Eh? VF1/2/3/4/5 are all excellent games..don't know what that's all about. Series hasn't taken a step back yet. It's pretty consistantly been the most in depth fighting system out there--while managing to be relatively balanced too.

Really great game, really--it just has a bit of a learning curve. It rewards skill and patience. It's the "Third Strike" of 3D fighters, imo.

And VF4 has the best AI opponents ever.

DOA in terms of gameplay--wow.

VF5 Arcade has a feature where it records demos on arcade machines and they upload matches to Sega, at certain times through the day. Sega takes a lot of the best ones, and adds commentary (in Japanese) and makes these available for download. If you can watch high level VF5 matches, and still think the gameplay looks dull or whatever (personally I can't see what there wouldn't be to like) then I think you're just crazy.

VF is a stunning tournement fighter, and it's a damn shame it's not more popular in the west. Unfortunately, Tekken has pretty much ruled this space since the start, and really, that's a damn shame.

Yea, it pretty much is. I mean, I love Third Strike, too--and I think it's definitly up there. But I just don't get VF hate--I can't help but think that people who dislike it simply haven't given it a proper chance. It's not an easy game to get into, but there are few compeditive games as rewarding once you do.

And did I mention their AI? It's freaking fantastic.

No, beat'em ups are games like Streets of Rage or Final Fight--these are fighting games :P

Yea Kenshin, I remember both pretty fondly. I got my Saturn for early (it launched early) and couldn't wait to get into some Virtua Fighter. VF and VF:Remix were both great releases, but what really made it all worth it was the great port of VF2--and Fighters Megamix.

My highschool had VF1 machine in our rec. room my freshman year of highschool (like a billion years ago) I used to drop quite a few quarters into that sucker. We also had a few other cabinets, and we'd break into them and set them to free play at nights when the staff wasn't paying much attention to us.

We would play for hours, trying to beat eachothers time attack scores when we weren't playing versus.

Good times.

It's not hard to come up with a winner from the 2D side of things, Lebato, it's easy! Third Strike--there--I did it :) Some high honors aside from that wonderful game, granted. I'm a big fan of the genre, both 2D and 3D, and Third Strike is an easy game to pick as standing out above the rest.

I don't really think that any of the Soul Calibur games qualify as rehashes, personally. If you've played any of them long enough to know how different they are--there are pretty big revisions that I'd even say surpass what you'll find in other fighting games. Dead Or Alive has gone ages without significantly tweaking the gameplay system, but has no trouble tacking on another number and calling it a sequel. This isn't the case in any of Namco's games, imo.

I much prefer SC to Tekken, their best fighting franchise, imo. From the beginning I always saw Tekken as a wannabe Virtua Fighter, and I still do..they're still playing catch up.

And if you prefer Tekken to VF..uhm, good for you? Some people prefer DOA, and their opinion is perfectly valid, just wrong. :)

SC is my second favorite fighting franchise (3D), but unlike a lot of people I enjoyed pretty much every game in the series equally, all the way up to part three. Soul Calibur did a lot of things wrong, when it came to single player game design, mostly--but I thought it was pretty forgivable given what they did right. Virtually every character was much different, and I think it's a much more enjoyable game then SC2. Hell I think SC2 is better then SC also--Cassandra is a huge improvement over Sophy, atleast.

There are two different reasons in play here. Some people play games - any game - to get the immersive cinematic quality of it. The same is true for fighting games where some people play them to do "COOL MOVES!" and witness "GUT WRENCHING GRAPPLES AND THROWS!" all animated in beautiful kung fu movie fashion, while other people play them to challenge eachother intellectually on a level approaching chess, and couldn't care less (well just maybe) what the characters favourite dish is, or their ultimate goal, or whether a grapple is a 5 second mini movie.

VF is without superficial pretenses. It's a core fighter developed single mindedly to offer pin sharp gameplay, input reaction (hence stiffer moves than for instance DOA which is still a bit *gooey*) and relentlessly balanced fighters. Especially to people who play beat em ups by themselves, VF will prolly never spark any real enthusiasm, simply because it doesn't really look as cool as Ryu Hayabusa going mental with someone, mid air, for 10 seconds following a b+G.

To DOA's defense, 4 has gotten way faster and less fuzzy than the previous ones, and I think it's becoming a real contender for the serious fighting crown.

Even so, I'm overwhelmed by the positive reaction to VF5 over at playsyde and among Sony people in general. There was a time where they just wouldn't embrace it because they spent so long hating it for just being on the wrong platform.

It's funny actually.. Ages ago when I had a SNES, I went to denmark (still scandinavia) to the tivoli there (called Tivoli, clever!) and they had an arcade there. Playing on one of the machines was this amazing looking thing with three dimensional characters and backgrounds! And when they were pushed too far they'd be ringed out, and they actually had real weight as they stumbled out of the ring. It was simply amazing to see, and I was prepared to do anything and buy anything to get to play that at home.

So the hunt for VF SNES began. I mean I didn't know what 3D meant performance wise or why the SNES wouldn't be able to cope with it, and while my friend was adamant that he'd read about a SNES version in some elusive games mag, my hunt felt less and less hopeful.

Until of course, out of nowhere, there was an article in what was called Super POWER at the time about this new machine by Sega that was to recieve a version of Virtua Fighter. :O

That was the moment I changed paths to end up a Sega fanboy.

The funny thing is that.. about six, maybe seven years later the Dreamcast was dying. After the initial shock I made plans to make a return to Nintendo fandom if the DC indeed bit the dust. However, IGN dropped the bomb on me one morning announcing VF4 for PS2. Having been almost aggressively supportive of Sega over the years (think Shawnzee) I couldn't even fathom a transistion to the worstest "enemy" around, but if anything could persuade me, it was Virtua Fighter once more.

Thing is, I have VF to thank for a lot of things. I still got to experience the goodness of Nintendo thanks to basically all of my friends still being Nintendo supporters throughout my Sega run from 1994-2002, but I wouldn't have experienced NiGHTS and Panzer Dragoon otherwise. Likewise, VF swooped in again and saved me from a fate without the likes of Katamari and God of War.

So yes, it is funny, and a bit inspiring really, the effects it ultimately has had with me. In this case, second time seems a charm for once, because I don't imagine I'll ever risk being too attached to a system again to shun the greatness of others.

And if I do, Sega best employ VF to straighten me out! :)

I knew that this was all on topic, for some reason. Nice post Simon, and I agree with you as is par for the course. The only real difference is I was a Sega fanboy when I got my Genesis. The perfect xmas gift can warp a young mind ;)

lol

Ah yes.. I uh.. that was my intention all along.

I'll pray for backwards compatability in general. It would really help the 360's lack of fighting games, if some of the great ones from the original Xbox's *great* fighting game line up were actually BC. I want UC2 BC too.

UC2 BC, UC2 BC! (repeat an apropriate number of times)

That game was absolutely fantastic. :(

And.. uh.. Shenmue 2 has a 2 in its title aswell.

(See what I did there? I'm firmly on topic.)