Sega Saturn’s Fighters Megamix has a hidden stage that was kept secret all this time due to an unfortunate bug
As the Sega Saturn celebrates its 30-year-anniversary, a new piece of trivia has been revealed about Fighters Megamix, the quirky crossover fighter from 1996 that pitted characters from Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers against each other. It turns out the game had a hidden stage this whole time, but information about it was never released to the public due to an unfortunate oversight.
The revelation comes from Sega’s Yutaka Ito, who is now the technical director of Like a Dragon developer RGG Studio, but was a newbie programmer at the time of Fighters Megamix’s development. In a thread on his personal X account, Ito explains that he was involved in the development of the stages in Megamix. The whole project was running on a very tight schedule, but just before the deadline, Ito and his senior decided to add a hidden stage to the game, wanting to provide players with as many fun features as possible.
“When it was released, Megamix received a great response and was featured in almost every gaming magazine. But just as we were about to publicize information about the hidden stage, we discovered that breaking a wall in the stage (or defeating an enemy with a powerful move) would cause the game to freeze.” With the discovery of the bug, Sega had to halt the presses, and all articles about the hidden stage were replaced, Ito goes on to explain.
As there was no way to take back the hundreds of thousands of Megamix CD-ROMs that had already been released into the market, Sega simply decided not to reveal the hidden stage’s existence, which is why it has remained a secret till now.
Ito remarks that the whole thing “was completely his mistake” and that it made him the “most depressed” he’s ever felt in his life, but thankfully, it seems his team was nothing but supportive about it.
“It’s the Sega Saturn’s 30th anniversary, so I’ve decided to reveal this for the first time. The hidden stage of Fighters Megamix, called Ohshima Stage, appears when you meet certain conditions. However, if you destroy a wall in it, the game freezes. I will reflect on this for the rest of my life,” Ito concludes, sharing an in-game clip taken in the hidden stage (seen above).
