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Armstone City, year unknown. The Mayor decided to hold a fighting tournament with the grand finale being held on the top of the city tower, and the Vipers, young urban warriors decide to compete, each with their own goal on mind. All eight came from several backgrounds, like the hard-rocker Raxel, the orphan with a burning desire to meet his father Bahn, former gang leader Tokyo, queen of the catwalk Grace, the giant with an unknown past Sanman, construction worker and former marine trainee Jane, fashion designer to-be Candy and skater boy Picky, plus Mahler, someone with a score to settle with the Mayor.

While based on the same Model-2 arcade board as Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers included several changes, such as a wall surrounding the battle area and equipping each fighter with a two-piece (chest and legs) armour that can only be broken with power hits. Once the armour is gone, the unfortunate fighter is more vulnerable to opponent hits, and damage can also be collected after hitting the wall or floor after a throw.

Gameplay is also radically different from Virtua Fighter - noticeably faster, with combos done by fast button-mashing sequences sometimes on the same button, instead of the timed presses that require an additional push on the d-pad of the first title. Another new addition to gameplay is the Quick recovery, which allows a fighter that suffered a severe blow to quickly get on his feet, avoiding damage and allowing for a quick counter, but at the same time leaving him open for another blow if the opponent is fast enough. to react.

Game modes include Arcade, Vs, Team Battle (best of 9) and Training. Game options allow the player to tweak the difficulty setting, number of rounds before a match winner is decided, size of life bars, if there's a time limit, if the order of opponents is random or predefined and between three game modes: Original (based on the arcade version), Arrange (gameplay tweaked for the Sega Saturn) and Hyper (allows Vipers to voluntarily drop their armour, allowing to perform special attacks at lightening fast speeds), Stage selection, and to change the disposition of the control pad to better suit the players' style.

Another mode, Playback, allows to see rounds previously saved by the player or fighting demos recorded by the AM#2 staff, each with the ability to choose a camera. As usual with Sega's fighting ports, extensive bookkeeping is included, as well as a few hidden characters.