1. Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution-9.jpg)
I usually think of myself as someone who likes a compelling narrative, stuff with context and world building and characters to get emotionally attached to in my games. Which makes it ironic that favorite game is one that mostly dispenses with story outside of some character bios. If you want story in Virtua Fighter you’ll have to go read the manual. Virtua Fighter doesn’t make any pretentions about what it is: a deep, no nonsense fighting game with meticulous attention to detail, wrapped in a great package.
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The first you’ll notice about Virtua Fighter is how grounded it is compared to other fighting games. Street Fighter gave us fireballs of course, and plenty of other games have tried to grab your attention by trying to be more over the top in some way compared to the competition. Virtua Fighter goes the other way: partly because of its legacy as the first 3D fighting game series, VF strives to be a realistic portrayal of actual martial art schools. Now it’s still within the Street Fighter framework, meaning there’s still health bars and stuff like launching opponents into a juggle and stuff, as well as treating things like pro wrestling as if it’s completely on par with actual martial arts, but those concessions aside feels quite authentic. Even if you don’t know your Judo from your Vale Tudo or Aikido, VF is actually a decent introduction to what the various martial arts schools are about. Of all the fighting games out there Virtua Fighter is the only that has made me take a real life interest in them.
VF can sell this because of how well-crafted the animation is. The way everything flows from one move to another is so buttery smooth, and more so than almost any other fighting game, every character has a distinct tempo and feel. The attention to detail, especially how they interact, is fantastic, pound for pound the best animation in the genre in my opinion, and the fact that things like every throw also has a unique escape animation is awesome. Being able to pull off a move that has your characters somersaulting off a wall, or a multipart throw is more satisfying than any fireball. Who needs hit sparks when the animation is so graceful? It also helps that Virtua Fighter games have always been graphical powerhouses upon their arcade release, featuring cutting edge detail of things like cloth textures and weight. It might not have the loudest presentation, but the no-nonsense focus on the martial arts gives the series a grounded aesthetic I really dig.
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Like most fighting games, VF is built on a paper-rock-scissors base of block beat attack, throws beat blocks, attacks beat throws. And despite its considerable depth, Virtua Fighter (with the exception of VF3) only needs three buttons for inputs: punch, kick, and guard. That’s it. The thing is that almost every possible combination with your stick has a specific function. The single button commands are self-explanatory, while P+K are generally stronger and special types of punches (or things like reversals), K+G are stronger kicking attacks, and P+G are throws. P+K+G are generally unique attacks or functions, such as changing stances for characters that use more than one.
The biggest difference compared to most other fighters is how in depth the throwing system is. In most games they're just a check to keep opponents from turtling too much, or maybe get more positional advantage. In Virtua Fighter throws are a whole category of offense, in fact for a couple characters it’s their main way to getting big damage. Even characters that don’t rely on throws general have several different kinds of throws, while grapplers like Goh and Jeffrey will have over a half dozen, not counting their side and back throws which have different states too. Having a bigger pool of throws to choose from matters because of how throw escapes work. While most fighting games let you escape throws with any input or just a corresponding throw input, and can be done on reaction with practice. In VF you have to match the corresponding direction the command ends in. If your opponent’s throw command ends in forward + throw, you must also input forward + throw to escape it. This means you have to be cognizant of what the opponent might use in a throw situation and buffer accordingly. Is he going to go for the big damaging throw, or is he going to go with a less damaging, and therefore less expected and therefore “safer” throw? That’s the mind games VF thrives on.
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Those mind games are the heart of what makes Virtua Fighter so appealing. Because of how rock solid the foundational mechanics are, there is always an answer to counter what your opponent is doing. You need to have a basic understanding of the checks and balances the system has (ie why these tools have the properties they do) but once you do you start to appreciate just how thought out and intertwined everything is. Because of how the mechanics are laid out it is very apparent what you or your opponent did to successfully land an attack, or what the mistake was when something fails. In a lot of fighting games you often have to be at a pretty advance level to instantly diagnose these things, but in VF the information is very open. You and the opponent can both tell RIGHT AWAY what happened, and because of this you are adjusting your approach constantly, because there is always an answer to what you or the opponent is doing. Instead being about who can pull off the biggest combos (thought that does help), VF is more about who can read and counteract the opponent better. There is a reason the term Yomi (a Japanese term meaning the ability to read the mind of the opponent) is synonymous with Virtua Fighter. Again, this psychological appeal also applies to most quality fighting games, but in VF even low-level but roughly equally skilled players can have these fascinating conversations. A lot of fighting games boil down to trying to dominate your will over your opponents, but in VF you have to
listen to what your opponent is doing in a back-and-forth, almost turn-based manner. Because of this, defensive techniques like a well-timed throw escape or reversal can be as gratifying as any clinching attack.
