Virtua Fighter takes the next step, but goes no where

Virtua Fighter is getting kinda old in its time. The series has seen an anime (and a horrible one at that) as well as incarnations on almost every SEGA system since the Genesis. In March 2002, SEGA amazed the world with Virtua Fighter 4. Well, 17 months later, they released an update to the series known as Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution.

Graphically, VF4E is everything its predecessor was and a little more. Although the graphics behind Virtua Fighter 4 were impressive, VF4E had new life breathed into the characters as skin textures were even more refined to look realistic. Most noticeable is Vanessa, who no longer looks like a fighting mannequin. A few changes were made to the lighting sources to enhance the illumination cast on models. Although the Arcade supported 4 light sources, the PS2 is doing quite well with only two. Speaking of lighting, new effects have been used to enhance the environments to provide added realism.

In the audio department, VF4E just seems like a port of the previous title. Although they added a few new prefight taunts, the overall voiceovers have remained the same. Each grunt, groan, and whoosh sounds just like it did from VF4, so there isn’t a huge difference in the audio department. And as for the background music, I think my radio is a much better alternative.

Where fighting games stand out is always in terms of play. Virtua Fighter has always been about the play. AM2 has always maintained a very streamlined control of 3 buttons (guard, punch, & kick). This keeps it simple as opposed to Tekken and other fighters that use multiple punch and kick buttons. You can tap punch or kick for basic strikes, but when pressing the directional pad on any one of the eight directions, you can unleash additional moves. Play is fairly simple since the most common moves are a double tap in one direction. Sometimes, you may have to leap from opposite sides of the D-pad to perform a few maneuvers. Only the case of Akira does play become tedious. Akira is the ultimate fighter in the game. If you can master his more complex fighting style, you should be playing for money.

Speaking of mastery, this game offers a training mode. Unlike training in other games where they simple have you learn to punch, kick, block, and throw, training here teaches you just how to play the game for any circumstance. For example, suppose you want to throw your opponent. The game teaches you to throw. But, it also teaches you how to throw while guarding a counter to a strike that was preventing a rush. It gets more complex than that. Once you complete training, it’s all about learning to be able to defend and recover from any situation. At entry level, the game may be fun, but as you delve further into mastery, the game becomes more like a project to learn and master.

Well, with the jump to VF4E, tweaks were made to the roster. Most noticeable were the additions of Brad and Goh. Goh is an assassin that practices Judo. All of his moves are throw related or to off balance his opponent. Brad is a lightning fast kick boxer. Because of his skill, Brad becomes easy to master and often the choice for beginners. With the addition of a kick boxer, Vanessa’s Vale Tudo has been altered. She now uses an offensive and defensive stance. The offense increases her speed and striking, while defensive stance gives her a natural counter ability and more guard based maneuvers. This does a better job of representing her style, since in the original VF4, she switched between Vale Tudo and kick boxing techniques. The other mention I must make is Aoi. Aoi has been seriously reduced in effectiveness. Aoi’s style is aikido. Her power came from being able to reverse any incoming attack. Despite this, she has now been rendered worthless by narrowing the windows of reversal and decreasing the power of reversals. As such, if you got comfortable playing as Aoi, she’ll no longer hold the same feeling as in VF4. In addition to these, all characters have been given multiple stances that will determine which moves they have available. Some stances can be held indefinitely, while others are only used for a few seconds. Transitioning between stances does become the key to victory in most fights.

New to the series is Quest Mode. Previously, VF4 featured Kumite Mode which forced you to fight a never ending string of enemies. As you continued fighting, you would gain prizes for winning (given at random) and you would loose ranking if you lost. The obvious choice would be to keep winning. Well, Quest Mode still offers prizes, but now you gain money for every fight. As you continue fighting you will randomly be awarded prizes for victories. The money can be taken into the shop (in Quest Mode) and used to purchase extras for your character. Before, you could only replace wigs and limited items for arms and such. Now, you can color your characters hair and eyes. The inventory has also been dramatically increased. Character customization has seriously expanded. Although, the customizations do little more than look cool, so don’t expect Kage to pull out the sword you just equipped him with.

In addition to unlocking the Virtua Fighter 1 model for your character, the entire game of Virtua Fighter 1 was included in VF4E. Now, I was thinking this would be a blast from the past, but boy was I wrong. The purist in me wishes they would’ve just kept the original mechanics and moves from Virtua Fighter 1 in the 10th Anniversary Edition, but at the same time, the progressionist in me enjoys the fact that you can use all the VF4E characters in the Virtua Fighter 10th Anniversary Edition. The physics and moves are all taken from VF4E, with the exception of jumping. Jumping now works like it did before, where a hop can send you soaring through the air for a few seconds before landing. As such, fighting here requires use of different strategy.

Well, I have been a fan of Virtua Fighter since the first debut in 1993. I’ve seen the series’ highs and lows. Although visually and for all technical points, VF4E should be a high, it actually seals the series into monotony. You can only spend so long collecting items for your characters before you want to go back to The Sims. They do have a great training mode for this game, but you NEED to train to actually get anywhere against the AI. Although Quest Mode seemed fun at first, the Ranking among other things just becomes pointless without online play. Finally, in VF4, you could save each character separately to your Ram Card. This took up a bit more space, so they condensed it to a single save file. Now, the problem is that you can’t memory card match against your friend, but instead you’re limited to the characters that have been saved onto whichever ram card the system data was loaded from. In other words, it’s my customized Sarah against my customized Jacky. I don’t care how much you’ve played the game, your data means nothing when playing against me.

Bottom line, unless you’re a serious Virtua Fighter fan, you can easily skip this game. Technically, it’s a more indepth fighter than anything out there. When I say anything, I mean ANYTHING. But the majority of the depth comes from forcing players to learn a overly complex system that in the end creates burnout and shortens the enjoyment of this title. You can buy this game for $5, so if you’re having a shortage of fighting action, you may choose to pick up other titles and use this as a last resort. I can BARELY RECOMMEND this title. It’s technically superior, but it’s not technically fun.