Eternal Fighters is a retro-inspired fighting game that walks the line between homage and imitation.

Several weeks ago, I was at a friends place for our regular get together, surrounded by the unmistakable aroma of freshly delivered pizza and chicken wings. We head over to another room where he turns on his newly built gaming rig, a behemoth of a PC that hummed with quiet power and illuminated all four of the attached LCD displays. "Dude, are you looking for a game to cover? I got one here that's a little retro that you might like"

He logged on to Steam typing in his username and password with heavy fingers as if to make sure each clicked registered. A black screen appeared first, and then the "Eternal Fighters" logo flickered to life, its neon letters pulsing with a nostalgic energy.

I felt a familiar tingle of anticipation as I used to get as a kid, standing before a hulking arcade cabinet, quarters burning a hole in my pocket. My friend handed me a an Xbox style-controller, its weight familiar and comforting in my hands. "Check this game out, it's like the old arcade games we used to play." he said with a grin.

After a few hours of battling it out in this 2D fighting game, the heat emanating from the screens and neon lights that adorned his game room was getting humid, even with the AC and ceiling fan whirling above us. We picked up the boxes of pizza, a cooler, and a bowl of wings. I tucked the bottle of ranch inside the cooler and dragged it behind me as we made our way outside towards the backyard.

"So," he asked, "what did you think of Eternal Fighters?"

"It was good," I responded. "Still with some hiccups here and there, but definitely playable."

"How long...," my friend asks, between mouthfuls of wings, ranch dressing forming at the corners of his mouth like a toddler belching out milk, "how long before the copyright lawyers descend like vultures and this game vanishes from Steam?"

"I don't think this is one of those games that's an asset flip," I started. "It's is a legit game. Yeah, it borrows heavily from MK, but nowhere near a scam." I reminded him of an article we published about scam developers and how to spot them.

"Dude, I get you" my buddy started, opening another bottle of Heineken Dark as if doing so might reveal the secrets of the universe, "but they could have made the characters different. Damn, even the backgrounds is a straight rip-off," he said. "I mean, look at that ninja character. He's basically Sub-Zero with a different color palette and a gym membership."

I had to admit, he had a point there, and the similarities were harder to ignore than a telemarketer calling during dinner time. "Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" I rebutted, "As far as I know, flattery is cheap, but not illegal. Besides, that's part of the appeal I guess. It's like putting together a greatest hits album of fighting games."

"Yeah" he started, "but when you put together a greatest hits album, you usually get the permission of the artists first, no? You don't just sample 'Stairway to Heaven' and hope Led Zeppelin doesn't notice."

"True," I said, squinting my eyes on the last piece of pizza sitting by itself in the box, "Maybe the developer did get permission, and EA will stop making annual sports games. Since I wasn't even aware of this game until today, I'm about as informed on its backstory as I am on quantum physics. For all we know, the developer could be best friends with the folks at Midway, and they agreed with this over a wild night of karaoke and energy drinks."

I paused for dramatic effect, then pointed to the pizza box, "Or maybe they're banking on the classic 'ask for forgiveness, not permission' strategy. You know, the same one I'm going to use when I eat the last slice of pizza without asking."

My friend snorted, nearly choking on his beer. "Yeah, and I'm sure Midway's lawyers are just too busy playing NBA Jam to notice."

After a few minutes he comes up to me, "There, see?" my buddy said, brandishing his phone, "The developer is SKITROW. And guess what? He doesn't have a website or any contact information." He scrolled the page up and down with his finger hard enough to wear out the screen protector. "Seems suspect to me. Who doesn't have a website these days? Especially for a game developer. Even my grandma has an Instagram account."

I leaned over and took his phone. Scrolling to the bottom on the Steam page, I clicked on the Discussion tab with the finesse of a digital Sherlock Holmes. "Not suspect at all," I said, pointing to the Steam forum "The developer is actually taking the time to respond to comments. He's also released several updates as well. Asset flip scammers usually don't do that. They're too busy counting their ill-gotten gains and twirling their villainous mustaches to spend time on being helpful."

My buddy of twenty or so years wasn't convinced. His skepticism was so thick you could spread it on toast. "Sure, maybe he's a nice scammer. A scammer with a heart of gold. There's a difference between inspiration and imitation. This feels like it's teetering on the edge of being a cheap knock-off, like a Nintendo game boy you find at the dollar store that's actually labeled Nine-Ten-Do."

