History VideoGame / SangoFighter

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The playable characters are real people from ancient Chinese history who are popularised by ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. In addition, many of the battle scenes are taken directly from the book itself. However, there is no factual evidence to support the characters being able to do feats such as shooting dragons from a BladeOnAStick.

* BladeOnAStick: Guan Yu in both games.

Although the series was incredibly popular in Taiwan, a lawsuit brought against Panda Entertainment by C&E, creators of VideoGame/SuperFighter, effectively throttled the success of the series and, beyond an unofficial release of the first game in the United States, never achieved the same level of success as StreetFighter, which it draws heavy inspiration from.

The first game, titled ''Sango Fighter'', was released in 1993. The game's Story Mode followed the Shu Kingdom as it sends out its "Five Tigers"—Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Huang Zhong and Ma Chao—against other warlords of the time as well as the Kingdom of Wei in a bid to restore the Han Dynasty. The game also included a Vs mode as well as local PlayerVersusPlayer.

* MechanicallyUnusualFighter: Lü Bu in ''Sango Fighter 2'''s story mode is the only faction that is not considered a kingdom. He has no advisor and starts with only one location under his control, but he has a larger number of available infantry units, and unlike the three kingdoms, which lead each fight with their infantry units, Lü Bu leads in all of his fights with increased health.

** ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', released in 2021, take this trope further than the 2009 re-release of ''Sango Fighter''. It is now a native cross-platform game that runs on the ''{{VideoGame/Mugen}}'' engine and features two fighting modes: the default, "Enhanced" mode turns the original two-button game into a rebalanced and faster-paced four-button game and features a remixed soundtrack, while "Classic" mode is a replica of the original ''Sango Fighter'', complete with pre-rendered [=AdLib=]/Soundblaster game music.

* BreakoutMookCharacter: The UpdatedRerelease of ''Sango Fighter'' adds a soldier from Cao Cao's army as a secret character. Although the soldier has no portrait and lacks special moves, he has a special damage table that makes him take more damage from some characters' moves and less damage from others. He gets upgraded to a regular character in ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', getting a proper portrait and DefendCommand as well as a victory pose similar to the swordsman's from ''Sango Fighter 2''.

* BreakoutMookCharacter: The UpdatedRerelease of ''Sango Fighter'' adds a soldier from Cao Cao's army as a secret character. Although the soldier has no portrait and lacks special moves, he has a special damage table that makes him take more damage from some characters' moves and less damage from others. He gets upgraded to a regular character in ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', getting a proper portrait and DefendCommand as well as his victory pose from ''Sango Fighter 2''.

A sequel to ''Sango Fighter'', titled ''Sango Fighter 2'', was released in 1995. While the game retains the same game modes as its predecessor, its Story Mode is greatly overhauled. In addition, the number of playable characters was expanded to include other famous characters from the Three Kingdoms period, such as Sun Ce.

In 2009, a California-based company, Super Fighter Team, approached Art 9 Entertainment, the company that had acquired all of Panda Entertainment's intellectual properties, including the rights to ''Sango Fighter''. Through a string of successful negotiations, Super Fighter Team acquired the rights to the ''Sango Fighter'' series, and on 18 June 2009, they released an UpdatedRerelease of the first game for worldwide distribution through their website. Super Fighter Team followed this release with the updated re-release of ''Sango Fighter 2'' on 6 November 2013. ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', a second updated re-release of ''Sango Fighter'' that runs on the ''{{VideoGame/Mugen}}'' engine, was released in 2021.

* BreakoutMookCharacter: The UpdatedRerelease of ''Sango Fighter'' adds the Soldier as a secret character. Although he lacks special moves, he has a special damage table that makes him take more damage from some characters' moves and less damage from others. He becomes a regular character ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', complete with his own portrait.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: Because of the Soldier's unique damage table in the first game, which makes him take no damage from some characters' attacks, he can essentially NoSell these attacks just by letting them hit him instead of blocking them with his shield (which causes 1 HP damage regardless of how much damage it would have done unblocked).

The first game, titled ''Sango Fighter'', was released in 1993. The game's Story Mode followed the Shu Kingdom as it sends out its "Five Tigers"—Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Huang Zhong and Ma Chao—against other warlords of the time as well as the Kingdom of Wei in a bid to restore the Han Dynasty. The game also included a Vs mode as well as (local) [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]].

In 2009, a California-based company, Super Fighter Team, approached Art 9 Entertainment, the company that had acquired all of Panda Entertainment's intellectual properties, including the rights to ''Sango Fighter''. Through a string of successful negotiations, Super Fighter Team acquired the rights to the ''Sango Fighter'' series, and on 18 June 2009, they released an UpdatedRerelease of the first game for worldwide distribution through their website. Super Fighter Team followed this release with the updated re-release of ''Sango Fighter 2'' on 6 November 2013. A second updated re-release of ''Sango Fighter'', ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', was released in 2021.

Both games can be downloaded for free from Super Fighter Team's website [[http://www.sangofighter.com here]] and [[http://www.sangofighter2.com here]].

