Anyone play Virtua Fighter?

[Lord Beautiful]

In spite of being exposed to a shitload of different companies' approaches to fighting games, I've never actually had a hand at Sega's franchise. With Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown coming later this year at what is hopefully going to be a price as low as $20, I'm a little curious.

How has the series played?

I'm aware that they've been, in general, some of the most technical fighters out there, if not the most, and I'm aware of the three-button control scheme, but those details alone make for a pretty vague impression. Does it feel a little closer to Dead or Alive than to Tekken, or perhaps even closer to Soul Calibur (hey, I don't know) than either, or is it so damn different from other 3D fighters that it defies description?

Also, for the sake of staving off boredom, who's your favorite character of the series? If you care to explain, why is that your favorite character?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Well, the first Dead or Alive game was actually built on the Virtua Fighter 2 engine, so there's a bit of similarity there thanks to the shared ancestry. It's more complicated and less arcadey than DoA, though. I've only played a demo of VF5 (don't have a PS3 or a 360) but it seemed pretty similar to VF4 to me, so just be aware that my knowledge of the series is a generation out of date.

Anyway, it's a very technical game, as you noted. There's no ranged attacks, it's got a reversal system that's like the one in DoA but more complicated, and in general it's a very fluid, very grounded in reality game.

As for favorite characters, I guess Sarah Bryant and Kage Maru, in both cases because they're agile but weak instead of slow but powerful. I guess if I had to pick one over the other, it'd be Kage, for the simple reason that Sarah has no reversals; learning to play the game with her definitely taught me some bad habits because of that.

Edit: Also because Kage is a ninja. Who doesn't love ninjas?

 

[Lord Beautiful]

So it's pretty much a smarter DOA.

Well, that's something to think about. Bring on Final Showdown, I suppose. Assuming Tekken Tag 2 doesn't end up being too distracting.

Thanks for the info, Owyn. Looks like I've got something to keep an eye on.

 

[Iori Branford]

I'm a fan since VF4, the first "complete" VF game to me. Needless to say, FS will be a Day 1.

As VF4 did, FS will come with an extensive tutorial laying out for you the entire VF fighting system, and it is a big one, with a relatively large number of standard moves. If it's up to the standard of the VF4 tutorial, you can play a decent game after only the first few lessons on the core principles, like penetrating someone's guard and knocking him off balance.

Of course there's the phone book of unique character moves, but most characters' bread and butter are effectively similar enough that you can immediately apply the principles easily with anyone. For the rest, there's a super-efficient command training mode, and then hopefully combo and juggle training to help you get the most out of those commands.

Funny that you bring up the Soul series, because it's functionally almost VF with weapons -- just faster and looser with greater emphasis on striking.