"A knock-off, yes," I conceded, waving my hand dismissively above my head, "But definitely nowhere close to being a scam. It's more like that cover band at your local bar. Sure, they're playing 'Here Comes the Sun' by the Beatles for the millionth time, but at least they're putting a little effort into it. They're not just standing there lip-syncing while pocketing your cover charge."

"The key difference lies in the execution and the intent," I said, using my best reviewer voice. "The game takes all the familiar elements, like the character intros, the fighting mechanics, even the screams of attack, and reimagines them in its own way. Again, like a cover song. Sure, it's playing the same notes, but with just enough difference to avoid a lawsuit. Probably."

Our debate continued, touching on the nature of copyright in the gaming industry and the ethics of borrowing heavily from established franchises. To an outsider it was like watching two armchair lawyers duke it out, armed with nothing but vague memories of that one copyright law class we took in college.

"What if Capcom or whoever owns the Mortal Kombat franchise decides to sue?" my friend pondered, his eyes wide with the excitement of imaginary legal drama. "This game could be taken down faster than you can say 'Fatality!' Or faster than I can execute a combo."

I adjusted myself in the chair and countered, "Yeah, but many successful games started out as 'clones' before finding their own identity. Look at Fortnite – it wasn't the first battle royal game, but it became a phenomenon."

"Yeah, but Fortnite didn't copy character designs wholesale," he retorted, waving the bottle of beer in the air for emphasis. "Eternal Fighters feels like it's one cease-and-desist letter away from oblivion. It's hanging on by a thread so thin, you could floss with it."

I couldn't help but chuckle. "True, but maybe that's part of its charm. Maybe SKITROW likes living on the edge, one lawyer's coffee break away from extinction. Maybe his motto is – live fast, die young, leave a pixelated corpse."

Despite our disagreement, I maintained that Eternal Fighters, falls more on the side of tribute than plagiarism. While it's true that the game draws heavy inspiration from Mortal Kombat, it does so in a way that feels more like a love letter than a cheap imitation. It's not so much stealing as it is aggressively borrowing with a wink and a nod.

Moreover, the game introduces its own innovations and twists on the fighting formula. The character roster features similar but unique designs and, most importantly, backstories. The gameplay, while familiar, has its own nuances and special moves that set it apart; not by much, but enough to make it stand on its own.

"I get what you're saying," my friend conceded, his tone suggesting he'd rather eat his controller than admit I had a point, "but I still think they could have pushed for more originality. It's walking a dangerous line for sure."

"I agree," I said, nodding my head, "They could have made it more original." I took another bite of pizza, savoring the moment of agreement like it was the last slice. After swallowing, I added, "But if you're going to make a fighting game, I suppose you might as well do one as popular as Mortal Kombat.

As our debate wound down, we found ourselves diving into the philosophical deep end of the creativity pool. Is anything truly original, or are we all just remixing the same old tunes? Where do we draw the line between inspiration, imitation, and straight up plagiarism? Or are those lines as blurry as our vision after an all-night gaming marathon?

Big corporations, with their armies of lawyers and mountains of cash, can redraw those lines faster than a speed-runner beats a game. But what about the little guy? Those blurred lines are just one lawsuit away from turning Joe Developer's dreams into a financial nightmare. It's like playing hopscotch in a minefield; exciting but one wrong step and boom! There goes your life savings and hard work.

In the end, we agreed that Eternal Fighters, regardless of its potential legal tightrope walk, had accomplished something neither of us saw coming: it sparked a debate more heated than any Street Fighter fireball. Who knew that a game cheaper than a fancy cup of coffee could make us flex our neurological muscles?

As the night air turned cooler and our yawns became more frequent, my friend chuckled. "You know, for a game we're not sure should even exist, it sure gave us a lot to talk about."

I couldn't help but agree. Whether Eternal Fighters stands the test of time, and avoids being pummeled into oblivion by legal woes, remains to be seen. But one thing's for certain: it had transformed our casual gaming night into a healthy debate that was just as thrilling as any virtual death match. Who needs fancy graphics when you've got old fashioned debates, warm pizza, and cold beer?

As I drove back home, my mind still buzzing from our discussion, and maybe a few too many Heinekens, I couldn't help but chuckle. In this topsy-turvy world where originality is as rare as a bug-free game, maybe, just maybe Eternal Fighters had already scored a Flawless Victory. And the best part? It did it with moves we'd all seen before.

Take that, originality. You just got knocked out by your own clone.