I wouldn't be shocked if we get the full cast returning to this game.

10 years ago, Sega producer was convinced he had to "save" Sonic the Hedgehog from certain death: "This brand isn't going to be around for much longer."