* BreakoutMookCharacter: The UpdatedRerelease of ''Sango Fighter'' adds the Soldier as a secret character. Although he lacks special moves, he has a special damage table that makes him take more damage from some characters' moves and less damage from others.
* ContinuityNod: The music in ''Sango Fighter 2'' sounds very similar to the music in the first game.

** ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', released in 2021, take this trope further than the 2009 re-release of ''Sango Fighter''. It is now a native cross-platform game, running on the ''{{VideoGame/Mugen}}'' engine, and features two modes: the default, "Enhanced" mode turns the original two-button game into a rebalanced and faster-paced four-button game and features a remixed soundtrack, while "Classic" mode is a replica of the original ''Sango Fighter'', complete with pre-rendered [=AdLib=]/Soundblaster game music.

Although the series was incredibly popular in Taiwan, a lawsuit brought against Panda Entertainment by C&E, creators of VideoGame/SuperFighter, effectively throttled the success of the series and, beyond an unofficial release of the first game in the United States, never achieved the same level of success as StreetFighter, which it draws heavy inspiration from. The fate of the series was apparently doomed to oblivion when Panda Entertainment rebranded themselves to Panda Software and moved away from game development. Nowadays they’re more renowned for their antimalware and antivirus products.

In 2009, a California-based company, Super Fighter Team, approached Art 9 Entertainment, the company that had acquired all of Panda Entertainment's intellectual properties, including the rights to ''Sango Fighter''. Through a string of successful negotiations, Super Fighter Team acquired the rights to the ''Sango Fighter'' series, and on 18 June 2009, they released an UpdatedRerelease of the first game for worldwide distribution through their website. Super Fighter Team followed this release with the UpdatedRerelease of ''Sango Fighter 2'' on 6 November 2013. In 2021, a remake of the first game, ''Sango Fighter Special Edition'', was released.

* GameBreakingBug: Guan Yu suffered very badly from this in the original game, having incredibly long skill animations and lengthy pauses after using his Shooting Star and Dragon Tail specials.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Some characters have a grab move that they can only use when they are standing right in front of the enemy. The grab move is quite strong, but if it is used when the character's Super Bar is filled completely, it becomes a flurry of punches and kicks in rapid succession that does ''massive'' damage.

* UpdatedRerelease: As of November 2013, both games have been updated to work on all modern operating systems via UsefulNotes/DOSBox.

In 2009, a California-based company, Super Fighter Team, approached Art 9 Entertainment, the company that had acquired all of Panda Entertainment's intellectual properties, including the rights to ''Sango Fighter''. Through a string of successful negotiations, Super Fighter Team acquired the rights to the ''Sango Fighter'' series, and on 18 June 2009, they released an UpdatedRerelease of the first game for worldwide distribution through their website. Super Fighter Team followed this release with the UpdatedRerelease of ''Sango Fighter 2'' on 6 November 2013.

Although the series was incredibly popular in Taiwan, a lawsuit brought against Panda Entertainment by C&E, creators of VideoGame/SuperFighter, effectively throttled the success of the series and, beyond an unofficial release of the first game in the United States, never achieved the same level of success as StreetFighter, which it draws heavy inspiration from. The fate of the series was apparently doomed to oblivion when Panda Entertainment closed down in the late 90s.

Ironically, Panda Entertainment would rebrand themselves to Panda Software and reopen their offices shortly after closing down, and are since renowned for their fairly competent antivirus and antimalware product.

Ironically, Panda Entertainment would rebrand themselves to Panda Software, and are since renowned for their fairly competent antivirus and antimalware product.

Ironically, Panda Entertainment would rebrand themselves to Panda Software, and are since renowned for their fairly competent antivirus product.

The first game, titled ''Sango Fighter'', was released in 1993. The game's Story Mode followed the Shu Kingdom as it sends out its "Five Tigers"—Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Huang Zhong and Ma Chao—against other warlords of the time as well as the Kingdom of Wei in a bid to restore the Han Dynasty. The game also included a Vs mode as well as (local) PvP.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: Because of the Soldier's unique damage table in the first game, which makes him take no damage from some character's attacks, he can essentially NoSell these attacks just by letting them hit him instead of blocking them with his shield (which causes 1 HP damage regardless of how much damage it would have done unblocked).

* NoExportForYou: For more than 16 years, both games were never distributed outside Asia, although ''Sango Fighter'' saw an unofficial release in the United States. Super Fighter Team eventually put this trope to rest when they released ''Sango Fighter 2''.

Although the series was incredibly popular in Taiwan, a lawsuit brought against Panda Entertainment by C&E, creators of SuperFighter, effectively throttled the success of the series and, beyond an unofficial release of the first game in the United States, never achieved the same level of success as StreetFighter, which it draws heavy inspiration from. The fate of the series was apparently doomed to oblivion when Panda Entertainment closed down in the late 90s.

* UpdatedRerelease: As of November 2013, both games have been updated to work on all modern operating systems via DOSBox.

* PerfectPlayAI: The AI in ''Sango Fighter 2'' is dangerously close to this, often attacking the player when they use a special and guarding almost the rest of the time.

'''Sango Fighter''' is a series of {{Fighting Game}}s released by Taiwanese video game company Panda Entertainment based on ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''.