Thoughts on Virtua Fighter series gameplay

[Jedi Master Thrash]

The other day my friend an I were running through a ton of fighters for comparison. My friend expressed dissatisfaction with the gameplay of the virtua fighter engine. I was wondering what others' thoughts were.

I have VF 1 (32x), VF2 (Saturn), and VF3tb (DC). Plus spin-offs based on the engine VF-Kids (Saturn) and Last Bronx (Saturn). And I think there's some others, like Fighting Vipers. And then VF4 on the PS2.

All the ones I have seem to have pretty much the same gameplay engine. At first glance, it does seem kind of lame. Usually a couple well-landed combos and a kick is more than enough to kill your opponent, and hard to defend. Additionally, the "floating" jump makes all air-kicks useless, since anyone can see you landing a mile away.

But I know from the manual that there's a lot more depth to it, if you can take the time to master it. Every move has a counter move/block/throw you can apply. Anytime someone comes at you with a punch or kick, there's some button combination that will catch their hand or foot and throw them (but there's a different button/direction for each type, making it hard to remember for quick reflexes).

VF1 on 32X seems like the most solid gameplay of them all. They just kept making the moves and counters more complicated as it went on. Though I do enjoy the drunken master on later versions.

Any thoughts on the series? My friend was saying that I think Tekken 2 (or was it Tekken 3?) was the best 3-D fighter he ever played, and after that all other 3D fighters pale in comparison. He's joining me back in 2D land now, finally re-agreeing that 2D fighters are generally better.

Though he seems to dislike Street Fighter, though he enjoys other capcom fighters.

 

[dibz]

I believe this one is highly based on the type of player in question honestly. Personally I love the Virtua Fighter games, however I also tend to like skill based games. For "pick up and player" type gamers, they would probably hate VF -- and most I meet in this category also tend to lean towards the tekken games, which really don't require the same time commitment.

 

[mtxblau]

The problem is that with the death of arcades, it's difficult to find skilled players to play against. Too bad there never was an online option.


Between 3tb and Soul Calibur, I'd take SC. I prefer the pick up and play feel of the Namco fighters. That, and I think they look a little prettier.

 

[dibz]

Between 3tb and SC I'd take SC without question -- I've never really gotten in to 3tb. Although I love VF2 and VF4evolution.

 

[msimplay]

The other day my friend an I were running through a ton of fighters for comparison. My friend expressed dissatisfaction with the gameplay of the virtua fighter engine. I was wondering what others' thoughts were.

I absolutely loved the Virtua Fighter 2 engine it was great although initially disappointing the game has so much depth compared to other games and on Virtua Fighter 2 Saturn when the learning was on the computer was nigh on impossible which meant that you had to be good to win

I have VF 1 (32x), VF2 (Saturn), and VF3tb (DC). Plus spin-offs based on the engine VF-Kids (Saturn) and Last Bronx (Saturn). And I think there's some others, like Fighting Vipers. And then VF4 on the PS2.

I played Virtua Fighter 1 after Vf2, Virtua Fighter 2 is my personal favourite but Virtua Fighter 3 was good too although the dc version was slightly disappointing as it was less than arcade perfect on a machine that was at the time considered more powerful than its arcade equivalent the model 3 board.

I played Last Bronx for a bit but while the game was good technically as a conversion to Sega Saturn I felt that Virtua Fighter 2 was just a better game. I like Virtua fighter 4 as the game is quite a bit different to Virtua Fighter 2 and 3 and the games are quite different so you could effectively call them different games in their own right although they share characters and moves.

Fighting Vipers at the time the time was quite exciting as a game because although it was based on the same 3 button system the moves and characters were very different and it felt a lot more exciting but as a look back I prefer Virtua fighter 2 over that game.

Virtua Fighter kids was just a minor distraction since it was the same game as Virtua Fighter 2 with deformed characters

VF1 on 32X seems like the most solid gameplay of them all. They just kept making the moves and counters more complicated as it went on. Though I do enjoy the drunken master on later versions.

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I have to disagree having played Virtua Fighter 2 before Virtua fighter 1 I found that Virtua Fighter one was a lot stiffer and lacked a lot of the staple moves that I used naturally on Virtua Fighter 2.

Although the previous game did have some interesting music and was the first in the series I consider Virtua Fighter 2 a natural evolution of Virtua Fighter 1 as it improved on near most everything with regards to graphics , moves and response to button presses and was a great technical achievement for the Sega Saturn to port a game from the model 2 arcade.

With regards to Virtua Fighter 3 looking back it was a good game as I spent more time playing it recently than I did back then. The problem back then was that it became overshadowed by other fighters that had better graphics and similar gameplay and more flashy too.

Soul Calibur was a much more exciting game and I would say it is the better game and then there was Dead or Alive 2 which had great graphics and was similar to Virtua Fighter 3 enough to make players not bother with Virtua Fighter 3.

Game play wise I can't moan about the game but one thing that made the rival Tekken series better as a game was the fact that it had endings for each character that developed the games storyline and Virtua Fighter series at the time and even to this day doesn't really have an ending for each character which in my personal opinion makes the games less appealing to the mass market that Namco seemed to have captured with its Tekken + Soul Calbur franchises here in the UK