I’ve extolled about the series as a whole so far, but what makes VF4 in particular so great? VF4 took the series back to its roots after VF3 experimented with uneven terrain and a fourth reversal button. And for the first time in the series the home release had significant single player in the Kumite mode, in which you faced an endless series of AI opponents of various skill and gradually gain rank. You could also customize the look of you fighters by gaining in game currency and winning special matches, a great feature for a game that thanks to its legacy has some fairly bland character designs. It was an eye-catching game between the great visuals (which were still less than arcade perfect), great animation, and fascinating systems. But it was its updated version Evolution that truly blew me away. VF4’s Kumite mode was fun, and a cool idea for single player content in a fighting game. VF4:Evo’s Quest mode however is still the best single-player content that’s ever been in a fighting game. In Quest mode it simulates the arcade scene in Japan by having certain pools of AI in simulated arcade scenes. As you leveled up and gained rank, more arcades with higher caliber players open up. While the AI had a tendency to rubber band too obviously, they did a great job of exhibiting actual tendencies like real players. They even had AI modeled after real top players in Japan. Sure, they were nothing compared to the real thing, but seeing names like Chibita (a player even
I knew from VF forums) appear was awesome. It might not help you too much depending on your skill level, but for a low-level player like me it was a fantastic substitute for real life competition. There were also a ton more items to collect for every character, and you could make some really cool or ridiculous getups. Having a chest come up onscreen (meaning you’d get prize, sometimes a guaranteed item) added a lot of tension and added weight to winning and losing brilliantly. There was also long-term missions that helped you hone your skills (e.g. throw your opponent from a guarantee throw situation 10 times), as some of the later ones got pretty advance.
Not only that, but VF4 Evo still has for my money the best in-game tutorial in a fighting game. Like it’s astounding how far above it was compared to everything else. I used to say it was “like it was from the future!” Nothing came close to how in-depth Evo's tutorial was in explaining both the theory and the application of the games mechanics. Not only could you learn a lot, it did so in way that wasn’t overwhelming. You’d start with the basics, which led to more advance wrinkles and how these nuances overlapped. Even many years afterward it still seemed “from the future” because nobody was even trying to match it, even VF5 didn’t. Which is bizarre considering how severe the genre inherently is, and how most fighting games are tuned with high level input in mind. Nowadays Arc System Works has closed the gap considerably in some of their titles, although I still think Evo’s tutorial has a gentler learning curve and explained theory in more detail. Of course, maybe I just like the elegance of VF’s systems better.
On top of that, there was a 10th Anniversary Mode which reimagined the original Virtua Fighter having the entire Evo cast in their blocky, moon-jumping glory of the original game. It’s a funky version because even though the original cast have their VF1 appearance, their movesets is based on their modern incarnation. Not something you’re probably going to spend a lot of time on but it’s pretty elaborate for what is essential an easter egg for fans.
Evolution weighs in with 15 fighters, which may not sound like a lot, but every character plays very differently and have different strengths to be explored. Whether is be how Aoi can reverse every single move in the game, Lei-Fei's graceful Shaolin-Kung Fu or Goh's extensive Judo grapples on grounded opponents, every character is super interesting to play, although some (like Akira) have higher execution barriers than others. Outside of Rock Band there isn’t a game I’ve put more time into, and I didn’t even explore a good half of the cast to any depth. It is massive in terms of content and is easily my deserted island game. Conquering the quest mode with any character is a huge task, and if you’ve done that there’s 14 more characters which require relearning on a very basic level. As impressive as the cast diversity is, the balance the roster has may be even more so. The cast of the series has grown very slowly, adding no more than two characters at a time because AM2 is meticulous about getting everything as balanced as possible. It’s isn’t perfect of course, no game is, but VF4 Evo is pretty darn close. Yes, there are tiers lists, but unlike other fighting game they really only apply to the highest levels of competition. Some matchups are harder than others but any character should be able to beat anyone else if you have the chops. That’s awesome, though having such clear distillation can be a double-edged sword.
