While the likes of Famicom pirated fighters are pretty well known, the Mega Drive pirates seems to be unknown. Please note that this is a theory and might not be accurate due to lack of credits in nearly all games and release dates on some games. Also a few games are missing like the King of Fighters series, Samurai Spirits 2, Power Rangers: Fighting Edition and Dragonball Z: Final Bout due to have not played them yet.
First off look at Tekken 3 Special, presumably the first pirated Mega Drive fighting game not only because of the date of the original game (1996) but because it seems more primitive compared to the games yet to come.
The backgrounds are 1 layered and look like that they are vertically mirrored. It has the control scheme that the later games use (A to block, B to punch and C to kick) but it is very hard to pull off the special moves.
Now going into Soul Blade Super, the SNES version is credited at 1997 however that version only has 6 fighters while the Mega Drive one has 9 (Voldo is missing but his stage is there) which meant that either the SNES one was done while the Mega Drive version is in development or cartridge space made the SNES one smaller. Due to that it uses the American/European name of the Playstation port of the arcade game instead of Soul Edge, it must have obviously been released after January 1997 (May if they got the PAL version) but probably before 1998.
It seems to be more advanced than Tekken 3 Special due to the fact that the backgrounds are on 2 layers compared to just one layer in Tekken 3 Special. Also more effort was done in the sprites (with only Li Long having a different style to everyone else) and even has music converted from the game. The link between this and Tekken 3 Special is that the main menu is in the same style, the game switches resolution between 320x224 (character select) and 256x224 (in game), the character select.
Sort of inrelevant but Pocket Monster has leftovers of Soul Blade Super in the ROM meaning that not only Pocket Monster was made after Soul Blade Super but also by the same company.
Next up is V.R. Fighter vs. Taken 2 aka Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken 2. It has 2 layered backgrounds, animated sprites even touches such as flying birds well as a different character select. As for the date, the current ROM dump dates this to 24th December 1996 however I have a hunch that the game was made a little later due to the fact that there are slight improvements such as slightly easier to pull the special moves, using the MD resolution (320x224) unlike the other games and the animated sprites.
However the main issue is that the sprite style is inconsistant between the characters but it uses different sprites for the Tekken characters compared to Tekken 3 Special. An interesting fact is that it uses the same font as the AV Artisan games such as Funny World, Balloon Boy and the Earth Defend.
It might even be possible that this was developed by a different company but it has the same issues as the previous games plus the same control method. So this is very hard to categorise whether it was made before or after Soul Blade Super (or even before Tekken 3 Special). However a discovery is that the ROM header is an altered one of what appeared in Super Donkey Kong 99, Adventurous Boy and Squirrel King. Since the last two were made by Gamtec, could they have been involved in some way?
http://npshare.de/files/a5f87364/pirromheader.pngThe final one is Top Fighter 2000. Presumably made in 2000, it is more advanced than the previous games due to animated sprites in the backgrounds, the screen is locked (instead of looping like Tekken 3 Special, V.R. Fighter vs. Taken 2 and Soul Blade Super) and the fact that the characters looked like they were either emulator ripped or took a long time to clean up the sprites (from King of Fighters, a Dragon Ball Z game and either X-Men vs. Street Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom). Also the controls are slightly tweaked making special moves easier to pull off. The character select while only having 1 row has a palette option by pressing up or down. Another difference is that the A button doesn't just block anymore, you have to press the the other direction has well to block attacks. E.g. you are facing right, press A and left on the D-Pad to block.
I'm not sure whether it is done by the same company or a different company but I make a mention of Chinese Fighter. First off it uses a more friendly engine than the previous games as in that it is easier to make the special moves. The menu and character select are different than the previous games, it uses the 320x224 resolution. However it only has 1 layer for the background meaning that it could be either an artistic design or a test for the programmers. It actually is the best playing pirate (original game? even though it uses sprites from Warriors of Fate) due to that it just works, the difficulty option works as you can tell the difference and it is quite enjoyable to play (better than some official fighters such as Street Smart, Time Killers, Rise of the Robots). It was hacked as Lord of the Rings by Glorysun though.
The connection between all these games though is that they use the same or a similar font. (Hercules 2, Pocket Monster 1 & 2 and Pokemon Stadium included for another theory)
http://npshare.de/files/b47b615b/unknownmdtextlink.pngAs for the engine that they used in these pirated games, it was either a stolen engine or one made from scratch. If the engine was stolen, which games would they be? Well I can think of one game that fits like a glove. That is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the Mega Drive, first is that the background loops like Tekken 3 Special, V.R. Fighter vs. Taken 2 and Soul Blade Super but done much smoother and second of all the control scheme fits in with A being block, B being punch and C being kick. It might be possible a bit of World Heroes is used due to in the ROM, the sprites are stored very similarly to nearly all the Mega Drive pirated fighting games as in that it is impossible to rip plus the port feels a bit like one but it has 6 button support, different controls and slowdown so it is not that engine.
Also I found BBD in the ROM of King of Fighters 98 but not in 99 even though 99 has a similar layout in the ROM as 98. While I have yet to play the games, it doesn't match either most of the pirated fighting games or V.R. Fighter vs. Taken 2 in terms of layout.
Something else to point out. The King of Fighters series, Chinese Fighter, Top Fighter and possibly Samurai Spirits 2 (as well as the SNES pirate of X-Men vs. Street Fighter) all use sprites from the CPS1, 2 and Neo Geo arcade machines, due to the chance of game developers having the arcade machine is silm, they probably used emulators or ports. The earliest ever MAME that included the CPS1 was in 25 Apr 1998 however Warriors of Fate (the sprites that Chinese Fighter used) was added on there in 12th February 1999 so either that game was made after that date or Callus was used to rip the sprites (since Callus was around in 1998). CPS2 was added into MAME at 10 Jan 2001 which meant that ports/video recordings were probably used for some of the sprites in King of Fighters 98,99 and Top Fighter or the dates of the games are lying and were made later. Neo Geo was added into MAME at 16 Aug 1998 but whether that or NeoRagex were used to rip the King of Fighters/Samurai Shodown characters sprites is unknown. Reason why I mentioned it is because 1998 seems to be the big year of emulation and some games used emulation to rip stuff (the backgrounds in Pocket Monster due to that the stolen backgrounds are compressed in their original games).
So in short:
Unknown Company A - Tekken 3 Special, Soul Blade Super, Samurai Spirits 2, Top Fighter 2000, Chinese Fighter? Also did Pocket Monster, Pocket Monster 2, Pokemon Stadium, Mulan and Hercules 2.
Unknown Company B [might have a link to Gamtec] - V.R. Fighter vs. Taken 2
BBD?: King of Fighters 98, King of Fighters 99?
