Virtua Fighter

"A great effort at porting across a 3d fighter, but sacrifices had to be made."

FOREWORD

I will never forget the first time I saw Virtua Fighter in the arcades - it BLEW me away ... the cabinet was MASSIVE and always jam-packed with people ... so much so that I never got to play it, so when I found out it was coming out on the diddy lil 32x I was amazed. Not just that such a kick@ss title was coming out for our beloved little home consoles, but that it was going to be shrunk from being so huge to being so small !

How did they fare ? Read on ...

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME

As with all 1-on-1 beat-em 'up's, the objective of the game is to beat, pummel, throw, squish, squash, stomp on, headbutt, punch and kick your opponents into submission (with style of course), until you reach the final fight, and then kick the cr@p out of that villain as well.

Basic in the extreme. Sure each fighter has a reason for being in the tournament to begin with, but all the COOLEST ones (you kill my fadda. Now I out for weevengaey) have been used and what have we been left with ? Lao Chan - a CHEF ... hmmmmmmmmmm *scratches chin*. Ok, whatever.

GRAPHICS - 7/10

Ok, so the INCREDIBLE (for their time) polygon-fighters of the Virtua Fighter arcade game were going to be a tall order to match for any console, and full credit to it, the brave little 32x tries very hard. There have had to be certain compromises unfortunately ... much of the shading has been removed, and the backgrounds and stages look even MORE flat than they did in the arcade version.

Having said that, what has been sacrificed has left the best bits in tact. The characters move along at a very respectable pace, and all their individual frames of animation SEEM to have been retained (although I am sure there have been the odd compromise here and there).

The animations on the faces of the characters at the character selection screen have also, thankfully, been retained. So the big cheesy grins and raised eyebrows as you select each character are all there for you to enjoy.

SOUND - 6/10

There is an awkward kinda feel to the sounds for this game. The arcade sounds have been ... reproduced ... reasonably faithfully, but not faultlessly brought across, which is a bit of a shame. All the grunts and screams and that COOL sound that you make as you do a three punch and spinning roundhouse kick combo *whooosh* is still there, and the music is all there too (although, again, it has a "I'm doing the best I can" feel to it rather than a "THIS IS VIRTUA FIGHTER" vibe) ...

CONTROLS - 6/10

Whilst the control method is very faithful to the arcade original (which was very simple I might add - Punch, Kick and Guard buttons being all you had to worry about), the really IRRITATING feature of "floaty jumping" that narked me off about the arcade original is ALSO here. You jump and your character seems to take off and float across the screen not only STUPIDLY high up in the sky, but also REALLY slowly. It's like entering matrix-mode or something. PLUS the majority of your characters attacks don't seem to be that easy to pull off in the air - they wait for dramatic effect until they are about to land before going into that drop kick you wanted them to pull out about 30 minutes ago.

*sigh*

When you're on the GROUND, however, the action is really enjoyable. Very flashy combinations of punches and kicks, spinning kicks, cartwheel kicks, leg sweeps and so on can be pulled off with just a few button taps, and all your finest combos and techniques honed after hours of playing the arcade game will stand you in good stead here.

PLOT - 2/10

Pants. The plot to Virtua Fighter is just plop. Very little consideration has been given to fleshing out the characters apart from their aesthetics, and that's a pity ... I would have expected more from any firm in this day and age.

GAMEPLAY - 8/10

Virtua Fighter still remains a "fully" three-dimensional fighter, and therein lies one of its greatest strengths. It revolutionised the 1-on-1 beat-em 'up scene when it hit the arcades as suddenly you had the full joy of three-dimensional combat to keep your eyes entertained, and that has not been changed for the home-console releases. You can do some really neat spiralling moves whilst you're fighting, and you can use the options screen to adjust the ring-size (make it really small to add a dimension of TERROR to your fights) ;)

With eight characters to choose from, each of whom is LARGELY based on the same fighter model, but each of whom has some cool moves that differentiate them from the others, you have scope to find one or two that suit your playing style (from the jack-knifing Jackie to backflipping Pai to the burly Wolf).

In fact you might just find that you get so into this game that you wind up doing your fighter's winning pose when you kick serious butt ... *blush*

I have read online guides that say that there are HUNDREDS of moves per character. Whilst I'm sure that's true I feel that the average player will only master about SIX or so per character, and use those at the expense of all others, but that's ok - that's what I did and I was still able to enjoy the game ;)

REPLAY VALUE - 5/10

I think if you're a BIG fan of the 32x (which is probably not going to be a HUGE number of you since it never benefited from the sheer number of titles that were available for consoles before it, or have been released for consoles since), then the replay value of this title will be higher. However, for all the good work they did in porting it over to the 32x, there really is no other version of this title that compares to the arcade original, and pumping 50p's into that baby still seems like a worthwhile pastime :)

VALUE FOR MONEY - 8/10

For what you're getting it's worth what it should cost you (i.e. not a lot since the 32x is now quite a vintage console). It's a fair rendition of the arcade, and is certainly playable. It ISN'T arcade-perfect, but I don't believe any of the home consoles available at the time this title was brought out for home use would have been able to cope any BETTER than the 32x (aside from a souped-up PC of course) ...

OVERALL - 7/10 (This is NOT an average)

Whilst it's a very respectable effort, it's NOT the arcade-perfect port I had hoped for. Whilst I don't think it was a WASTE of money by any stretch, I didn't spend a HUGE amount of time playing on it, as I was back down the arcade slammin' my dosh into the arcade game and using this version just to hone those techniques I wanted to use on my mates next time I was there ...

MAIN GOOD POINTS

* Smoothly-animated characters retaining all their arcade-moves
* Big cheesy grins on the character-select screen =D

MAIN BAD POINTS

* Reduced shading and poorer backdrops
* Nothing was done to tweak the float-factor of the jumping =(

SO SHOULD YOU GET IT ?

If you're a virtua-fighter fan or a die-hard follower of the 32x then yeah ! Deffo. If you're looking for that one 1-on-1 beat-em 'up that's going to make your heart MELT with glee ? Look elsewhere. This is a good title, and for the first 3d 1-on-1 to be released on a home console it's a VERY impressive effort, but in the long-term it won't set your world on fire.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/14/04