Virtua Hamster (Sega 32X/Saturn)

    From the original producers of the first Virtua Fighter

Virtua Fighter was created by Yu Suzuki (Space Harrier, Out Run, After Burner, etc) and his team (AM2) at Sega of Japan. The other Virtua titles were all done by Sega's teams in Japan as well. No real connection between the games but they all began as arcade titles and shared a certain design aesthetic and often staff.

Sega of Japan and Sega of America had a famously contentious relationship. It was sometimes fruitful in spite of that; it was Sega of America who created the "edgy" identity for the Genesis in America along with the anti-Nintendo attack ads that allowed it to (for a time) attain stature on par with Nintendo in America.

As far as game development chops were concerned, SOJ tended to have a very low opinion of SOA's creative output.

Speculation: I didn't read the design docs for Virtua Hamster but it seemingly has no connection whatsoever to any other Virtua game Sega did. I think it was sort of a ploy by the American development team to garner attention and the game greenlighted or whatever.