You see Virtua Fighter has a reputation of being this incomprehensibly deep fighting game series that only the most hardcore should even bother trying to play. That is
not true, in fact I’d argue if you’re a fight game noob you’d probably have a better time grasping VF compared to playing Street Fighter or Marvel well. Yes, there are a lot of complexities, and yes it’s depth can feel oceanic the more you study it. But you don’t need to be good at all to enjoy it, as long as you’re playing someone of similar skill level. Of course if you are playing someone significantly better than you, you will lose 99%. Other games like Tekken or Soul Calibur are more mashable or more chaotic to muddy the waters some, but VF is precise and exacting in the right hands. Its concise nature is brilliant, but it does turn away casual players to some degree, although again I think it’s reputation is wildly exaggerated. Once you get past the entry stage it’s actually quite interesting even if you aren’t good at putting together fancy combos.
Virtua Fighter 4 was hardly the first fighting game I enjoyed, but it is the first video game to really make me appreciate how detailed and thought out a game’s design could be. It made me appreciate the craft of game design to a degree I had never considered before. Virtua Fighter is the fighting game series I’ve really wanted to research and practice to get better more than anything before or since. My modest VF skills have rusted away due to not practicing anymore, but the time I invested into Evo was some of the most rewarding I’ve had with a video game.
Any other entries worth playing?Virtua Fighter 5, while never coming into as good a package as Evo did, is a fantastic game in its own right adding two more fighters in Luchador El Blaze and the monkey-kung fu practitioner of Eileen. The original PS3 version like Evo had a quest mode, though the AI wasn’t as good. Unfortunately, it did not have an online mode, a big problem in a console generation that was all about online infrastructure. While the developers insistence maintaining the frame perfect purity of the VF experience was admirable in some ways, the headwind as too strong for that to not be seen as a mark against it. Ironically, the game was later ported to the Xbox 360, which not only had better Quest mode AI, had online netcode that was actually pretty damn good, especially at the time. Unfortunately the game was old news by then and did not sell well. VF5 then had a major revision in VF5 R which included newcomer karate man Jean Kujo and the return of Sumo wrestler Taka-Arashi, who had gone missing since his sole inclusion in VF3. Unfortunately It did not appear outside Japanese arcades, but the final major update VF5 Final Showdown did get localized as a download only. Thanks to outdated XBLA standards they were working with a hard memory cap, and could not include all of the Quest mode stuff of the previous games. It still is the best version of VF5 though, with excellent character balance and a great netcode. The biggest thing is it simplified the throw system, making everything a one in three shot of calling a throw escape. It was a nod to making their complicated throw game more accessible, and while I don’t completely love it, it was a decent compromise without completely losing one of the series’ trademarks.
Even though pretty much everyone that is seriously into fighting games acknowledges VF as being gems in terms of design, the series has never caught on big in the west. Whether it’s because been tied to later Sega platforms that never had big install bases in the series beginning, the fact that the grammar of the game is very different Capcom fighters (even stuff like when to block and when to attack), the fact that it isn’t as easy to button mash as some other fighters (especially in the early versions), it’s hardcore reputation kept casual players away, or just the fact that they just aren’t as flamboyant next to Tekken or Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter has never been able to gain a strong fanbase. Virtua Fighter has had a stronger following in Japan, with VF 2 and 4 being big hits. VF5 did not make as big a splash as Sega had hoped though, and even they, who has a pretty big stake in the arcade business in Japan, started scaling back that branch of the company, even in the wake of the Street Fighter IV boom (Sega: masters of timing
). It’s not impossible that Virtua Fighter 6 will be commissioned one day, but I wouldn’t count on it. It not clear if they even still have a staff capable of making a new VF. That said, if VF5 Final Showdown is the last VF it’s a fine version to go out on. The various version of VF4 and 5 will still stand as some of the best examples the genre has produced. Oh and VF2 is still pretty darn cool for its time too.
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